Front matter (continued 4)

"Lord Hunstanton?"

"Hullo?"

"This is Mrs. Waddington."

"Oh, ah? Many happy returns."

"What are you doing just now?"

"I was thinking of popping out and having a bit to eat."

"Meet me at the Ritz-Carlton in ten minutes."

"Right-ho. Thanks, awfully. I will. Yes. Thanks. Right. Fine. Absolutely. Right-ho."

So now we find Mrs. Waddington seated in the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, watching the door like a cat at a mouse-hole and tapping the carpet impatiently with an ample shoe. Like everybody else who has ever waited five minutes for anybody in a restaurant, she had the illusion of having been there for several hours. But at last her patience was rewarded. An elegant figure shimmered through the doorway and came towards her, beaming with happy anticipation. Lord Hunstanton was a man who combined a keen appetite with a rugged distaste for paying for his own meals, and the prospect of a dinner at the Ritz at somebody else's expense enchanted him. He did not actually lick his lips, but as he looked brightly up the stairs to where benevolent waiters were plying contented diners with food, there flitted across his face a radiant smile.

"Hope I'm not late," said Lord Hunstanton.

"Sit down," said Mrs. Waddington. "I want to talk to you." And proceeded to do so at some length.

Lord Hunstanton blinked pathetically.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said, as his companion paused for breath. "I know it's all frightfully interesting, but I don't seem somehow to follow. How would it be if we slid into the dining-room and thrashed the whole thing out quietly over a thoughtful steak or something?"

Mrs. Waddington eyed him with a distaste that bordered on contempt.

"You surely do not imagine that I propose to waste time eating?"

"Eh?" His lordship's jaw fell an inch. "Not eat?"

"Certainly not. I will repeat what I was saying, and please listen attentively this time."

"But I say! No dinner?"

"No."

"No soup?"

"No."

"No fish? No nourishment of any description?"

"Certainly not. We have no time to lose. We must act promptly and swiftly."

"How about a sand—...?"

"You were present at that appalling scene this afternoon," said Mrs. Waddington, "so there is no need to describe it to you. You will not have forgotten how that girl came into the room and denounced George Finch. You recall all she said."

"I do indeed. It was the real ginger."

"But unfortunately untrue."

"Eh?"

"It was a ruse. She was a thief. She did it in order to steal a pearl necklace belonging to my stepdaughter, which was among the wedding-presents."

"No, really? I say! Fancy that!"

"Unfortunately there seems to be no doubt of it. And so, instead of being appalled at George Finch's moral turpitude, my stepdaughter looks upon him as a much-injured man and wishes the marriage to take place as arranged. Are you listening?"

Lord Hunstanton started. There had come frolicking towards him from the dining-room a lively young smell composed principally of tournedos and gravy, and his attention had wandered.

"Sorry," he said. "Thinking of something else for the moment. You were saying that Miss Waddington was appalled at George Finch's moral turpitude."

"I was saying precisely the reverse. She is not appalled."

"No? Very broad-minded, these modern girls," said Lord Hunstanton, turning away and trying not to inhale.

"But," proceeded Mrs. Waddington, "I am convinced that, although in this particular matter this Finch may be blameless, his morals, if we only knew it, are as degraded as those of all other artists. I feel as certain as I am that I am sitting here that George Finch is a loose fish."

"Fish!" moaned Lord Hunstanton.

"And I have made up my mind that there is only one thing to do if I am to expose the man in his true colours, and that is to go to the den which he maintains near Washington Square and question his man-servant as to his private life. We will start at once."

"But, I say, you don't need me?"

"Certainly I need you. Do you imagine that I propose to call at this man's lair alone?"

Across the landing at the top of the stairs there passed a waiter bearing a tray with a smoking dish upon it. Lord Hunstanton followed him with haggard eyes: and, having watched him enter the restaurant, wished he had not done so, for there by one of the tables stood another waiter carving for a party of four what looked like the roast chicken of a lifetime,—one of those roast chickens you tell your grandchildren about. His lordship uttered a faint, whinnying sound and clenched his hands.

"Come!" said Mrs. Waddington. "Let us go."

The thought of defying this overpowering woman did not enter Lord Hunstanton's mind. Nobody ever defied Mrs. Waddington. And so, some little time later, a cab drew up outside the Sheridan Apartment House and two figures proceeded to climb the stairs—for it was one of the pleasing features of the Sheridan that the elevator was practically always out of order.

Arrived at the top floor, Lord Hunstanton rang the bell. The sound echoed faintly within.

"Seems to be out," said his lordship, having tried again.

"We will wait."

"What, here?"

"On the roof."

"How long?"

"Until this Finch's man-servant returns."

"But he may be hours."

"Then we will wait hours."

Lord Hunstanton's aching interior urged him to protest. "Be brave!" it gurgled. And, whilst still not sufficiently courageous to defy, he nerved himself to make a suggestion.

"How would it be," he said, "if I just pushed round the corner somewhere and snatched a bite? I mean to say, you never know whether this man-servant fellow won't turn nasty. Sticking up for the young master, I mean to say. In which case, I should be twice the man with a bit of food inside me. With a dish of beans or something nicely poised within, I could do my bit."

Mrs. Waddington regarded him scornfully.

"Very well. But kindly return as soon as possible."

"Oh, I will, by Jove! Just want to pack away a hasty prune. I'll be back before you know I've gone."

"You will find me on the roof."

"On the roof. Right! Well, tinkety-tonk, then, for the moment," said his lordship, and pattered off down the stairs.

Mrs. Waddington mounted another flight, and came out under the broad canopy of heaven. She found herself with a choice of views, the glittering city that stretched away below and the dark windows of the Finch lair. She chose the windows and watched them narrowly.

She had been watching them for some considerable time, when suddenly the middle ones, the French windows, lit up. And, as she stepped forward, her rosiest dreams were realised. Across the yellow blind there passed a shadow which was plainly that of a young female person, no doubt of a grade of morality so low that in any other place but Washington Square it would have provoked the raised eyebrow and the sharp intake of the breath. Mrs. Waddington advanced to the window and tapped upon it imperiously.

