THE RED WIDOW (continued 5)

Her husband, who had lit a cigarette, and was lounging in a chair, agreed with her.

"But," he said, "how am I to do it? We are in a devilish tight corner, Lilla! The game has been a great and very easy one up to now. Nobody has ever yet tumbled to the scientific insurance stunt. And there's lots of money in it. We've found it so. We've got between us eighty thousand or so. A very decent sum. And we could make a million, given a quiet market. Look at the lots of red- or golden-haired women who are wealthy and who are not of any use on earth. Life assurance companies are always on the look-out for business, and pay commission to any and every little tin-pot agent who can put through a proposal. Remember that young fool of a solicitor in Manchester. And there are hundreds about the country everywhere."

"That's so, Bernie," replied his wife in a matter-of-fact tone, she having taken a cigarette to smoke with her husband. "But here we have a peril before us. We were never in such a tight corner before. This may finish us!"

"Oh! my dear Lilla, don't get flurried. I am not. The fellow Durrant is on the high seas as a man who has had a nervous breakdown. Oh, that description! What a godsend it is to us all, isn't it? Nervous breakdown is responsible for a thousand and one evasions of the law—theft, bigamy, assault, forgery—in fact, almost any crime in the calendar can be committed and ascribed to the 'nervous breakdown' of the defendant. We've a lot to be thankful for from the doctors, Lilla," he said, "a lot to be thankful for!"

"Well," she said, puffing thoughtfully at her cigarette, "if the secret of Bridge Place were exposed, then I fear that you couldn't ascribe it to a nervous breakdown, eh?"

Boyne laughed.

"No, Lilla. You are always alive—you are amazingly clever!" he declared. "I did my best with that French girl, Céline, but—well, I'm not quite certain whether she won't go to the police and make a statement."

"Ah! I see," Lilla said quickly. "So we ought to clear out—and quickly."

"Out of London, but not abroad. But not yet. If all of us left suddenly, the insurance company might get scent of a mystery, especially if Céline says anything about old Martin to the police."

"But what of Marigold? Has she any suspicion that Durrant is on the sea?"

"None. Durrant telegraphed to her to urge her to be patient and that he will return. So she's waiting—and she'll wait a long time!

"Ah! really, Bernie, you are wonderful. That was a glorious idea of yours—those telegrams."

"Yes. They've worked well," he said. "Both the girl and his sister, as well as the fellow's employers, have all been reassured."

"But the girl is a menace, I repeat," the woman declared, "and as such you must see that her activity comes to an end. There are a dozen ways in which you can manage it. Adopt one of them, and lose no time about it," she urged.

"Yes," he said in a hard voice, "I ought to have taken your advice long ago."

"Well, take it now," she said. "There are enemies around us—Céline, Galtier, and this girl Ramsay. So be careful. We are in very serious peril!"

"True. How serious we have yet to learn. But let's remain cool and we shall most certainly win."

Almost as he spoke, however, the electric bell at the front door rang, causing them both to start.

"Whoever can it be at this hour?" gasped Lilla, jumping to her feet.

"Wait!" said Boyne, in a changed voice. "I'll go down and see."

He did so. Lilla stood breathless, listening. She heard him unbolt the door and open it.

Then she heard him give vent to a loud cry, half of surprise, half of terror, as a man's deep voice spoke.

CHAPTER XXV

THE RECLUSE

The commotion caused in Bridge Place by the fire at Mr. Boyne's was not of long duration. Ere the fire brigade arrived, however, so swift was the fire that the two top floors were gutted, thus destroying the secret of that locked chamber.

A woman who lived a few doors off, and who knew Mrs. Felmore, gave the deaf old woman and her niece shelter, and while the police kept back the crowd at both ends of the street the four engines which had arrived were soon pumping water upon the roaring flames. The house was an old one with much woodwork, therefore it burned like tinder, and Marigold had certainly only escaped with her life. The superintendent in charge of the firemen had already ascertained that no person remained within, and the men in their shining helmets, their figures illuminated by the glare from the flames, were clambering across the neighbouring roofs with their hose-pipes.

Soon the flames were got under by the powerful rush of water, but not before the roof had fallen in, and only the ground floor remained intact, while the houses on either side were badly damaged. Every now and then, when a beam fell, or a portion of wall collapsed, showers of sparks shot upward, and there was a burst of flames through the smoke.

A fire in any crowded district of London at whatever hour always attracts a large number of onlookers. That night was no exception, for a big crowd had assembled at either end of the street, and in the centre of the crowd towards Hammersmith Bridge, wedged between several women of the lower class, stood a shabbily-dressed man in a golf cap watching intently the progress of the fire.

He watched it with satisfaction, and saw the flames as they descended and burst through the windows of the second floor. When the roof fell in he smiled, though none noticed it.

The man saw that all evidence of his diabolical work had been destroyed, for he was none other than Bernard Boyne.

What had happened to Marigold and her aunt? He asked the woman standing next to him if any people were in the house.

"Yes. They say there's two women and a man there," was the reply. "The man got out, but the two women 'ave been burnt to death, poor dears! Ain't it terrible? They were asleep when the fire broke out. The firemen 'aven't got the bodies out yet."

"Terrible!" declared the man in the golf cap; and then he elbowed his way out of the crowd filled with satisfaction.

As he did so a youth shouted:

"Lucky for 'em—eh? Both the women got out just in time."

"Is that so?" asked Boyne.

"Yes," said the youth. "One of the firemen 'as just told me."

"There was a girl there, wasn't there?" Boyne queried.

"Yes; she was got out, with an old woman!"

"Where are they?"

"They say they're in a house just along there," was the reply.

Boyne held his breath and went on. At first he had believed that his dastardly plot had been successful, and that Marigold had fallen a victim to his clever machinations. At least, the two upper floors had been destroyed and certain evidence wiped out. The clock, the pocket-lighter, and the child's rubber airball filled with petrol, which had been in the box he had so silently introduced into the house while Marigold was at the police-station, had done their work just as he had intended. But he was filled with disappointment and chagrin when, after several other inquiries of firemen and others, he became convinced that old Mrs. Felmore and her niece had escaped.

At last, after watching until the excitement of the scene had died down and the crowd was dispersing, he learnt from one of the firemen—he dared not be seen by a police constable, for most of them knew him by sight—the house in which the two half-suffocated women had taken shelter.

Then he turned and trudged all the way back to Pont Street, for, dressed as he was, he did not wish to get there until the servants had retired.

He had made another great coup, it was true, but the peril of Marigold still existed. That was the one thought that obsessed him as he strode up the long Kensington Road, past the Albert Hall, and on towards Hyde Park Corner.

The night of Augusta's death had been fraught with sufficient perils in all conscience. He recollected the unexpected appearance of Céline and her companion, of how he had defied them, and how, later that night, a caller had come to Pont Street—a caller who could not be refused admission—the man who had for so long been in hiding in that upstairs room which had now been totally wiped out by the flames. "I shall have to reappear at home to-morrow full of surprise," he muttered to himself, as at last he let himself into the house in Pont Street, the door of which Lilla had left purposely unbolted.

Next day about noon, carrying a suit-case and dressed as he usually was when going about his duties in Hammersmith, he arrived in Bridge Place utterly amazed at finding his house wrecked and ruined. A constable was on duty—a man who knew him.

"Well, sir," exclaimed the man in uniform, "this is pretty bad, ain't it? The fire broke out late last night, but it's fortunate the two women got out in time."

"What?" gasped Boyne, apparently staggered at the sight. "What's happened? I've been away in Liverpool, and have only just got back!"

"Well, that deaf old woman will be glad you're back, sir. She's been round to the police-station telling 'em that you were away."

"Where is she?"

"In the house over there," and he pointed to it.

"You said there was another woman in the house. Who was she?"

"A girl. The old woman's niece, I've heard. She's all right, and went away early this morning."

"Oh, yes, I know her. Came to keep the old woman company while I was away, I expect," he said. "But how fortunate they were saved! How did it happen? Does anyone know?"

"The superintendent of the brigade was here about two hours ago, and they examined the ruins. They think that the fire must have broken out in the top room upstairs. I went over it with them. We found a lot of fused glass, which rather puzzled them."

"Oh, yes. A lot of bottles I kept upstairs. I suppose they melted in the heat," Boyne replied. "Did they find anything else?"

"No, nothing of any importance."

"Then they don't know how it broke out?"

"No; except that there must have been something up there very inflammable, they say, for the fire spread so quickly."

"Perhaps it was a bottle of benzine I had up there for cleaning my clothes," said Boyne. "But, any case, it's rough luck on me—for I'm not insured."

"Sorry to hear that, sir," replied the constable. "They said, you being an insurance agent, you would be certain to be covered against loss."

"No. It's the old story over again," Boyne said, with a grin, "'the shoemaker's child is the worst shod.' I was a fool not to insure against fire—an infernal fool! But it can't be helped. It's ruined me!" and he turned away and crossed the road to the house which the constable had indicated as the one where old Mrs. Felmore had sought shelter.

For half an hour Boyne sat listening while the old woman shouted to him excitedly her description of the fire. He adopted that mealy-mouthed attitude which he could assume at will—that attitude he adopted so cleverly when he went to church so regularly—and condoled with her.

"Of course, Mrs. Felmore, all this horrible catastrophe shall not make any difference to you. I hear you had Miss Marigold to keep you company. Quite right! But I'm so very sorry about it all. The poor girl must have been very frightened. Where is she?"

"She went back to Wimbledon Park about an hour ago, sir. She telegraphed to the bank excusing herself for to-day, as she only had clothes that were lent her."