There was a startled exclamation from within. The blind shot up, revealing a stoutish man in sober black. The next moment the window was opened, and the stoutish man popped his head out.

"Who's there?" he asked.

"I am," said Mrs. Waddington.

"Jiminy Christmas!" said the stoutish man.

2

Frederick Mullett had been in a nervous frame of mind all the afternoon, more nervous even than that of the ordinary bridegroom on his wedding-day. For he had been deeply exercised for many hours past by the problem of what his bride had been up to that afternoon.

Any bridegroom would be upset if his newly-made wife left him immediately after the ceremony on the plea that she had important business to attend to and would see him later. Frederick Mullett was particularly upset. It was not so much the fact that he had planned a golden afternoon of revelry including a visit to Coney Island and had had to forgo it that disturbed him. That the delightful programme should have been cancelled was, of course, a disappointment: but what really caused him mental anguish was the speculation as to what from the view-point of a girl like Fanny constituted important business. Her reticence on this vital question had spoiled his whole day.

He was, in short, in exactly the frame of mind when a man who has married a pickpocket and has watched her go off on important business does not want to hear people tapping sharply on windows. If a mouse had crossed the floor at that moment, Frederick Mullett would have suspected it of being a detective in disguise. He peered at Mrs. Waddington with cold horror.

"What do you want?"

"I wish to see and question the young woman who is in this apartment."

Mullett's mouth felt dry. A shiver ran down his spine.

"What young woman?"

"Come, come!"

"There isn't any young woman here."

"Tut, tut!"

"There isn't, I tell you."

Mrs. Waddington's direct mind was impatient of this attempt to deceive.

"I will make it worth your while to tell the truth," she said.

Mullett recoiled. The thought that he was being asked to sell his bride on the very day of their wedding revolted him. Not that he would have sold her at any time, of course, but being asked to do so on this day of all days made the thing seem, as Officer Garroway would have said, so peculiarly stark and poignant.

With a frenzied gesture of abhorrence he slammed the window. He switched off the light and with agonised bounds reached the kitchen, where Mrs. Frederick Mullett was standing at the range stirring a welsh rarebit.

"Hello, sweetie!" cooed his bride, looking up. "I'm just fixing the rabbit. The soup's ready."

"And we're in it," said Mullett hollowly.

"Why, whatever do you mean?"

"Fanny, where did you go this afternoon?"

"Just down into the country, dearie. I told you."

"Yes, but you didn't tell me what you did there."

"It's a secret for the present, darling. I want to keep it as a surprise. It's something to do with some money that's coming to us."

Mullett eyed her wanly.

"Fanny, were you doing a job this afternoon down there in the country?"

"Why, Freddy Mullett! What an idea!"

"Then what are the bulls here for?"

"The bulls!"

"There's a female dick out on the roof right now. And she's asking for you."

Fanny stared, round-eyed.

"Asking for me? You're crazy."

"She said 'I wish to see and question the young woman who is in this apartment.' Those were her very words."

"I'll take a peek at her."

"Don't let her see you," begged Mullett, alarmed.

"Is it likely!"

Fanny walked composedly to the sitting-room. She felt no concern. The most comforting possession in the world is, of course, a quiet conscience: but almost as good is the knowledge that you have left no tracks behind you. Fanny was positive that, on taking her departure from the Waddington home at Hempstead that afternoon, she had made a nice clean getaway and could not possibly have been followed to this place by even the most astute of female dicks. Mullett, she was convinced, must have misunderstood this woman, whoever she might be.

She drew the blind aside an inch and looked cautiously out. The intruder was standing so close to the window that it was possible even in the uncertain light to get an adequate view of her: and what she saw reassured Fanny. She returned to her anxious husband with words of cheer.

"That's no dick," she said. "I can tell 'em a mile off."

"Then who is she?"

"You'd better ask her. Listen, you go and kid her along and I'll sneak out. Then we can meet somewhere when you're through. It's a shame having to waste this nice supper, but we'll go to a restaurant. Listen, I'll be waiting for you at the Astor."

"But if she's not a dick, why not stay where we are?"

"You don't want people knowing that I'm here, do you? Suppose your boss heard of it, what would he say?"

"That's true. All right, then. Wait for me at the Astor. Though it's kind of a swell place, isn't it?"

"Well, don't you want a swell place to dine at on your wedding-night?"

"You're right."

"I'm always right," said Fanny, giving her husband's cheek a loving pinch. "That's the first thing you've got to get into your head, now you're a married man."

Mullett returned to the sitting-room and switched on the light again. He felt fortified. He opened the window with something of an air.

"You were saying, ma'am?"

Mrs. Waddington was annoyed.

"What do you mean by going away and slamming the window in my face?"

"Had to see to something in the kitchen, ma'am. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"There is. I wish to know who the young woman is who is in the apartment."

"No young woman in this apartment, ma'am."

Mrs. Waddington began to feel that she was approaching this matter from the wrong angle. She dipped in her bag.

"Here is a ten-dollar bill."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"I should like to ask you a few questions."

"Very good, ma'am."

"And I shall be obliged if you will answer them truthfully. How long have you been in Mr. Finch's employment?"

"About a couple of months, ma'am."

"And what is your opinion of Mr. Finch's morals?"

"They're swell."

"Nonsense. Don't attempt to deceive me. Is it not a fact that during your term of employment you have frequently admitted female visitors to this apartment?"

"Only models, ma'am."

"Models!"

"Mr. Finch is an artist."

"I am aware of it," said Mrs. Waddington with a shiver. "So you persist in your statement that Mr. Finch's mode of life is not irregular?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then," said Mrs. Waddington, twitching the ten-dollar bill neatly from his grasp, "It may interest you to know that I do not believe you."

"Here, hey!" cried Mullett, deeply moved. "You gave me that!"

"And I have taken it back," said Mrs. Waddington, replacing the bill in her bag. "You do not deserve it."