"Ah! I am so sorry about that. But have you any idea how it all happened?" Boyne asked the old woman.

"No, sir, I haven't. I'm always so careful about fire," she answered. "I was burnt when I was a child, and therefore I always look at the kitchen grate and rake the cinders out before I goes to bed."

"But it seems to have been upstairs where the fire originated."

"Yes, sir," replied the old woman. "I expect it was the kitchen flue. I asked old Mr. Morgan, the sweep, to do it three weeks ago, but he was very busy, and he didn't come. I've cleaned out the range all right—but that's what I think. I'm sorry, sir, but it wasn't my fault, really it wasn't."

"Of course not, Mrs. Felmore. Morgan should have come when you ordered him," Boyne said.

Afterwards he succeeded in entering the gaunt blackened wreck of his home. With satisfaction he saw the frameless windows of the two upper floors, but inside a spectacle of utter ruin met his gaze. The water had come through the ceiling of his sitting-room, half of which was down, the stairs consumed, and all the remaining furniture ruined beyond repair.

From the cupboard, however, he took his pet "Nibby," who was still alive, and probably wondering at all the commotion.

"Poor little fellow!" he exclaimed, stroking the rat's pointed pink nose, and afterwards placing him in his pocket, as he did sometimes. "I shall give you to Mrs. Felmore."

And after a final look round at the scene of the wreckage, he returned to where his deaf old housekeeper was staying, and presented her with the tame rat.

Late that same afternoon Boyne hurried along Theobald's Road, past the railings of Gray's Inn, and crossing the busy road with its procession of tramcars, turned the corner into Harpur Street, a short, dingy thoroughfare of smoke-grimed, old-fashioned houses, once the residences of well-to-do people, but now mostly let out in tenements.

Before one of the houses on the left-hand side he halted, and pulled the bell. The door was opened by a young girl wearing a dirty apron and whose hair was in curlers.

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Bennett. Yes, 'e's upstairs," she exclaimed.

So up the uncarpeted stairs Boyne went to the top of the house.

"It's only me," he said reassuringly as he turned the handle of a door and unceremoniously entered a small, barely-furnished, ill-kept room.

A cheap oil lamp, smoking badly, was burning on the table, while near it, back in the shadow, sat the figure of a man huddled up in a ragged old armchair.

"You!" he grunted. "You've been a long time!

"I couldn't get here before, Lionel. It was too dangerous. I had to see that all was clear before I to enter this street. There's always a detective or two about here, and it wouldn't do for you to be seen outside."

"No," grunted the man, who, rising slowly to his feet came within the feeble zone of light which revealed a thin, bony face, with high cheek bones, an abnormal forehead, and a pair of deep-set dark eyes. The faded grey suit he wore was several sizes too big for him, yet his arms seemed of unusual length, and his hands were narrow and long, with talon-like fingers.

His countenance was truly a strange one, being triangular, with very narrow chin and very broad brow—the face of a man who was either a genius or an idiot.

"I waited all night for you!" he said in plaintive tones. "And you never came."

"Well, I'm not going to risk anything—even for you!" replied Boyne roughly. "I've got quite enough of my own troubles just now."

"Oh! What's happened?"

"Lots. It's a good job I got you away from Hammersmith, my friend. The place has burned up!"

"Burned up?" echoed the strange-looking man. "Oh! Then you've had the beautiful fire you used to talk about, eh? And has it all gone?"

"The lot. And a darned good job for you!"

"And that beautiful microscope?" the man asked regretfully. "Has that gone, too?"

"Yes. The whole bag of tricks has been consumed. That's why I didn't come last night," Boyne said.

"Oh! the beautiful mike!" exclaimed the abnormal creature, as though to himself. "And it cost such a lot—oh, such a lot!"

"Don't trouble about the microscope, you fool!" cried Boyne roughly. "Just try and pull yourself together and save your own skin. Where are those tubes? I want them."

The lean man in the over-large suit ambled across the room, his head bent forward, for he was very round-shouldered, and going to an old leather bag in the corner, slowly unlocked it and drew out a thick cartridge envelope which contained something hard.

Boyne took it from him quickly, and tearing it open, took out two dark-blue tubes of glass, the corks of which were sealed with wax.

"Are they all right?" he asked harshly. "Can you guarantee them? Now don't tell me a lie," he added threateningly, "or it will be the worse for you. I had a good mind to give you over to the police when you came to Pont Street the other night. You deserved it—venturing out like that."

"I got to know where you were, and I had to come and see you," whined the ugly creature as he ambled back to his chair.

"Don't do it again! Remain in hiding. Keep close here. You are in comfortable quarters. Old Mrs. Sampson below is always silent as regards her lodgers. Lots of men who have had this room have hidden from the police till they found a way out of it. Take my advice, and do the same. But don't attempt to come round to Pont Street—for we don't want you there, understand that?"

And he put the little glass tubes, which contained fatal bacteria, back into their envelope and placed them carefully in his pocket.

"But money! I must have money!" cried the other, a young-old man whose age it was impossible to determine though his hair was growing grey.

"Of course you must," laughed Boyne. "Here's fifty pounds to go on with. And keep a still tongue or it will be the worse for you. Recollect if you are unfortunate enough to be arrested, it will only be because of your own idiotic movements. Keep quiet here."

"Misfortune may befall any of us!" said the other in that peculiar whining voice which showed that his mental balance was not normal.

"True. But if you do happen to fall into the hands of the police, remember—breathe not a word. Trust to me to help you out of the scrape. Trust Mrs. Sampson downstairs—and trust me."

"Yes. But, oh, that beautiful mike! Burnt up. That beautiful mike!"

"Don't bother about that. I'll buy you another, and all the apparatus if you'll only keep a still tongue and remain in the house. I've told Mrs. Sampson not to let you out."

"Oh! I won't go out. I promise you I won't," he said with an idiotic stare. "I only went to Pont Street because I wanted to know if you were all right."

"And incidentally you wanted money!" laughed the other. "Well, you had it—you have it again now. Remain quiet and content. I'm busy. I've got lots of things to look after. I've probably got to go away, but I'll see you have money to go on with all right."

"Very well," said the strange man. "This place is better than Hammersmith, living in a locked room for weeks and months, nobody to see, and only breathing the fresh air on the roof when everybody had gone to bed."

"But you had your work—your scientific work in bacteriology! You can't live without your work!"

"Ah, yes. I had my work. But, oh! it was so lonely—so very lonely."

"You're not lonely here," said Boyne cheerfully. "So don't bother. Take your ease, and make the best of it. You're in a house which shelters people like yourself. Here everyone keeps a still tongue—and nobody knows about little Maggie."

The curious man with the triangular face blinked across at Boyne—and remained silent for several moments.

"Little Maggie!" he gasped at last. "Little Maggie! Ah! I remember. I——"

Again he paused. Then glaring into Boyne's face with a strange wild expression, he said:

"You! Why—why you're—you're really Willie Wisden!"

"Of course I am," laughed Boyne. "But keep cool, Lionel, old chap, or you'll have one of those nasty attacks of yours coming on again. Ta-ta! I'll come back very soon," he said, and turning he left the room and descended the stairs.

"Perhaps I'll come back," he muttered to himself. "But I do not think so! The idiot has served me well, and I've got the tubes. That is all I want—at present!"

And a moment later he was walking in the darkness through Harpur Street.

CHAPTER XXVI

"GET RID OF THE GIRL!"

Ten days more had passed. Poor Mrs. Morrison had been buried at Brookwood, her sister and several relatives being among the mourners.

Notice had been given through a solicitor to the insurance company of the assignment of the policy for ten thousand pounds to Mrs. Braybourne. The solicitor, a perfectly respectable man practising in the City, had received a call from Mrs. Braybourne of Pont Street, and she had handed him the policy and the assignment. Boyne had first made secret inquiries regarding the unsuspecting lawyer, and found him to be a man with a very high reputation in his profession.

Hence the Red Widow and her two associates, having successfully defied the French ex-maid and her lover, were now awaiting payment by the insurance company. Boyne, on his part, had cleverly destroyed all traces of the secret of that upstairs room in which had lived for some time the half-demented, eccentric Lionel Gosden, who was so blindly obedient to every order of the criminal who held him in control.

"There only remains that girl!" remarked Boyne as he sat with his wife one night.

"Yes. The sooner she's out of the way the better, my dear Bernie. She knows far too much."

"I've got the remainder of the stuff from Lionel."

"Then it will be quite easy. I needn't tell you the way."

Boyne smiled as he took another cigarette from his case.

"Yes," he said. "And then I think that Ena and I will clear off abroad and leave you as the lone widow in whose favour dear Augusta insured her life."

"True. We ought to part as soon as possible. What do they think of your absence from Hammersmith?"

"Oh, they know my home is burned up, but I put in an appearance now and then and collect up a few premiums just to show myself."

"I wonder what the girl told the police?" Lilla remarked thoughtfully.

"Some story which they, no doubt, put down to be a cock-and-bull statement—about the locked room, most probably. She might have heard Lionel moving about, or coughing, before I got him away from there. If so the noise would naturally excite her suspicion."

"What about the man Durrant?"

"Oh, we needn't trouble about him. It will be months before he can get back again, and when he does, he'll find none of us here, the girl dead—of natural causes, of course—and the house being rebuilt. We have nothing to fear from him, providing we can get rid of the girl."

"And that must be done at once," the handsome woman repeated. "While she is alive she will be a constant menace to us."

Next morning, when he left Pont Street, he went to the City, and, knowing that Marigold always went out at a quarter to one to her lunch, he waited outside the bank.