Mullett slammed the window, outraged in his finest feelings. For some moments he stood, fermenting. Then, seething with justifiable indignation, he switched off the light once more and went out.

He had reached the foot of the stairs, when he heard his name spoken, and, turning, was aware of a long policeman regarding him with a mild friendliness.

"Surely it is Mr. Mullett?" said the policeman.

"Hullo?" said Mullett, somewhat embarrassed. Habit is not easily overcome, and there had been a time when the mere sight of a policeman had made him tremble like a leaf.

"You remember me? My name is Garroway. We met some weeks ago."

"Why, sure," said Mullett, relieved. "You're the poet."

"It is very nice of you to say so," said Officer Garroway, simpering a little. "I am about to call at Mr. Beamish's apartment now with my latest effort. And how has the world been using you, Mr. Mullett?"

"All right. Everything hunky-dory with you?"

"Completely. Well, I must not detain you. No doubt you are on your way to some important appointment."

"That's right. Say!" said Mullett, suddenly inspired. "Are you on duty?"

"Not for the moment."

"But you wouldn't object to making a cop?"

"By no means. I am always willing—and, indeed, anxious—to make a cop."

"Well, there was a suspicious character on our roof just now. A woman. I didn't like the look of her."

"Indeed? This is extremely interesting."

"She was snooping around, looking in at our windows, and I don't think she's up to any good. You might go and ask her what she wants."

"I will attend to the matter immediately."

"If I was you, I'd pinch her on suspicion. So long."

"Good night, Mr. Mullett."

Mullett, with the elation which comes from a good deed done, moved buoyantly off to his tryst. Officer Garroway, swinging his night-stick, climbed thoughtfully up the stairs.

3

Mrs. Waddington, meanwhile, had not been content with a policy of watchful waiting. She was convinced that the shadow which she had seen on the blind had been that of a young woman: and instinct told her that in an apartment near Washington Square where there was a young woman present events were not likely to remain static for any considerable length of time. No doubt the man she had questioned would have warned the young woman of her visit, and by now she had probably gone away. But she would return. And George Finch would return. It was simply a question of exercising patience.

But she must leave the roof. The roof was the first place the guilty pair would examine. If they found it empty, their fears would be lulled. The strategic move indicated was to go downstairs and patrol the street. There she could stay until things began to happen again.

She was about to move away, and had already taken a step towards the door that led to the stairs, when a slight creaking noise attracted her attention and she was surprised to observe the window swinging open.

It opened some six inches: then, caught by a gust of wind, closed again. A moment later, there was another creak and it moved outward once more. Apparently, in the agony of losing his ten dollars, the man had omitted to fasten the catch.

Mrs. Waddington stopped. She drew a step nearer. She grasped the handle and, pulling the window wide open, peered into the dark room. It seemed to be empty, but Mrs. Waddington was a cautious woman.

"My man!" she called.

Silence.

"I wish to speak to you."

More silence. Mrs. Waddington applied the supreme test.

"I want to return that ten-dollar bill to you."

Still silence. Mrs. Waddington was convinced. She crossed the threshold and started to feel round the walls for the switch. And, as she did so, something came to her through the throbbing darkness.

It was the smell of soup.

Mrs. Waddington stiffened like a pointing dog. Although when sitting in the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton with Lord Hunstanton she had apparently been impervious to the fragrant scents which had so deeply affected his lordship, she was human. It was long past the hour at which she usually dined, and in the matter of sustenance she was a woman of regular habits. Already, while standing on the roof, she had been aware of certain pangs, and now she realised beyond all possibility of doubt that she was hungry. She quivered from head to foot. The smell of that soup seemed to call to the deeps of her being like the voice of an old, old love.

Moving forward like one in a trance, she groped along the wall, and found herself in an open doorway that appeared to lead into a passage. Here, away from the window, the darkness was blacker than ever: but, if she could not see, she could smell, and she needed no other guide than her nose. She walked along the passage, sniffing, and, coming to another open door, found the scent so powerful that she almost reeled. It had become a composite odour now, with a strong welsh rarebit motif playing through it. Mrs. Waddington felt for the switch, pressed it down, and saw that she was in a kitchen. And there, simmering on the range, was a saucepan.

There are moments when even the most single-minded of women will allow herself to be distracted from the main object of her thoughts. Mrs. Waddington had reached the stage where soup seemed to her the most important—if not the only—thing in life. She removed the lid from the saucepan, and a meaty steaminess touched her like a kiss.

She drew a deep breath. She poured some of the soup into a plate. She found a spoon. She found bread. She found salt. She found pepper.

And it was while she was lovingly sprinkling the pepper that a voice spoke behind her.

"You're pinched!" said the voice.

4

There were not many things which could have diverted Mrs. Waddington's attention at that moment from the plate before her. An earthquake might have done it. So might the explosion of a bomb. This voice accomplished it instantaneously. She spun round with a sharp scream, her heart feeling as if it were performing one of those eccentric South Seas dances whose popularity she had always deplored.

A policeman was standing in the doorway.

"Arrested, I should have said," added the policeman with a touch of apology. He seemed distressed that in the first excitement of this encounter he had failed to achieve the Word Beautiful.

Mrs. Waddington was not a woman often at a loss for speech, but she could find none now. She stood panting.

"I must ask you, if you will be so good," said the policeman courteously, "to come along with me. And it will avoid a great deal of unpleasantness if you come quietly."

The torpor consequent upon the disintegrating shock of this meeting began to leave Mrs. Waddington.

"I can explain!" she cried.

"You will have every opportunity of doing so at the station-house," said the policeman. "In your own interests I should advise you until then to say as little as possible. For I must warn you that in pursuance of my duty I shall take a memorandum of any statement which you may make. See, I have my note-book and pencil here in readiness."

"I was doing no harm."

"That, is for the judge to decide. I need scarcely point out that your presence in this apartment is, to say the least, equivocal. You came in through a window,—an action which constitutes breaking and entering, and, furthermore, I find you in the act of purloining the property of the owner of the apartment,—to wit, soup. I am afraid I must ask you to accompany me."

Mrs. Waddington started to clasp her hands in a desperate appeal: and, doing so, was aware that some obstacle prevented this gesture.

It was suddenly borne in upon her that she was still holding the pepper-pot. And suddenly a thought came like a full-blown rose, flushing her brow.

"Ha!" she exclaimed.

"I beg your pardon?" said the policeman.

Everything in this world, every little experience which we undergo or even merely read about, is intended, philosophers tell us, to teach us something, to help to equip us for the battle of life. It was not, according to this theory, mere accident, therefore, which a few days before had caused Mrs. Waddington to read and sub-consciously memorise the report that had appeared in the evening paper to which she subscribed of a burglary at the residence of a certain leading citizen of West Orange, New Jersey. The story had been sent to help her.

Of the less important details of this affair she retained no recollection: but the one salient point in connection with it came back to her now with all the force of an inspiration from above. Cornered by an indignant householder, she recalled, the West Orange burglar had made his escape by the simple means of throwing about two ounces of pepper in the householder's face.

What this humble, probably uneducated man had been able to achieve was surely not beyond the powers of a woman like herself,—the honorary president of twenty-three charitable societies and a well-known lecturer on the upbringing of infants. Turning coyly sideways, she began to unscrew the top of the pot.

"You will understand," said the policeman deprecatingly, "that this is extremely unpleasant for me...."

He was perfectly right. Unpleasant, he realised a moment later, was the exact adjective which the most punctilious stylist would have chosen. For suddenly the universe seemed to dissolve in one great cloud-burst of pepper. Pepper tickled his mouth: pepper filled his nose: pepper strayed into his eyes and caressed his Adam's apple. For an instant he writhed blindly: then, clutching at the table for support, he began to sneeze.

With the sound of those titanic sneezes ringing in her ears, Mrs. Waddington bumped her way through the darkness till she came to the open window: then, galloping across the roof, hurled herself down the fire-escape.

5

The only thing in the nature of a policy or plan of action which Mrs. Waddington had had when making for the fire-escape had been a general desire to be as far away as possible from the representative of the Law when he stopped sneezing and opened his eyes and began to look around him for his assailant. But, as her feet touched the first rungs, more definite schemes began to shape themselves. Fire-escapes, she knew, led, if followed long enough, to the ground: and she decided to climb to safety down this one. It was only when she had descended as far as the ninth floor that, glancing below her, she discovered that this particular fire-escape terminated not, as she had supposed, in some back-alley, but in the gaily-lighted outdoor premises of a restaurant, half the tables of which were already filled.

This sight gave her pause. In fact, to be accurate, it froze her stiff. Nor was her agitation without reason. Those of the readers of this chronicle who have ever thrown pepper in a policeman's face, and skimmed away down a fire-escape are aware that fire-escapes, considered as a refuge, have the defect of being uncomfortably exposed to view. At any moment, felt Mrs. Waddington, the policeman might come to the edge of the roof and look down: and to deceive him into supposing that she was merely an ash-can or a milk-bottle was, she knew, beyond her histrionic powers.

The instinct for self-preservation not only sharpens the wits, but at the same time dulls the moral sensibility. It was so with Mrs. Waddington now. Her quickened intelligence perceived in a flash that if she climbed in through the window outside which she was now standing she would be safe from scrutiny: and her blunted moral sense refused to consider the fact that such an action—amounting, as it did, to what her policeman playmate had called breaking and entering—would be most reprehensible. Besides, she had broken and entered one apartment already that night, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on. Some ten seconds later, therefore, Mrs. Waddington was once more groping through the darkness of somebody else's dwelling-place.

A well-defined scent of grease, damp towels and old cabbages told her that the room through which she was creeping was a kitchen: but the blackness was so uniform that she could see nothing of her surroundings. The only thing she was able to say definitely of this kitchen at the moment was that it contained a broom. This she knew because she had just stepped on the end of it and the handle had shot up and struck her very painfully on the forehead.

"Ouch!" cried Mrs. Waddington.

She had not intended to express any verbal comment on the incident, for those who creep at night through other people's kitchens must be silent and wary: but the sudden agony was so keen that she could not refrain from comment. And to her horror she found that her cry had been heard. There came through the darkness a curious noise like the drawing of a cork, and then somebody spoke.

"Who are you?" said an unpleasant, guttural voice.

Mrs. Waddington stopped, paralysed. She would not, in the circumstances, have heard with any real pleasure the most musical of speech: but a soft, sympathetic utterance would undoubtedly have afflicted her with a shade less of anguish and alarm. This voice was the voice of one without human pity; a grating, malevolent voice; a voice that set Mrs. Waddington thinking quiveringly in headlines:

'SOCIETY LEADER FOUND SLAIN IN KITCHEN.'

"Who are you?"

'BODY DISMEMBERED BENEATH SINK.'

"Who are you?"

'SEVERED HEAD LEADS TRACKERS TO DEATH-SPOT.'

"Who are you?"

Mrs. Waddington gulped.

"I am Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington," she faltered. And it would have amazed Sigsbee H., had he heard her, to discover that it was possible for her to speak with such a winning meekness.

"Who are you?"

"Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, of East Seventy-Ninth Street and Hempstead, Long Island. I must apologise for the apparent strangeness of my conduct in...."

"Who are you?"

Annoyance began to compete with Mrs. Waddington's terror. Deaf persons had always irritated her, for like so many women of an impatient and masterful turn of mind she was of opinion that they could hear perfectly well if they took the trouble. She raised her voice and answered with a certain stiffness.

"I have already informed you that I am Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington...."

"Have a nut," said the voice, changing the subject.

Mrs. Waddington's teeth came together with a sharp click. All the other emotions which had been afflicting her passed abruptly away, to be succeeded by a cold fury. Few things are more mortifying to a proud woman than the discovery that she had been wasting her time being respectful to a parrot: and only her inability to locate the bird in the surrounding blackness prevented a rather unpleasant brawl. Had she been able to come to grips with it, Mrs. Waddington at that moment would undoubtedly have done the parrot no good whatever.