At last she came, a neatly-dressed and dainty figure of the true type of business girl, and at the corner of Fenchurch Street he met her as though by accident, and raised his hat.

"Why, Mr. Boyne!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes. This is an unexpected meeting, Miss Marigold! I haven't seen you since the fire," he said. "How lucky that you and your aunt escaped! I can't think how it was caused, except that your aunt perhaps dropped a match upstairs before going to bed."

"No, Mr. Boyne," she said. "It's a mystery. I'm glad, however, that auntie is recovering from the shock."

"Have you heard anything lately of Mr.—what is his name?—Durrant, isn't it?"

"Not a word. I can't think what has become of him. They've heard nothing at his office since his last telegram."

"Oh! I shouldn't worry. He told you in his message not to worry, you know," he said cheerfully.

Marigold distrusted the man, yet she remembered how she and Gerald had resolved, at all hazards, to penetrate the mystery surrounding him. She could not deny that he had always been polite and generous towards her, and her aunt would never have a more kind and considerate master.

"Come and have some lunch with me," he suggested suddenly, as he glanced at his watch. "I'm just going to have mine. And I want to talk over your aunt's future—what she is to do while my house is being rebuilt."

Marigold hesitated a few seconds. Then she replied:

"I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Boyne, but my assistant is away ill, and we're most awfully busy in the bank to-day. I am only out for ten minutes this morning, I usually have half an hour."

"Then come somewhere and have dinner with me to-night."

"I can't to-night. I'm going to the theatre with a girl friend."

"To-morrow night, then," he said. "I'll meet you at Piccadilly tube station, say at seven, and we'll dine somewhere—eh?"

Again Marigold hesitated. She was naturally distrustful, yet she argued within herself that perhaps if she accepted his invitation she might learn from him something of interest.

"No," he laughed merrily. "I'm sure you won't refuse me, Marigold. I want to see what I can do for your aunt—because—well, perhaps I may not set up house again. And I don't want to leave her in the lurch, poor deaf old soul."

His solicitude for her aunt touched her, and so she promised to meet him as he suggested.

Then two minutes later he raised his hat and they parted.

As the girl sat with her glass of milk and sandwiches before her in the little teashop, strange thoughts crowded through her mind. The refusal of the police to assist her to find Gerald had hipped her, and ever since the night of the fire she had gone about utterly disconsolate and broken-hearted. The fire was mysterious, coming within an hour or so of her visit to the police. Yes; the more she reflected, the stranger still appeared the whole enigma.

She returned to the bank and sat hour after hour her books, but her only thought was of Gerald the reason of his disappearance.

Next day, just before noon, while she was busy at the bank, one of the male clerks came to her desk, and said:

"Miss Ramsay, you're wanted on the telephone."

"Me!" exclaimed Marigold, much surprised, for none of the staff were allowed to speak on the telephone except upon urgent family affairs. "Was this one?"

She hurried to the telephone-box and heard a female voice, which she recognised as that of Gerald's sister at Ealing.

"You there, Marigold. Listen!" she said. "I've just had a wire from Gerald. It's sent from Folkestone Harbour, and says:

"'Back again. Don't worry. With you soon, but not yet. Marigold knows why. Have wired her.—GERALD.'"

"Oh, how lovely!" cried the girl over the 'phone in wild delight. "I expect I've got a wire at Wimbledon. I'll tell you what he says. Such lots of thanks for ringing up. Good-bye. I'll come over and see you soon, dear. Righto!"

And she hung up the receiver, her cheeks flushed with the excitement of the good news.

Gerald—her Gerald—had spoken at last!

Further adding of figures that day was out of the question. She could not work, but, ever and anon, she raised her eyes to the big clock, the hands of which moved, oh! so slowly. At last five o'clock came, and she put her books away in the trolley ready to be wheeled to the strong room by the uniformed messenger, and putting on her hat and coat hurried away home in the crowded tube.

She missed her train, and things seemed to move too slow for her, but on arrival at the station she raced home. Yes, in the narrow hall of the little suburban villa lay a telegram on the hat-stand.

She tore it open with frantic haste, and read:

"Do not make inquiry about me. Am quite safe, and am in possession of some very important facts. Just returned from abroad. Be watchful, but do not feel anxious. Am quite all right. Love.—GERALD."

It reassured her. She dressed and went out to meet Mr. Boyne, carrying in her handbag the treasured message from Folkestone Pier, together with her powder-puff, her little mirror, and a few hairpins.

She had no idea, however, that at the moment when she was dressing to dine with her aunt's benefactor, a lady with red-brown hair, having taken tea at the Pavilion Hotel in Folkestone, was in a first-class carriage in a boat express for London, and that that same lady had only arrived in Folkestone a couple of hours before, and on meeting the boat had handed in the message at the office at the harbour.

She was at Piccadilly tube station quite early, and it was fully ten minutes before Boyne put in an appearance, smiling and happy.

"I'm so glad you've been able to come, Miss Marigold," he exclaimed, as he shook hands with her warmly. "Now, we'll just go and have a little dinner together, and talk about your aunt, eh?"

And he placed his hand upon her arm in a paternal manner, and started to cross the road to Coventry Street. "There's a little Italian place in Wardour Street where they do you excellently. A man I know told me of it the other day, and I dined there a couple of nights ago and found things very good. Not much of a place to look at, but good, well-cooked food. So let's go there."

She walked with him, but unable to contain her joy at receiving that reassuring wire from Gerald. She said, as they walked along Coventry Street:

"I've had a wire to-night from Mr. Durrant. He's all right."

"Have you really? How excellent!" exclaimed Boyne. "What does he say?"

"He wires from Folkestone pier. He's just arrived back in England, and he says he's all right. That's all."

"Well, what do you want more? Your boy is back, and no doubt you'll see him soon. I've always had in my mind that his absence has been due to some secret mission given to him by his employer. Those food people in Mincing Lane are profiteering out of all conscience, and Durrant's absence is only what might well be expected. He will get a big bonus for carrying out some little bit of delicate diplomacy with regard to food supplies from abroad."

They turned up Wardour Street, and presently stopped in front of one of the small, unpretentious little foreign restaurants, where one can always rely upon good cooking, even though the quality of the food sometimes leaves a little to be desired.

Not more than half a dozen people were in the white-enamelled little place, but the proprietor, a well-dressed, prosperous-looking little Italian, came forward to greet them.

"Table for two—oh! yes. You reserved it, sare—I know! This way, please." And he conducted them to a cosy spot in a corner where a table was laid à deux.

Marigold, flushed with excitement on account of the telegram in her bag, threw off her coat, settled her blouse, and sat down opposite the man, while an elderly waiter was quickly in attendance.

"I've ordered dinner," said Boyne, rather impetuously. "Antonio will know." And he dismissed him.

"I've told them to get a nice little dinner for us," he said, looking across at the girl. "Well, now, Miss Marigold," he went on. "First, I'm delighted that you could come and have dinner with me to-night. Now that my house is no longer inhabitable, I live in rooms at Notting Hill Gate. But rooms are not like one's own home, and especially with your aunt as housekeeper. A more economical woman never lived. She'd save the egg-shells and turn them into money, if she could!"

And they both laughed.

"Yes; auntie is very saving," replied the girl, whose sole purpose in accepting the unusual invitation was to try and draw her host, and so further the plans set by her lover.

"Saving! What I always say is that she's the most perfect housekeeper anyone ever had. That's why I want to do something for her."

"It's really very good of you, Mr. Boyne," said the girl, "I know now keenly she has always looked after your interests."

"And I appreciate that, Miss Marigold. Now, my idea is to allow her two pounds a week till I get settled again."

"Very generous of you, I'm sure," replied Marigold. "With her infirmity, it's most difficult. Her deafness has increased the last six months, and she could never get another situation now. I'm sure of that."

"Then you'll look after her if she has two pounds a week regularly.—eh?"

"Yes. She can come and live with me at Wimbledon," the girl said. "I'm sure auntie will be very grateful," she added. "Only a couple of days ago she told me she was wondering what she would do now that the house is burnt, and she couldn't live with a neighbour for ever."

Boyne was silent for a few seconds. The waiter had placed the little plates of sardines, olives, and sliced beet upon the table, the usual hors d'oeuvres of the foreign restaurant.

The girl's host looked her in the face suddenly, and asked:

"Tell me, Miss Marigold, what friends have you?"

"Relatives, you mean? Well, practically none who count, except auntie and my sister," she replied, little dreaming that the man had put that question with an ulterior motive—and a very sinister one, too.

"And also Mr. Durrant," he laughed.

Marigold blushed.

"Don't fear. He'll soon be back with you, and no doubt explain matters."

The girl made no reply. It was her own secret that his absence was due to the inquiries he was making concerning the past career of the plausible and hard-working man who was at that moment her host.

The soup was served, a clear pot-au-feu, hot, and as the waiter turned away, Boyne drew handkerchief from his trouser pocket, and next moment a number of coins fell upon the floor.

Instantly Marigold drew her chair away from the table and bent down to see where they were. At that moment Bernard Boyne executed a clever trick which he had done before. He flicked into the girl's hot soup a piece of very soft gelatine that had been extracted only half an hour before from one of those mysterious blue glass tubes he had obtained from the idiot-scientist hiding in Harpur Street.

The piece of gelatine fell into the soup unnoticed by the girl, whose eagerness was centred upon the picking up of the lost coins, and the other diners only glanced across for a second, and did not notice the dropping of that fatal dose.

"Don't bother," he said airily next moment. "The waiter will find it. They are really only coppers. I was foolish to put my handkerchief there. Please don't bother. Your soup will be cold."

And, thus reassured, the girl drank her soup with her spoon and greatly enjoyed it—for it was excellent.

Boyne watched her with complete satisfaction and confidence.

The other courses were served: fillets of sole, and a chicken en casserole, with mushrooms, in true Continental style. Then a cup in which were fruit, ice-cream, and champagne, and black coffee afterwards.

The dinner Marigold agreed was excellent. Boyne smoked cigarettes and chatted merrily the whole time, until at last he paid the bill and walked back with her.

They shook hands, and she thanked him heartily. Then they parted, Boyne promising to see old Mrs. Felmore and pay her the amount he suggested.

As he strode along down the Haymarket, however, on his way back to Pont Street, he laughed aloud and muttered to himself:

"I don't think we shall be troubled with you, young lady, after a few more days!"

CHAPTER XXVII

"THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW"

Three days passed. Marigold, on rising in the morning of the third day, felt hot and feverish. Her sister had suggested that she should telephone to the bank excusing herself.

"I think I've got a chill," Marigold remarked. "I felt rather queer yesterday."

"Then stay at home, dear."

"I can't," the girl declared as she put on her hat. "We're so awfully busy just now. Miss Meldrum and Miss Page are both away with influenza. I'm bound to go."

So she went, but feeling very ill. At the bank one or two of the girls remarked how unwell she looked, and as the morning wore on the pains in her head became worse. She could eat no lunch, and at two o'clock she was compelled to return home to Wimbledon.

She went straight to bed, but her friends troubled little, for it was evident that she was run down by the eternal anxiety over Gerald's absence, and that she had caught a severe cold.

Next morning she seemed worse, therefore her sister went for Doctor Thurlow, who lived in Kenilworth Avenue; but he was so busy that it was not possible for him to put in an appearance until nearly seven o'clock that evening.

He examined the girl, and though he could not diagnose the cause immediately, he at once recognised that she was decidedly ill. He prescribed a mixture, gave certain instructions, and promised to call early next morning.

This he did and found that her temperature had risen, and that she was much worse and a little delirious. In her delirium she called constantly for Gerald in a pathetic, piteous voice.

"Will my Gerald never come back to me?" she cried. "Will he never return?"

"She is ill—very ill," declared the doctor gravely to her sister. "We shall have to be extremely careful of her."

Marigold was coughing badly, for already a large area of her lungs had become involved and consolidated. Hence the doctor carried a portion of the sputum to his surgery, and that afternoon discovered the presence of the deadly streptococcus. On establishing the actual disease he at once telephoned for some anti-pneumococcic serum, and this he injected into the patient early next morning.

Having done so, he turned to her sister, and said:

"I am extremely sorry to tell you that this is our last hope. She is, I fear, collapsing fast. The organism I have found is most deadly, and I think it only right to tell you that my personal opinion is that the disease has gone too far."

"What, Doctor?" gasped the young woman, pale and anxious. "Will she die?"

"That I cannot say, but I never like to deceive my patients' friends in cases so critical as this. To me she seems to be growing weaker. I will be back at noon."

And the busy, white-headed doctor went out and drove away in his car.

Now on that same morning about eleven o'clock a tall, gaunt, hollow-eyed young man in a shabby tweed suit and golf cap walked quickly up from the Empress Dock at Southampton and across Canute Road to the railway-station, where he bought a third-class ticket for Waterloo.

"Back in England at last!" he muttered to himself as he entered an empty compartment. "I shall soon see Marigold again! Then we will get even with our enemies."

The unshaven man was Gerald Durrant, changed indeed from the spruce young secretary of Mincing Lane. He looked ten years older, for his face was pinched though bronzed, and the suit he wore was certainly never made for him.

The truth was that the steamer Pentyrch, of Sunderland, ran into very bad weather in the Bay of Biscay, and during a great storm off the Morocco coast Captain Bowden thought it wise to put in for shelter at the little port of Agadir. One night, just before the vessel weighed anchor to leave, Gerald dived into the sea and succeeded in swimming ashore.

His absence was not noticed until three hours later, when the vessel was well out to sea, and Captain Bowden, having lost so much time, did not deem it worth while to bother about a man who was no doubt half a lunatic.

Gerald, however, succeeded, with the aid of a friendly English trader, in getting by road from Agadir to Mogador, where he told his strange story to the British vice-consul, who in turn arranged a passage for him on a small steamer homeward bound, and gave him a little money, sufficient to pay his railway fare from Southampton to London.

Truly, his had been an astounding adventure, and now he was eagerly looking forward to the happy reunion with the girl he loved so passionately.

All his belongings were in the small brown paper parcel on the rack above him. At the station he had bought a packet of cigarettes, and as he smoked he gazed reflectively out of the carriage window. The train was an express, but in his mood it seemed to be the slowest in the world.

What would Marigold think of his long absence? He had once or twice thought of telegraphing to her from Mogador, or from Brest, where they had touched, but he had deemed it best to return to her suddenly and then wreak vengeance upon those who had so cleverly plotted to inveigle him to that flat on that never-to-be-forgotten night.

Waterloo—the new station with its bustle and hurry! He sprang from the carriage and took the next train back to Wimbledon and then on to Wimbledon Park.

At last he halted before the neat little villa with its white painted balcony, and knocked.

Marigold's sister opened the door.

"Good heavens!" she gasped. "Mr. Durrant, is it really you?"

"It is! I'm back again. Where is Marigold?"

"Come in," she said. "I-I-hardly know what to say. Marigold is—she's not very well."

And then in a few brief words as he stood in the narrow hall she told him of his beloved's sudden illness.

A second later he dashed upstairs, and then in silence, treading, noiselessly, he advanced to the bedside of the delirious girl, who with flushed face was calling for "her Gerald."

Tenderly he placed his cool hand upon her brow.

"But surely she will live!" he cried in blank despair.

"The doctor has grave doubts," her sister replied. "She had such deep and constant anxiety regarding your absence, Mr. Durrant, that her constitution has become undermined. And now she has caught this terrible chill which has developed into acute pneumonia."

"But people get over pneumonia!" he exclaimed. "Surely Marigold will recover."

"The doctor told me this morning that the malady is of the most virulent type. There are few recoveries."

"Few recoveries!" he echoed, while at the same time the poor girl was murmuring something incoherent regarding "Gerald."

"Yes. He said that if she got well again it could be only by a miracle. The serum might do its work, but—well, Mr. Durrant, I must tell you what he really said—he told me that he regarded the case as hopeless. The crisis will be the day after to-morrow."

"The day after to-morrow," he said. "And she will not recognise me till then!"

All that the poor fellow had been through—the tortures and horrors of that bondage in which everyone believed him to be mentally irresponsible—were as nothing. He loved Marigold Ramsay with the whole strength of his gallant manhood. His soul was hers. They were soul-mates, and yet she was slowly slipping away from him just at the moment of his return and his intended triumph.

Her sister led him downstairs. In the modest, well-kept little dining-room below they had a further conversation.

"She was, of course, from time to time reassured by your telegrams. By them she knew that you were alive. And they renewed her hope that you would return."

"Telegrams!" echoed the man, who looked more like an unkempt tramp than a business man. "I sent no telegrams! What do you mean, Mrs. Baynard?"

"Why, the messages you sent. She has them all in her handbag."

"But I was unable to communicate with her. I was declared to be mad, and was sent upon a sea voyage for the benefit of my health. I now know that it was for the benefit of Bernard Boyne!"

"I'll get her bag and show you. Marigold has kept them all," her sister said, and she left the room for a few moments, returning with the dying girl's black silk vanity bag, from which she drew several telegrams carefully folded.

These he opened and examined, standing aghast as he read them.

"Why! I never sent a single one of them!" he said. "They're all forgeries!"

"What?" cried Marigold's sister and Hetty in one breath—for her sister-in-law had entered the room and greeted the man who had returned.

"I tell you I never sent any message to her," he said. "Somebody has done this. Who?"

"Who can it be?" asked Hetty.

"I think I know," replied Gerald in a hard voice. "If I am not mistaken my enemies have been revenged upon me."

"Enemies! What enemies?" asked Marigold's sister. "Surely you have no enemies. I'm sure Marigold hasn't."

"Wait and we shall discover the truth," said the young man. "Marigold must get well. I have certain questions to put to her. She can tell us much that is still mysterious concerning Mr. Boyne."

Hetty looked him full in the face and said:

"Jack, my husband, was over at Hammersmith two days ago. The place is all boarded up."

"What place?"

"Mr. Boyne's house in Bridge Place. There's been a fire there, and all the upper part has been burned out. Marigold was staying with her aunt that night, and they both escaped just in the nick of time."

"Repeat that," he said, half dazed.

Hetty repeated what she had said.

"Ah! So the place has been burnt up, has it? That's more than curious, isn't it?"

"Why?"

"Because of the mystery surrounding that man Boyne," he said.

"Marigold ten days ago said that she didn't believe that Mr. Boyne was as honest and sincere as people believed, but really, I have never taken any notice of her suspicions. We all of us suspect one of our friends."

"Marigold spoke the truth! I agree entirely with her. There are certain facts—facts which I have established—which show that this man Boyne—most modest of men—is an adventurer of a new and very extraordinary type. He is engaged in some game that is very sly, and by which he somehow enriches himself by very considerable sums."

Gerald Durrant an hour later went up to Waterloo and on to Hammersmith, where in the evening he stood before the boarded-up ruins of the fire. He saw that the top floor had been destroyed.

"So the secret of that top room has been wiped out," he remarked to himself. "Why? Did Boyne suspect us of prying? If he did, then what more likely than he should put his slow, but far-reaching, fingers upon us both. That I should have been drugged and placed on board a ship bound for the other side of the world, and branded as a semi-lunatic, is only what one might expect of such a master-brain!"