"Brrh!" she exclaimed, expressing her indignation as effectively as was possible by mere speech: and, ignoring the other's request—in the circumstances, ill-timed and tasteless—that she should stop and scratch its head, she pushed forward in search of the door.

Reaction had left her almost calm. The trepidation of a few moments back had vanished; and she advanced now in a brisk and business-like way. She found the door and opened it. There was more darkness beyond, but an uncurtained window gave sufficient light for her to see that she was in a sitting-room. Across one corner of this room lay a high-backed chesterfield. In another corner stood a pedestal desk. And about the soft carpet there were distributed easy chairs in any one of which Mrs. Waddington, had the conditions been different, would have been delighted to sit and rest.

But, though she had been on her feet some considerable time now and was not a woman who enjoyed standing, prudence warned her that the temptation to relax must be resisted. It was a moment for action, not repose. She turned to the door which presumably led into the front hall and thence to the stairs and safety: and had just opened it when there came the click of a turning key.

Mrs. Waddington acted swiftly. The strange calm which had been upon her dissolved into a panic fear. She darted back into the sitting-room: and, taking the chesterfield in an inspired bound, sank down behind it and tried not to snort.

"Been waiting long?" asked some person unseen, switching on the light and addressing an invisible companion.

The voice was strange to Mrs. Waddington: but about the one that replied to it there was something so fruitily familiar that she stiffened where she lay, scarcely able to credit her senses. For it was the voice of Ferris, her butler. And Ferris, if the truth was in him, should by now have been at the sick-bed of a relative.

"Some little time, sir, but it has caused me no inconvenience."

"What did you want to see me about?"

"I am addressing Mr. Lancelot Biffen, the editor-in-chief of 'Town Gossip'?"

"Yes. Talk quick. I've got to go out again in a minute."

"I understand, Mr. Biffen, that 'Town Gossip' is glad to receive and pay a substantial remuneration for items of interest concerning those prominent in New York Society. I have such an item."

"Who's it about?"

"My employer,—Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, sir."

"What's she been doing?"

"It is a long story...."

"Then I haven't time to listen to it."

"It concerns the sensational interruption to the marriage of Mrs. Waddington's stepdaughter...."

"Didn't the wedding come off, then?"

"No, sir. And the circumstances which prevented it...."

Mr. Biffen uttered an exclamation. He had apparently looked at his watch and been dismayed by the flight of time.

"I must run," he said. "I've a date at the Algonquin in a quarter of an hour. Come and talk to me at the office to-morrow."

"I fear that will be impossible, sir, owing to...."

"Then, see here. Have you ever done any writing?"

"Yes, sir. At Little-Seeping-in-the-Wold I frequently contributed short articles to the parish magazine. The vicar spoke highly of them."

"Then sit down and write the thing out. Use your own words and I'll polish it up later. I'll be back in an hour, if you want to wait."

"Very good, sir. And the remuneration?"

"We'll talk about that later."

"Very good, sir."

Mr. Biffen left the room. There followed a confused noise,—apparently from his bedroom, in which he seemed to be searching for something. Then the front door slammed, and quiet descended upon the apartment.

Mrs. Waddington continued to crouch behind her chesterfield. There had been a moment, immediately after the departure of Mr. Biffen, when she had half risen with the intention of confronting her traitorous butler and informing him that he had ceased to be in her employment. But second thoughts had held her back. Gratifying as it would undoubtedly be to pop her head up over the back of the sofa and watch the man cower beneath her eye, the situation, she realised, was too complicated to permit such a procedure. She remained where she was, and whiled away the time by trying out methods to relieve the cramp from which her lower limbs had already begun to suffer.

From the direction of the desk came the soft scratching of pen on paper. Ferris was plainly making quite a job of it, putting all his energies into his task. He seemed to be one of those writers, like Flaubert, who spared no pains in the quest for perfect clarity and are prepared to correct and re-correct indefinitely till their artist-souls are satisfied. It seemed to Mrs. Waddington as though her vigil was to go on for ever.

But in a bustling city like New York it is rarely that the artist is permitted to concentrate for long without interruption. A telephone-bell broke raspingly upon the stillness: and the first sensation of pleasure which Mrs. Waddington had experienced for a very long time came to her as she realised that the instrument was ringing in the passage outside and not in the room. With something of the wild joy which reprieved prisoners feel at the announcement of release she heard the butler rise. And presently there came from a distance his measured voice informing some unseen inquirer that Mr. Biffen was not at home.

Mrs. Waddington rose from her form. She had about twenty seconds in which to act, and she wasted none of them. By the time Ferris had returned and was once more engrossed in his literary composition, she was in the kitchen.

She stood by the window, looking out at the fire-escape. Surely by this time, she felt, it would be safe to climb once more up to the roof. She decided to count three hundred very slowly and risk it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Molly and Sigsbee Horatio, the latter muttering "Gallagher! Gallagher! Gallagher!" to himself in order that the magic name should not again escape him, had started out in the two-seater about a quarter of an hour after the departure of Mrs. Waddington's Hispano-Suiza. Half-way to New York, however, a blow-out had arrested their progress: and the inability of Sigsbee H. to make a quick job of fixing the spare wheel had further delayed them. It was not, therefore, till almost at the exact moment when Mrs. Waddington was committing the rash act which had so discomposed Officer Garroway, that Molly, having dropped her father at Police Headquarters, arrived at the entrance of the Sheridan.

She hurried up the stairs and rang George's front-door bell. For awhile it seemed as if her ringing was to meet with no response: then, after some minutes, footsteps made themselves heard coming along the passage. The door opened, and Molly found herself gazing into the inflamed eyes of a policeman.

She looked at him with surprise. She had never seen him before, and she rather felt that she would have preferred not to see him now: for he was far from being a pleasing sight. His nose, ears and eyes were a vivid red: and his straggling hair dripped wetly on to the floor. With the object of diminishing the agony caused by the pepper, Officer Garroway had for some time been holding his head under the tap in the kitchen: and he now looked exactly like the body which had been found after several days in the river. The one small point that differentiated him from a corpse was the fact that he was sneezing.