At a public-house in King Street, a few doors from the end of Bridge Place, he got into conversation with the landlord, who told him of the events of that night when the house caught fire.

"It's an awful thing for poor old Boyne," he added. "Although he is an insurance agent, it seems that, though he insured other people, he never insured himself. So he's ruined—so he told Mr. Dale, the corndealer in Chiswick High Road, a week ago."

Gerald smiled but said nothing. His thoughts were upon the hooded recluse who lived on the top floor of that dingy house. What could have been the real secret of that obscure abode?

A few other inquiries led him to the sombre house with smoke-grimed curtains where deaf old Mrs. Felmore had taken refuge, a few doors from the smoke-blackened, half-destroyed house.

As he sat with the old woman he spoke to her with difficulty, moving his lips slowly.

"Yes," replied the old woman in her high-pitched voice, for all the deaf speak loudly. "It is all very curious—most curious! They've never found out how it caught fire."

From Bridge Place Gerald walked direct to the Hammersmith police-station and, demanding to see someone in authority, was ushered upstairs to that same room into which Marigold had been shown, and there sat the same detective-inspector, rosy-faced, quiet and affable.

He listened to the roughly-clad young man's story, until presently he said:

"Oh, you are Gerald Durrant, are you?"

"Yes," was his visitor's astonished reply. "Why?"

"Well, we had a young lady inquiring about you a little while ago. She said you were missing, and asked us to make inquiry. But as you had wired to her several times we considered that you had gone off on your own account."

"Was Marigold here?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes, she came one night and told us of your disappearance. Where have you been?"

"Abroad. I only returned to-day."

"That's what I told the young lady. You promised in your telegrams to come back."

"But I never sent any telegrams; they were all forged."

The detective regarded him steadily and with an air of doubt.

"Then why did you go away? What was your motive in frightening the poor girl?" he asked.

"I went involuntarily. I—well, I suppose I must have been drugged and put on board a ship at Hull."

"H'm! What ship?"

Gerald gave the name of the ship and of its captain, which the detective scribbled down.

"Yes. You'd better tell me the whole of your story. It seems rather a curious one."

"It is," declared Durrant, and he proceeded to describe what happened on that fateful night when he met the two ladies in distress outside Kensington Gardens.

The detective listened attentively, but noting Gerald's unkempt appearance and rough dress, together with his excited manner, he came to the conclusion that what he was relating was a mere exaggerated tale concocted with some ulterior motive, which to him was not apparent.

At last, when Durrant began to describe Bernard Boyne's strange doings in Bridge Place, the inspector interrupted him.

"The house has been burned, as I dare say you know."

"Yes," replied Gerald vehemently, "purposely burned for two reasons. First, to destroy evidence of whatever was contained in that upstairs room, together with its occupant——"

"Then you think someone lived up there—eh?"

"I feel absolutely sure of it."

"You only believe it," said the officer. And after a pause he asked: "And what was the second motive?"

"To get rid of Miss Ramsay—for that night, after visiting you, she went back and slept there in order to keep her aunt company."

The detective smiled. Then, after a pause, he said:

"Mr. Boyne is very well-known and popular in Hammersmith, you know. Everyone has a good word for him. He is honest, hard-working, and often shows great kindness to poor people whose insurance policies would lapse if he did not help them over the stile. No, Mr. Durrant; Bernard Boyne is certainly not the daring and relentless criminal you are trying to make him out. Indeed, I hear that, by the fire at his house, he's lost nearly all he possessed. He wasn't insured."

"Why is it that by day he collects insurance premiums here, and yet at night puts on an evening suit and dines at the most expensive restaurants in the West End?" demanded Gerald, furious that his story was being dismissed by the police.

"Ah! He may have some motive. Many men who earn their money in a hard manner by day go into the West End at night dressed as gentlemen. He may have some motive. He may have some rich clients, for all we know."

"I see you are dubious of the whole affair!" exclaimed Gerald. "I've only come here to tell you what I know."

"And I thank you for coming," replied the detective. "But we cannot act upon your mere suspicions. You must bring us something more tangible than that before we institute inquiries. I regret it," he added; "but we cannot help you. If you had any direct evidence of incendiarism it would be different."

And, thus dismissed, Gerald Durrant descended the stairs with heavy heart and hopeless foreboding, and walking out, made his way back to Wimbledon Park, where Marigold lay dying.

CHAPTER XXVIII

AT THE WINDOW

On that same afternoon the Red Widow was seated with Boyne in Lilla's pretty drawing-room in Pont Street.

She had come there hurriedly in response to a telephone message from Boyne's wife, and they were now holding a council of war to decide upon their actions in future.

"The only danger that can possibly threaten us is that infernal French girl and her lover," Boyne assured them, as he leaned back lazily in a silken easy chair, and puffed at his cigarette. He was smartly dressed with a white slip in his waistcoat, fawn spats, and patent leather shoes. "At the present moment they hold their tongues in the hope of squeezing more money from us. Meanwhile we shall collect the sum assured upon dear Augusta, and quietly leave England for a little while. A pity the sum is not larger," he added.

"I was only thinking the same the other day," said Ena. "But how about that girl Ramsay?"

"Oh, the end ought to be to-day, or at least to-morrow. I've made secret inquiries in Wimbledon Park, and I hear that the doctor gave her up a day or so ago," he said grimly.

"That will be another distinct peril removed," remarked Lilla. "It serves the girl right for being too inquisitive."

"And the man Durrant cannot be back yet, eh?" asked Ena.

"No," was Boyne's reply. "I see by the papers that the ship has arrived at Cape Town. Even if he escaped there, and found his way back, he could not arrive in London for another three weeks or more. So when he does return—if he ever does—he will find Marigold silent in her grave, that a disaster has occurred in Bridge Place, and that we are no longer in London."

"And Lionel?" asked the Red Widow.

"Oh, we have nothing to fear from him. He's only a gibbering idiot who believes my story that he committed a crime—killed a little girl named Maggie—although he was quite innocent. I made him wear a hood whenever he saw me, and I did the same. He believed me to be a man named Wisden, the witness of his crime! And because of that he executed in blind obedience every order I gave him. The fact that for months he never saw my face impressed him, and thus the terror of the police has so got upon his unstrung nerves that he is fast going from bad to worse. As a bacteriologist he is, of course, wonderful. He was marked out as a coming man by the professors at the Laboratory at Oxford, before he took to drugs and his brain gave way."

"Where is he now?" asked Ena.

Boyne explained the man's hiding-place, adding: "I've given him money to go on with. When that is finished—well, we will consider what we shall do."

"We shall want him again, no doubt," laughed Ena.

"Probably," said Boyne. "But remember, if there are any awkward inquiries—as there may be if we can't settle completely with Céline—then we must be absent from London for a year or two."

"That's a pity," declared the Red Widow. "Recollect what I said regarding that woman Vesey, whose hair is almost similar to mine. I met her at Brighton some time ago, and we became very chummy. She has a place in Gloucestershire. And that other woman Sampson. Both affairs would be so easy—ten thousand each."

"I know, my dear Ena, but let us square up this present deal first. That solicitor in the City is horribly slow. He is out of town till to-morrow. Time is going on. Each day brings us nearer open hostilities with Céline, therefore I suggest that Lilla should remain to receive the money and settle up, while you and I get away. I propose going to Spain, and you—well, you know Sweden well. Why not slip over to Stockholm? We will all meet again, say, at Trouville in six weeks' time, and hold another consultation," suggested the man.

"Yes," Lilla said. "That's all very well. But it means that I'm to be left alone to face Céline!"

"Well, it's the only way," declared her husband. "It is not wise for all of us to await the payment. I agree that the solicitor might easily have obtained a settlement of the claim ere this—especially as it is not disputed. But the more respectable the solicitor the slower he is."

"Are you sure that the fire at Bridge Place has aroused no suspicion?" asked Ena. "After a fire there's always an inquiry as to how it originated."

"Yes, when the place is insured. But mine was not—intentionally," Boyne replied, with a grin. "We couldn't afford that upstairs laboratory to be discovered. Besides, there was enough stuff in the tubes to kill a whole town—all sorts of infectious diseases, from anthrax to bubonic plague. Lionel dabbled with them, and gleefully cultivated them with his broth and his trays and tubes of gelatine."

"Well, as long as you are quite certain we are not watched, I don't care," said the handsome woman, who was so often seen at table at the Ritz, the Carlton, and the Berkeley. "If we were, it would be most dangerous to meet, even as we are doing now."

"Bah! You are both growing very nervy!" laughed Boyne derisively. "It is so foolish. Nothing serious can happen. Even when the French girl grows greedy, we can always settle with her. Between us we have laid up a nice little nest-egg for the future. I reckoned it out yesterday. The game is one of the few which is worth the candle."

"And the people in their graves are better off!" laughed Lilla, who was utterly heartless and unscrupulous.

Boyne rose and obtained a fresh cigarette, while his wife rang the bell for tea.

The latter was brought in upon a fine old Sheffield plate tray, and Lilla poured it out.

When the man-servant had gone, the Red Widow, turning to Boyne's wife, said:

"I really think, Lilla, after what Bernie has suggested, that I shall plead illness and get away. I shall tell my friends I am going to Sicily, but instead I shall run over to Stockholm. I know lots of friends there. Indeed, we might carry on our affairs there later. The Scandinavian is a good insurance company."