"What are you doing here?" exclaimed Molly.

"Achoo!" replied Officer Garroway.

"What?" said Molly.

The policeman, with a nobility which should have earned him promotion, checked another sneeze.

"There has been an outrage," he said.

"Mr. Finch has not been hurt?" cried Molly, alarmed.

"Mr. Finch hasn't. I have."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Gar-hosh-hoosh-hish."

"What?"

"Gar-ish-wash-WUSH ... Garroway," said the policeman, becoming calmer.

"Where is Mr. Finch?"

"I could not say, miss."

"Have you a cold?"

"No, miss, not a ker-osh-wosh-osh. A woman threw pepper in my face."

"You ought not to know such women," said Molly severely.

The injustice of this stung Officer Garroway.

"I did not know her socially. I was arresting her."

"Oh, I see."

"I found her burgling this apartment."

"Good gracious!"

"And when I informed her that I was compelled to take her into custody, she threw pepper in my face and escaped."

"You poor man!"

"Thank you, miss," said Officer Garroway gratefully. A man can do with a bit of sympathy on these occasions, nor is such sympathy rendered less agreeable by the fact that the one who offers it is young and charming and gazes at you with large, melting blue eyes. It was at this point that Officer Garroway began for the first time to be aware of a distinct improvement in his condition.

"Can I get you anything?" said Molly.

Officer Garroway shook his head wistfully.

"It's against the law, miss, now. In fact, I am to be one of a posse this very night that is to raid a restaurant which supplies the stuff."

"I meant something from a drug-store. Some ointment or something."

"It is extremely kind of you, miss, but I could not dream of putting you to so much trouble. I will look in at a drug-store on my way to the station-house. I fear I must leave you now, as I have to go and drish-hosh-hish."

"What?"

"Dress, miss."

"But you are dressed."

"For the purposes of the raid to which I alluded it is necessary for our posse to put on full evening drah-woosh. In order to deceive the staff of the rish-wish-wosh, and lull them into a false security. It would never do, you see, for us to go there in our uniforms. That would put them on their guard."

"How exciting! What restaurant are you raiding?"

Officer Garroway hesitated.

"Well, miss, it is in the nature of an official secret, of course, but on the understanding that you will let it go no further, the rosh-ow-wush is the Purple Chicken, just round the corner. I will wish you good night, miss, as I really must be off."

"But wait a moment. I came here to meet Mr. Finch. Have you seen anything of him?"

"No, miss. Nobody has visited the apartment while I have been there."

"Oh, then I'll wait. Good night. I hope you will feel better soon."

"I feel better already, miss," said Officer Garroway gallantly, "thanks to your kind sympathy. Good nish-nosh, miss."

Molly went out on to the roof, and stood there gazing over the million twinkling lights of the city. At this height the voice of New York sank to a murmur, and the air was sweet and cool. Little breezes rustled in the potted shrubs over which Mullett was wont to watch with such sedulous care, and a half-moon was shining in rather a deprecating way, as if conscious of not being at its best in such surroundings. For, like Sigsbee H. Waddington (now speeding towards his third Gallagher), the moon, really to express itself, needs the great open spaces.

Molly, however, found nothing to criticise in that pale silver glow. She felt a proprietary interest in the moon. It was her own private and personal moon, and should have been shining in through the windows of the drawing-room of the train that bore her away on her wedding-journey. That that journey had been postponed was in no way the fault of the moon: and, gazing up at it, she tried to convey by her manner her appreciation of the fact.

It was at this point that a strangled exclamation broke the stillness: and, turning, she perceived George Finch.

George Finch stood in the moonlight, staring dumbly. Although what he saw before him had all the appearance of being Molly, and though a rash and irreflective observer would no doubt have said that it was Molly, it was so utterly impossible that she could really be there that he concluded that he was suffering from an hallucination. The nervous strain of the exacting day through which he had passed had reduced him, he perceived, to the condition of those dying travellers in the desert who see mirages. And so he remained where he was, not daring to approach closer: for he knew that if you touch people in dreams they vanish.

But Molly was of a more practical turn of mind. She had come twenty miles to see George. She had waited for George for what seemed several hours. And here George was. She did the sensible thing. Uttering a little squeak of rapture, she ran at him like a rabbit.

"Georgie! My pet!"

One lives and learns. George found that he had been all wrong, and that his preconceived ideas about dreams and what could and could not happen in them must be revised. For, so far from vanishing when touched, his wraith appeared to be growing more substantial every moment.

He shut his eyes and kissed her tentatively. He opened his eyes. She was still there.

"Is it really you?" said George.

"Yes, really me."

"But how ... what...?"

It was borne in upon George—for he was a young man of good average intelligence—that he was spoiling a golden moment with unseasonable chatter. This was no time for talk. He talked, accordingly, no more; and there was silence on the roof. The moon looked down, well pleased. There is not much of interest for a moon to look at in a large city, and this was the sort of thing it liked best,—the only sort of thing, if you came right down to it, that made it worth a moon's while to shine at all.

George clung to Molly, and Molly clung to George, like two ship-wrecked survivors who have come together on a wave-swept beach. And the world moved on, forgotten.

But the world will never allow itself to be forgotten for long. Suddenly George broke away with an exclamation. He ran to the wall and looked over.

"What's the matter?"

George returned, reassured. His concern had been groundless.

"I thought I saw some one on the fire-escape, darling."

"On the fire-escape? Why, who could it be?"

"I thought it might be the man who has the apartment on the floor below. A ghastly, sneaking, snooping fellow named Lancelot Biffen. I've known him to climb up before. He's the editor of 'Town Gossip,' the last person we want to have watching us."

Molly uttered a cry of alarm.

"You're sure he wasn't there?"

"Quite sure."

"It would be awful if anyone saw me here."

George silently cursed the too vivid imagination which had led him to suppose that he had seen a dark form outlined against the summer sky. He had spoiled the golden moment, and it could not be recaptured.

"Don't be afraid, dear," he said. "Even if he had seen you, he would never have guessed who you were."

"You mean he would naturally expect to find you up here kissing some girl?"

George was in the state of mind when a man cannot be quite sure what his words mean, if anything: but so positive was he that he did not mean this that he got his tongue tied in a knot trying to say so in three different ways simultaneously.

"Well, after what happened this afternoon ..." said Molly.

She drew away. She was not normally an unkind girl, but the impulse of the female of the species to torture the man it loves is well-known. Woman may be a ministering angel when pain and anguish rack the brow: but, if at other times she sees a chance to prod the loved one and watch him squirm, she hates to miss it.

George's tongue appeared to him to be now in the sort of condition a ball of wool is in after a kitten has been playing with it. With a supreme effort he contrived to straighten out a few of the major kinks, just sufficient to render speech possible.

"I swear to you," began George, going so far in his emotion as to raise a passionate fist towards the moon.

Molly gurgled delightedly. She loved this young man most when he looked funny: and he had seldom looked funnier than now.

"I swear to you on my solemn oath that I had never seen that infernal girl before in my life."

"She seemed to know you so well."

"She was a perfect, complete, total, utter and absolute stranger."

"Are you sure? Perhaps you had simply forgotten all about her."

"I swear it," said George, and only just stopped himself from adding "by yonder moon." "If you want to know what I think...."

"Oh, I do."

"I believe she was mad. Stark, staring mad."

Molly decided that the anguish had lasted long enough. A girl has to judge these things to a nicety. Sufficient agony is good for a man, stimulating his mind and keeping him bright and alert: but too much is too much.

"Poor old Georgie!" she said soothingly. "You don't really suppose for a moment that I believe a word of what she said, do you?"

"What! You didn't?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Molly," said George, weighing his words, "you are without exception the dearest, sweetest, loveliest, most perfect and angelic thing that ever lived."

"I know. Aren't you lucky?"

"You saw at once that the girl was mad, didn't you? You realised immediately that she was suffering from some sort of obsession, poor soul, which made her...."

"No, I didn't. I couldn't think what it was all about at first, and then father came in and said that my pearl necklace had disappeared, and I understood."

"Your pearl necklace? Disappeared?"

"She stole it. She was a thief. Don't you see? It was really awfully clever. She couldn't have got it any other way. But when she burst in and said all those things about you, naturally she took everybody's attention off the wedding-presents. And then she pretended to faint on the table, and just snapped the necklace up and rushed out, and nobody guessed what had happened."

George drew in a whistling breath. His fists clenched. He stared coldly at one of the potted shrubs as if it had done him a personal injury.

"If ever I meet that girl...."

Molly laughed.

"Mother still insists that you had known her before and that the story she told was true and that she only took the necklace as an afterthought. Isn't she funny!"

"Funny," said George heavily, "is not the word. She is one long scream from the rise of the curtain, and ought to be beaten over the head with a black-jack. If you want my candid and considered opinion of that zymotic scourge who has contrived to hook herself on to your family in the capacity of stepmother to you and general mischief-maker to the rest of the world, let me begin by saying.... However, there is no time to go into that now."

"No, there isn't. I must be getting back."

"Oh no!"

"Yes. I must go home and pack."

"Pack?"

"Just a suit-case."

The universe reeled about George.

"Do you mean you're going away?" he quavered.

"Yes. To-morrow."

"Oh, heavens! For long?"

"For ever. With you."

"With...?"

"Of course. Don't you understand? I'm going home now to pack a suit-case. Then I'll drive back to New York and stay the night at an hotel, and to-morrow we'll be married early in the morning, and in the afternoon we'll go off together, all alone, miles and miles from everybody."

"Molly!"

"Look at that moon. About now it ought to have been shining into our drawing-room on the train."

"Yes."

"Well, there will be just as good a moon to-morrow night."

George moistened his lips. Something seemed to be tickling his nose, and inside his chest a curious growth had begun to swell, rendering breathing difficult.

"And half an hour ago," he said, "I thought I would never see you again."

"Come down and put me in the car," said Molly briskly. "I left it at the door."

They descended the stairs. Owing to the eccentricity of the elevator, George had frequently had to go up and down these stairs before: but it was only now that he noticed for the first time a peculiarity about them that made them different from the stairs of every other apartment-house he had visited. They were, he observed, hedged about with roses and honeysuckle, and many more birds were singing on them than you would expect in an apartment-house. Odd. And yet, as he immediately realised, all perfectly in order.

Molly climbed into the two-seater: and George mentioned a point which had presented itself to him.

"I don't see why you need hurry off like this."

"I do. I've got to pack and get away before mother gets home."

"Is that blas ... is your stepmother in New York?"

"Yes. She came in to see the police."

Until this moment George had been looking on New York as something rather out of the common run of cities—he particularly liked the way those violets were sprouting up through the flagstones: but on receipt of this information he found that it had lost a little of its charm.

"Oh, she's in New York, is she?"

"Probably on her way home by now."

"You don't think there's time for us to go and have a little dinner somewhere? Just a cosy little dinner at some quiet little restaurant?"

"Good gracious, no! I'm running it very fine as it is." She looked at him closely. "But, Georgie darling, you're starving. I can see it. You're quite pale and worn-out. When did you last have anything to eat?"

"Eat? Eat? I don't remember."

"What did you do after that business this afternoon?"

"I—well, I walked around for awhile. And then I hung about in the bushes for awhile, hoping you would come out. And then—I believe I went to the station and took a train or something."

"You poor darling! Go and eat something at once."

"Why can't I come back to Hempstead with you?"

"Because you can't."

"What hotel will you go to to-night?"

"I don't know. But I'll come and see you for a minute before I go there."

"What, here? You'll come here?"

"Yes."

"You'll come back here?"

"Yes."

"You promise?"

"Yes, if you will go and have some dinner. You look perfectly ghastly."

"Dinner? All right, I'll have some."

"Mind you do. If you haven't by the time I get back, I'll go straight home again and never marry you as long as I live. Good-bye, darling, I must be off."