"English companies are better," Boyne declared. "I have little faith in foreign insurance companies. They always want to know just a little too much to suit our purpose. I've studied them all. My first case was in Milan eight years ago, and it nearly ended in disaster. I had to clear out suddenly and leave my claim—which has never been paid. And I wasn't clumsy, I assure you. I got the stuff from old 'Grandfather' of Frankfurt."

"Oh! 'Grandfather.' I've heard his name before," said Ena. "He sells tubes, doesn't he?"

"Sells them! Of course he did—and still does. You have to be well introduced, and he charges you very high, but his stuff is first-class—quite as good as Lionel's. 'Grandfather' I met once in the Adlon, in Berlin—a funny old professor with long hair. But, by Jove! he must have made a big fortune by this time. He charged a hundred pounds for a single tube of anthrax, sleeping sickness, or virulent pneumonia—and double for a certain poison which creates all the post-mortem symptoms of heart-disease, and cannot be detected."

"Well now?" asked Lilla, sipping her tea from the pretty Crown Derby cup. "What are we to do?"

"As Bernie suggests, I think," said Ena. "I'll get away, and next day Bernie can go to Paris, and on by the Sud Express to Madrid."

"Then on to Barcelona," said Boyne. "I'm known there as Mr. Bennett. I've stayed once or twice at the Hôtel Colon."

"No. I really can't be left alone," said Lilla. "As soon as you have gone that girl Céline will call."

"Don't see her, dear," urged the Red Widow.

"Oh! That's all very well, but I can't be out each time she comes. I should be compelled to see her. And no doubt she would have the man with her. Then, when she found out that you had both gone, she would turn upon me."

"No, no," laughed Boyne. "You will have money ready to give her if she turns very hostile, so as to afford us further time. Their only game is blackmail. They suspect something concerning the old man at Chiswick—thanks to talking too loud in the presence of one's servants. It ought to be a lesson to us all."

"It is, Bernie," said the Red Widow, rising from her chair and crossing the room to get her handbag which she had left on the sofa by the window.

As she took it up, she chanced to glance out into the street.

"My God!" she gasped. And next second she sprang from the window. Her face was white as paper. "My God!" she repeated, reeling, and steadying herself by the back of a chair.

"What's happened?" asked Boyne, springing up.

"No, no! For Heaven's sake, don't go near the window. He has seen me—I'm sure he recognised me!"

"Who?"

"Emery—that solicitor in Manchester! He—he—knows me as—as Augusta Morrison—the dead woman!"

"And did he see you?" cried Boyne in a low, hoarse voice. "Are you certain?"

"Well—no—I—I'm not absolutely certain. He was looking up at the house, and he's coming here."

At that second the front door electric bell rang.

All three started.

"Why is he here?" asked Lilla. "Are inquiries already on foot?"

"If they are, then our game is up," declared Ena. "You must receive him, Lilla, but you must deny all knowledge of me. You know nothing of Augusta Morrison."

"But he may call at Upper Brook Street," said Boyne quickly. "You must not return there."

"Did he recognise me? That's the question," asked Ena, still pale to the lips.

A second later the man entered with a card upon his salver—the card of the Manchester solicitor, Mr. Emery.

"Oh!" exclaimed Lilla, taking it up. "Oh, yes—show him up."

Then as soon as the man had left, Ena slipped upstairs into one of the bedrooms to hide, in company with Bernard Boyne.

When the young Manchester solicitor was ushered in, he found the tea-things cleared—which had been effected several minutes before—and Lilla rose to greet him.

"I believe you are Mrs. Braybourne," he said, bowing. "My name is Emery. I am the solicitor who effected a policy on the life of the late Mrs. Augusta Morrison in your favour. My client, I hear, with much regret, has died, and I understand from the company that you have put in your claim."

Mrs. Braybourne admitted that it was so, and offered her visitor a seat.

"I came this morning from Manchester, in order to consult with your solicitor," he went on. "Mrs. Morrison was a personal friend of mine, and she told me that she had, since her husband's death, discovered that she was indebted to Mr. Braybourne, hence her insurance on the assignment of the policy."

"It came as a great surprise to me," said Lilla, with her innate cleverness. "I had not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Morrison, though I met her husband several times, years ago. My late husband was a friend of his."

"So she told me when we were together at Llandudno," Emery said. "It was certainly very generous of her to try and make reparation for some wrong which her husband did to Mr. Braybourne. But I confess I am somewhat surprised."

"At what?" asked the pseudo widow.

"Well—she gave me the impression that you were a person of limited means. But that does not appear so," he said, glancing around the luxurious little apartment.

Lilla smiled quite calmly. She was uncertain whether her very unwelcome visitor had recognised Ena through the window as his client, the false Augusta Morrison.

"Of course, I have no idea what Mrs. Morrison told you concerning myself. I only know that my late husband was interested in certain business transactions with Mr. Morrison up in Scotland," she said, with an air of ignorance.

"True, Mrs. Braybourne; but how is it that you have instructed your solicitors here to press a claim of which you now declare you had no knowledge?"

For a second Lilla was cornered; but her quick woman's wit came to her aid, and smiling quite calmly, she said:

"Well, to tell you the truth, a solicitor of Mrs. Morrison in London wrote me quite recently, explaining in strict confidence the position and the efforts your client had made to make reparation for her husband's swindling. All I know is that Mr. Morrison's business morality left a great deal to be desired, and we came very near ruin. Indeed, we should have been ruined, had it not been for assistance I received from my father."

"In what way?" asked the keen young lawyer.

"Well—I think I need not go into such details," said the clever woman with whom he was confronted. "Your client, no doubt, admitted to you her husband's double-dealing and how he very nearly ruined us. It was because of that Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn insured her life in my favour."

Young Mr. Emery nodded, but his lips curled in a smile of incredulity. He paused for several moments, his gaze fixed upon the woman.

"Well," he said at last, "I have been at the head office of the company to-day, after I found that your legal adviser was absent, and—well, to tell you the truth, they are not altogether satisfied."

"Who?" asked Lilla, in surprise.

"The insurance company."

"Why?"

Again Mr. Emery paused, again he fixed his eyes upon the woman before him. He slowly rose from his chair and walked to the fireplace, whereupon he drew himself up. Placing his hands in his trousers pockets, he said, in a changed voice:

"Mrs. Braybourne, just because I have interested myself, rather unduly perhaps, in the affairs of my late client, Mrs. Morrison, I find myself confronted by several problems. I want you to assist me to solve at least one of them."

"And what is that?" asked Lilla, quite calmly.

"Simply this," he said, fixing his dark eyes upon her. "I want you to explain the fact why, as I came along the street, I should see, standing here in your window, my late client, Mrs. Augusta Morrison?"

CHAPTER XXIX

ON THIN ICE

Lilla drew herself up, and looked her unwelcome interrogator full in the face with unwavering gaze.

"Mrs. Morrison?" she echoed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, madam, that as I approached this house Mrs. Morrison was looking out of the window."

Lilla laughed. Though greatly perturbed, she had been forewarned, and preserved an outward calm.

"Really, Mr. Emery," she laughed, "you must be mistaken. I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Morrison. I only knew her husband, who came to see us several times when we lived in Kensington. His wife lived in Scotland, but I was never acquainted with her."

"Do you mean to insist that you have never seen her?"

"Never in my life—to my knowledge," was the frank reply.

"But I insist that my eyes have not deceived me, and that she was in your window a few minutes ago."

Again Lilla laughed.

"Well, Mr. Emery, though you and I have never met before, I can't help thinking that you are—well, just a little eccentric," she said. "You come here and declare that you have seen at my window a woman who is dead."

"Ah, but is she really dead, Mrs. Braybourne?" asked the shrewd young man, who had of late been getting together an extensive legal practice in Manchester.

"My dear Mr. Emery, ask yourself," Lilla replied. "I understand that the poor lady's sister was present at the end and took a last look at her before the coffin was screwed down. Surely her sister would know her? I am, of course, in utter ignorance of the facts, But I think, before you make such foolish mistakes as you are doing, you had better inquire—don't you?"

Her argument was rather disconcerting. Charles Emery felt certain that he had seen the face of the dead woman at the window. Yet, if it were true that her sister had seen her in her coffin, then surely his eyes had deceived him.

Upstairs Boyne and Ena stood together in breathless wonder at what was in progress below. Boyne knew how clever his wife was, and how, when faced with difficulties, she always became so calm and innocent. Of that he had had proof many times. Their marital relations had been such that he had long ago felt she was a super-woman in the art of deception.

But here she was faced with a perilous problem, and both Ena and he knew it.

They stood together, conversing in whispers.

"Trust Lilla," said Boyne in a low voice. "She will wriggle out of anything. Besides, she had the tip that the fellow may have recognised you."

Below the young solicitor and Lilla were still in open hostility.

Emery had grown angry. The woman had accused him of an undue suspicion.

"Lots of people, especially those who are spooky, believe in a sixth sense," she said. "Surely you don't believe in it, do you, Mr. Emery? I do not. Do you really insist that in my window you have seen the face of a woman who is dead and buried? If so—well, you've got the sixth sense, and it would be more profitable to you to go into the Other World Combine—which, I believe, is being formed—than to practise law. Personally, I only wish I had a sixth sense. Oh, what a lot concerning other people's affairs I should know—eh?"

And she laughed lightly, as though highly amused.

Emery stood in silence. She could see that he was still unconvinced. The situation was one of the most perilous they had ever faced.

"To tell you the truth, Mrs. Braybourne, I'm not at all satisfied," said the young man frankly. "I feel confident that the woman's face I saw at your window was that of Mrs. Augusta Morrison."

"How utterly ridiculous!" declared the clever adventuress. "If Mrs. Morrison's sister and other relatives saw her at the nursing home before and after her death they must have recognised her. How therefore, can the lady possibly be alive? It's silly to imagine such a thing!"

"Well," he asked, "who first informed you that the late Mrs. Morrison had assigned her life policy to you?"

"A man I know named May, who was a friend of my husband and of the late Mr. Morrison."

"And how did he know, pray?"

"How can I tell? He knew Mrs. Morrison, I believe, and he used to stay at her house-parties at Carsphairn. Possibly she might have told him."

"When did you see him?"

"I haven't seen him lately," she replied quickly, a fiction ready to her lips. "He rang me up about three days after Mrs. Morrison's death and told me of the sad event, of which I, of course, was in complete ignorance. Then he told me that she had insured her life for my benefit. I asked him how he knew that; but he only laughed and said that he knew, and would send, me particulars of the assignment of the policy, and that I had better take steps at once to establish my claim—which naturally I did, after receiving a few notes of the assignment. I made out a full account of my late husband's dealings with Mr. Morrison—how he had very nearly brought us to ruin—and placed them with the notes of the assignment in the hands of my solicitor, who, I suppose, in due course approached the insurance company. Previously, however, I had heard of the fact from another source—a solicitor—as I have already told you."

"H'm!" Emery grunted. Then, after a pause, he asked:

"Do you happen to know a certain lady living in Upper Brook Street named Mrs. Pollen?"

"Pollen? Pollen?" repeated Lilla. "The name sounds familiar. She's a society hostess—a woman who often has her photograph in the picture papers, isn't she?" she asked, with well-affected ignorance.

"I think not. I've never seen her portrait in the papers. She was, however, a friend of Mrs. Morrison."

"I'm afraid I know nothing of Mrs. Morrison's friends. My husband knew some of them, of course. And I have to thank Morrison for bringing ruin to us. He made huge profits over these business deals and bought Carsphairn, while my husband went under and would have been down and out had it not been for my family, who assisted him on his legs again."

"Well, in any case, you seem to live in very easy circumstances to-day, Mrs. Braybourne," he remarked, glancing around the luxurious room.

"Oh, I don't know," Lilla laughed lightly. "In London we put all the goods in the window—you don't up in Lancashire."

An awkward pause ensued.

"Well, Mrs. Braybourne," he said at last, "I cannot conceal from myself that there are certain peculiar circumstances which must be cleared up."

"About what?" she asked in pretended innocence.

"About this curious claim of yours. The assignment of the policy was, of course, in my hands, and it is not at all clear how your mythical friend Mr. May gained knowledge of what the late Mrs. Morrison desired to keep secret."

"As I've told you, Mr. May gave me particulars regarding it, which I duly handed to my solicitors. If Mrs. Morrison, in a fit of remorse for her husband's sharp practice, as it seems, chose to insure her life for my benefit, I don't see, Mr. Emery, why you should raise any objection," she protested. "She was your client, I presume?"

"She was," he replied. "And because I also acted as agent of the insurance company, I now consider it my duty to put all the facts before them, together with my allegation that the dead woman is actually in this house, or was when I entered here."

"Really, you are most insulting!" declared Lilla with well-feigned indignation. "I think it gross impertinence and a breach of professional etiquette that you should come here to see me and accuse me of lying when the matter is in the hands of my solicitor."

"Ah, Mrs. Braybourne. Pardon me, please; I only wish to straighten things out," he said blandly. "At present they are a little too tangled to suit me," he went on. "When I have given over the facts to the company my responsibility is at an end. Your solicitor returns to London to-morrow, and I will have a consultation, with a view to a settlement—in some way or other," he added in a meaning tone.

Then he bowed coldly and took his departure.

The instant he had left, the trio of dealers in secret death held a hurried and excited council.

"The game is up!" declared Ena, her countenance blanched to the lips. "The Fates are against us. How dare we press our claim further, and if we do not, then our failure to do so is self-condemnation."

"He's a shrewd young chap. He certainly recognised you—curse it!" cried Boyne.

"We must get away," said Lilla. "We all of us have old Jackie James's passports. And it only remains for us to clear out at once."

"Old Jackie's passports" to which she had referred were those cleverly fabricated since the war by an old man named James who lived at Notting Hill Gate, and who had at one time been a notorious forger. He now made a very excellent living by supplying crooks and criminals of all classes with false passports in neat little blue books, on which then photograph was fixed, and he himself embossed it with the stamp bearing the British royal arms and the words "Foreign Office," as well as the rubber date stamp, at an inclusive cost of fifteen pounds each.

These passports were beautifully printed in Bilbao, in Spain, together with the British red sixpenny stamp, but completed ready for the purchaser at Notting Hill Gate.

"Though I never like leaving good money behind," said Boyne, "I must admit that our luck is quite out this time, and we must all lie doggo for a bit."

"Ena must not return to Upper Brook Street, for Emery is certain to go there," Lilla said.

"Curse the fellow!" cried the Red Widow. "It's all my fault! I ought to have exercised more care, but Bernie has always been so cocksure that everything was plain sailing."

"No," he protested. "Surely I can't be accused of your indiscretions, Ena. I've done my best—just as we all have done—but we've fortunately received warning in time that the game is at an end—at least, for a little while. We can resume it in France, or probably in America later on. All that remains now is for us to swiftly and quietly fade out and leave them all guessing."

"One good feature is that the girl Ramsay will not be able to tell them anything," said Lilla. "I've always doubted her from the first. She's a cunning little cat."

"Yes. The end ought to be to-day—or to-morrow at latest," Boyne said.

"And by that time we shall all three be well on our way abroad."

Then they began to discuss ways and means, the destination of each of them, and the matter of money, there being three deposits in different London banks in different names.

The Red Widow and her companions had long ago taken every ingenious precaution in case of enforced flight at a moment's notice. There were, indeed, three separate sets of baggage lying at the waiting-room of Victoria Station. But the banks were closed and no money could be obtained.

In the meantime the young Manchester solicitor, much puzzled, of course, had taken a taxi and alighted in Upper Brook Street.

Of the hall-porter he made inquiry regarding Mrs. Pollen, and was taken up in the lift.

At the door of the flat he rang, and a smart maid answered.

"I want to see Mrs. Pollen," he said with his best smile.

"Mrs. Pollen isn't at home, sir," the girl replied.

"Dear me!" he said, deeply disappointed. "I've come up from the country specially to see her. When will she be back?"

"I don't know. Perhaps not till the evening, sir."

Emery paused. He was arriving at an estimate of the maid's loyalty to her mistress.

"Well," he said, "my business is most important—upon money matters. May I come in and write her a note?"

"Madam has forbidden me to allow anyone inside during her absence," replied the good-looking, dark-eyed girl.

"Of course, she fears thieves. But I'm a solicitor," and he showed her his card. "Please don't think I'm a thief—eh?" and he laughed merrily.

The girl looked at the card and then allowed him in, showing him into the dining-room, upon the table of which was a great bowl of La France roses—the room in which his client, Mrs. Augusta Morrison, had been entrapped and done to death so insidiously.

"There's paper there, I think, sir," she said, indicating a small writing-table set near the window.

He seated himself, though his quick eyes took in all the surroundings.

Before he began to write, he saw in a broad silver frame before him a large photograph of his client, Mrs. Morrison.

"That's a beautiful portrait," he remarked to the girl.

"Yes, sir. Mistress had it done about three months ago. It's very good of her."

Charles Emery bit his lip and managed to stifle the ejaculation which rose to his lips.

The truth was out! It was Ena Pollen whom he had seen at Mrs. Braybourne's window, and Ena Pollen had, he saw, posed for insurance purposes as Mrs. Augusta Morrison—the rich widow of Carsphairn.

For a moment the discovery dumbfounded him. He scribbled a few lines. Then he tore them up, and, making excuse for troubling the maid, he rose and said he would call next day. Then he pressed into her hand a ten-shilling note.

But just before he took his leave, he turned to her in the hall, and asked suddenly:

"Oh, by the way, has Mrs. Morrison been here to visit your mistress lately?"

"Not lately, sir," she answered. "Poor lady, she's dead, so I hear."

"Did she often visit your mistress?"

"Yes, sir. The last time she was here was at a dinner party with Mr. and Mrs. Braybourne."

"Oh! Then Mrs. Braybourne is a friend of your mistress, is she? I know her quite well. She lives in Pont Street, eh?"

"Yes, sir; she's a very great friend," was the girl's reply. "So is Mr. Braybourne."

"And who is Mr. Braybourne?"

"Why, Mrs. Braybourne's husband, of course."

As Emery descended the stairs to the street he wondered who could be "Mr. Braybourne"—if Mrs. Braybourne was a widow, as alleged.

At the end of the street he hailed a taxi and returned at once to the head office of the insurance company, where he revealed certain other suspicions which had arisen in his mind after his interview with Mrs. Braybourne.

CHAPTER XXX

THROUGH THE DARKNESS

Events happened apace.

The criminal dovecot in Pont Street was now seriously disturbed.

Even Boyne, usually so calm and unruffled in face of any peril or difficulty, saw that matters had grown very serious. He was in complete ignorance of the return of Gerald Durrant. Nor did he know that at Wimbledon Park the doctor, on calling again late that afternoon, had pronounced that the serum was doing its work, and that Marigold was decidedly better.

It had been just a toss-up. According to his judgment, the serum injected to fight the germs of disease had been administered a few hours too late. The human machine is, however, a curious thing, and the throw of the dice with Death is always weighted upon the side of the living.

Gerald, pale, anxious, and emaciated after all the hardships he had gone through, sat by the bedside of his well-beloved, watching her eagerly.

To his delight, she was slowly recovering. It is one of the features of the malady from which Marigold was suffering—thanks to the brutal plot to kill her—that after a certain fixed period, death supervenes or recovery comes very quickly.

In her case the doctor himself was agreeably surprised. She was recovering, he had said! She would yet live to cheat her enemies!

Gerald, realising this, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He was, of course, in ignorance of what had transpired at Pont Street, or of the suspicion of Charles Emery, the man who had made the actual assignment of Mrs. Morrison's insurance.

On the following morning, after hearing the doctor's good news, he sat beside Marigold's bed, and by slow degrees the girl recognised her lover as he bent over her and tenderly kissed her upon the brow.

The light of recognition suddenly shone in her eyes, and smiling, she gripped his hand.

"Yes, darling, I am home again!" he said in a soft voice. "Home—to find that you are getting better. You've been very ill. But you'll soon be well again, thank God!"

For some moments the girl was too overcome by emotion to speak, but at last her lips moved, and in a voice scarcely audible she pronounced his name.

"Gerald!" she articulated with difficulty, raising her hand until it rested against his cheek. "Gerald! My Gerald!"

"Yes, darling! I am here with you!" he assured her soothingly, for they were alone together, the doctor having just left. "You have been very, very ill."

"Yes," she whispered, "very ill."

Then she closed her eyes for fully five minutes, as though the strain of speaking had been too much for her, while he sat at her bedside watching breathlessly the white countenance of the girl who was all in all to him.

At last she again opened her eyes, and in a voice scarce above a whisper, asked:

"Where have you been all this long, long time?"

"Abroad, dear. But don't worry about that! I'm back," he said cheerfully. "Back with you. Rest, and you will soon be quite well again."

Again she closed her eyes and turned her head slightly upon the pillow. And as she did this, Gerald again kissed her upon the brow.

About two hours later her condition showed a marked improvement, but Gerald had not left her side for a moment.

At noon she seemed so much better that he decided to go over to Ealing and obtain a suit of his own clothes, so as to make himself more presentable. This he did.

His sister was naturally delighted to see him, but save for a brief explanation of his absence he did not enter into any details concerning it. His anxiety was to return to Wimbledon Park. He had at first contemplated going to Mincing Lane to explain his absence, but had now decided to postpone that until the morrow.

So about three o'clock he was back again at Marigold's bedside, delighted to find the great improvement which had taken place during the past few hours. The serum was doing its work, and slowly she was returning to her old self again.

When they were alone, and Gerald was once more seated beside her, she turned to him, and in a low, intense voice asked if her sister had told him of the fire in Bridge Place.

"Yes, dearest," he answered. "I know all about it. I've seen the ruin, and I've talked to your aunt. You both had narrow escapes!"

"Mr. Boyne—set—it—on—fire—Gerald," she said weakly, "so as to get rid of what was in that upstairs room!"

"Without a doubt."

"I—I tried to learn more about it. That's—well, that's why I dined with Mr. Boyne."

"You dined with him?" echoed her lover.

"Yes—in order to try and learn something more. Did we not agree to keep a watchful eye upon him?"

"We did. But I fell into a cunningly devised trap on the night I disappeared," he said. "I will describe it to you later. Well, when you dined with the fellow, did you discover why he spends his evenings among those smart people in the West End?"

"No, Gerald; but I came to the conclusion that he is a very remarkable crook."

"Of that I'm certain, dear. We've both had proof of it. He knew we were watching him, and his intention, no doubt, was to get rid of both of us."

"Yes, I quite agree," replied the girl faintly, yet smiling into his face. Then she added: "Do you know, Gerald, that—that ever since I dined with Mr. Boyne I haven't been the same. I felt ill next morning, and gradually the illness increased, until I had to go to bed and the doctor came to see me."

Gerald Durrant knit his brows.

"By Gad!" he gasped. "I—I never thought of that! He invited you to dinner—eh?"

In reply to his question, Marigold described the chance meeting near the bank and the invitation that followed.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, after a pause. "He had got rid of me, and intended that you should die—truly a most diabolical plot! I see it all! But we will be even with him yet, darling—never fear!"

Assuring the girl that he would return very soon, Gerald Durrant left the house determined to take direct action. His failure to convince the police at Hammersmith that "Busy" Boyne, the pious insurance agent, was a master-criminal, had irritated and angered him. Probably if he went direct to Scotland Yard and re-told the story, laying stress upon the plots against Marigold and himself, they would hear him and make some investigation.

The mystery of that upstairs room and its weird occupant was ever uppermost in his mind. And now that it was destroyed, it made it plainer than ever that there had been some guilty secret hidden there.

He went to Charing Cross, and presently entered the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, where he was courteously received by Detective-Inspector Shaw in one of the cold, bare, official waiting-rooms.

The inspector, a short, stout, brusque man, listened very patiently to the strange story related to him, and once or twice jotted down notes. But his countenance was imperturbable, and Gerald's heart had already sunk within him, for he saw that he was quite unimpressed.

At last Shaw stirred himself, and said:

"Well, Mr. Durrant, all that you've just told me is extremely interesting. Will you wait a few moments?" and rising, he left the room. On his return five minutes later, he asked Gerald to accompany him. They went together down a long corridor, where the young man was ushered into a comfortable office. A well-dressed man of rather dapper appearance was seated at a table, and Gerald was invited to a chair, when he was closely questioned, more especially regarding his observations and those of Marigold upon the houses in Pont Street and Upper Brook Street, and also concerning the trap into which he himself had fallen, and Marigold's inexplicable illness.

"Is the young lady yet fit to see anyone, do you think?" asked the superintendent. "Is she well enough to make a statement?"

"Not to-day, I fear. Perhaps she will be to-morrow."

His interrogator reflected for a few moments.

"When is that appointment due with Mr. Macdonald and the Frenchman—Galtier is his name, isn't it?" he asked his secretary, who was seated at a table on the opposite side of the room.

"They are due here now," was the latter's reply as he glanced at the clock.

"Mr. Emery is also to be here, is he not, Mr. Francis?"

"Yes, sir," replied the secretary.

Five minutes later there assembled in that room five other persons. Charles Emery was shown in with the inquisitive little man, Alexander Macdonald, who had arrived in Ardlui, and, giving his name as John Greig, had watched the Red Widow by orders from the detective office in Glasgow, and had gone back down Loch Lomond only half convinced that he was on the wrong track, and that she was not the notorious woman, Sarah Slade, for whom he was in search.

Alexander Macdonald was, however, a very shrewd person, and when the first suspicion of a new case was aroused against Ena Pollen, as she now called herself, he saw that he had been sadly misled. Therefore, unknown to Scotland Yard, the Glasgow police had been doing underground work in order to fix the identity of the lady of Upper Brook Street.

Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the two men there came Céline and Galtier, together with a well-dressed elderly man, the manager of the insurance company in which the false Mrs. Morrison had taken out a policy.

For a full hour they sat with the superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, who, with a shorthand writer at his elbow, heard the further statement of each in turn. At last, turning to Inspector Shaw, he said:

"There is certainly sufficient evidence to justify the immediate arrest of the two women and the man Boyne. We must get the statements of Miss Ramsay and her aunt later."

Then, taking a sheet of pale-yellow official paper, he scribbled one or two lines, signed them, and handed it to Shaw.

"I think that is all we can do at the moment," he said, addressing the party. "It is quite evident that a great insurance conspiracy has been attempted, and not for the first time. Apparently the late Mr. Martin was a victim, together with other persons, whose names and circumstances we shall later on discover. To me it seems that great credit is due to the intelligence of Miss Ramsay and of Mr. Durrant, who watched the man Boyne so ingeniously until they must have somehow betrayed themselves, and thus have placed their lives in jeopardy."

"I think," said the Manchester solicitor, "that if Mrs. Braybourne had pretended to remain in ignorance for a month or so, and not sought to establish her claim, the company would have, no doubt, paid the sum without question."

"Yes," laughed the superintendent. "But criminals always betray themselves by overdue anxiety. But we have here to deal with a very dangerous gang. and it only shows to the insurance world how easily they may be defrauded by a well-established organisation."

Shaw had left the room, and already the telephone was at work to ensure the arrest of the criminals.

"It will certainly be highly interesting to discover how many innocent people have actually been the victims of this desperate and relentless trio who dealt secret death in order to enrich themselves," remarked the superintendent.

"There was a grave suspicion of the woman Pollen in another case about two years ago," said Macdonald. "Therefore, on a report from Ardlui, I ran up from Glasgow, but I failed to identify her as the woman who had called herself Slade, though I had very strong suspicions. Her social standing deceived me, I admit. Poor Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn!" exclaimed Macdonald in his strong Glasgow accent. "She was a good lady—a very good lady!"

"Well," said the superintendent, rising from his chair. "We have to thank you all for your combined efforts, and especially Mademoiselle and Mr. Durrant. Let's hope we shall get the guilty ones, and then we shall all meet again as witnesses at the Old Bailey."

And thus, just after five o'clock, he dismissed them, Gerald, excitedly and with all haste, making his way back to the bedside of his loved one in order to tell her the intentions of the police.

At last the devilish crimes of the Red Widow and her accomplices were to be exposed, and the trio of death-dealers punished.

CONCLUSION

Scotland Yard is difficult to arouse, but when once actual evidence of crime is forthcoming it is quick of action.

At half-past five that afternoon a small, under-sized man, who wore the uniform of the Metropolitan Water Board, rang at the basement entrance of the house in Pont Street, and the cook opened the door. "Well, missus?" he exclaimed merrily. "What's the trouble with the water here—eh?"