The two-seater moved away and turned into Washington Square. George stood looking after it long after there was nothing to look at but empty street. Then he started off, like some knight of old on a quest commanded by his lady, to get the dinner on which she had so strongly insisted. She had been wrong, of course, in telling him to go and dine: for what he wanted to do and what any good doctor would have recommended him to do was to return to the roof and gaze at the moon. But her lightest wish was law.

Where could he go most quickly and get the repulsive task done with the minimum waste of time?

The Purple Chicken. It was just round the corner, and a resolute man if he stuck to their prix fixe table-d'hôte at one-dollar-fifty, could shovel a meal into himself in about ten minutes—which was not long to ask the moon to wait.

Besides, at the Purple Chicken you could get "it" if they knew you. And George, though an abstemious young man, felt that "it" was just what at the moment he most required. On an occasion like this he ought, of course, to sip golden nectar from rare old crystal: but, failing that, synthetic whisky served in a coffee-pot was perhaps the next best thing.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

1

The Purple Chicken seemed to be having a big night. The room opening on to the street, when George reached it, was so crowded, that there was no chance of getting a table. He passed through, hoping to find a resting-place in the open-air section which lay beyond: and was struck, as he walked, by the extraordinarily fine physique of many of the diners.

As a rule, the Purple Chicken catered for the intelligentsia of the neighbourhood, and these did not run to thews and sinews. On most nights in the week you would find the tables occupied by wispy poets and slender futurist painters: but now, though these were present in great numbers, they were supplemented by quite a sprinkling of granite-faced men with knobby shoulders and protruding jaws. George came to the conclusion that a convention from one of the outlying States must be in town and that these men were members of it, bent upon seeing Bohemia.

He did not, however, waste a great deal of time in speculation on this matter, for, stirred by the actual presence of food, he had begun now to realise that Molly had been right, as women always are, and that, while his whole higher self cried out for the moon, his lower self was almost equally as insistent on taking in supplies. And at this particular restaurant it was happily possible to satisfy both selves simultaneously: for there, as he stepped into what the management called the garden—a flagged backyard dotted with tables—was the moon, all present and correct, and there, also, were waiters waiting to supply the prix fixe table-d'hôte at one-dollar-fifty.

It seemed to George the neatest possible combination: and his only anxiety now was with regard to the securing of a seat. At first glance it appeared that every table was occupied.

This conjecture was confirmed by a second glance. But, though all the other tables had their full quota, there was one, standing beside the Sheridan's back wall and within a few feet of its fire-escape, that was in the possession of a single diner. This diner George approached, making his expression as winning as possible. He did not, as a rule, enjoy sharing a table with a stranger, but as an alternative to going away and trudging round in search of another restaurant it seemed a good plan now.

"Excuse me, sir," said George, "would you mind if I came to this table?"

The other looked up from the poulet rôti aux pommes de terre and salade Bruxelloise which had been engaging his attention. He was plainly one of the convention from the outlying State, if physique could be taken as a guide. He spread upwards from the table like a circus giant and the hands which gripped the knife and fork had that same spaciousness which George had noted in the diners in the other room. Only as to the eyes did this man differ from his fellows. They had had eyes of a peculiarly steely and unfriendly type, the sort of eyes which a motorist instinctively associates with traffic-policemen and a professional thief with professional detectives. This man's gaze was mild and friendly, and his eyes would have been attractive but for the redness of their rims and the generally inflamed look which they had.

"By no means, sir," he replied to George's polite query.

"Place very crowded to-night."

"Extremely."

"Then, if you won't mind, I'll sit here."

"Delighted," said the other.

George looked round for a waiter and found one at his elbow. However crowded the Purple Chicken might be, its staff never neglected the old habitué: and it had had the benefit of George's regular custom for many months.

"Good evening, sare," said the waiter, smiling the smile which had once broken hearts in Assisi.

"Good evening, Guiseppe," said George. "I'll take the dinner."

"Yes, sare. Sick or glear zoop?"

"Sick. Crowded to-night, Guiseppe."

"Yes, sare. Lots of guys here to-night. Big business."

"The waiter appears to know you," said George's companion.

"Oh, yes," said George, "I'm in here all the time."

"Ah," said the other, thoughtfully.

The soup arrived, and George set about it with a willing spoon. His companion became hideously involved with spaghetti.

"This your first visit to New York?" asked George, after an interval.

"No, indeed, sir. I live in New York."

"Oh, I thought you were up from the country."

"No, sir. I live right here in New York."

A curious idea that he had seen this fellow before somewhere came over George. Yes, at some time and in some place he could have sworn that he had gazed upon that long body, that prominent Adam's apple, and that gentle expanse of face. He searched his memory. Nothing stirred.

"I have an odd feeling that we have met before," he said.

"I was thinking just the same myself," replied the other.

"My name is Finch."

"Mine is Cabot. Delancy Cabot."

George shook his head.

"I don't remember the name."

"Yours is curiously familiar. I have heard it before, but cannot think when."

"Do you live in Greenwich Village?"

"Somewhat further up-town. And you?"

"I live in the apartment on top of this building here at the back of us."

A sudden light that seemed that of recognition came into the other's face. George observed it.

"Have you remembered where we met?"

"No, sir. No, indeed," said the other hastily. "It has entirely escaped me." He took a sip of ice water. "I recall, however, that you are an artist."

"That's right. You are not one, by any chance?"

"I am a poet."

"A poet?" George tried to conceal his somewhat natural surprise. "Where does your stuff appear mostly?"

"I have published nothing as yet, Mr. Finch," replied the other sadly.

"Tough luck. I have never sold a picture."

"Too bad."

They gazed at one another with kindly eyes, two fellow-sufferers from the public's lack of taste. Guiseppe appeared, bearing deep-dish apple-pie in one hand, poulet rôti in the other.

"Guiseppe," said George.

"Sare?"

George bent his lips towards the waiter's attentive ear.

"Bzz ... Bzz ... Bzz ..." said George.

"Yes, sare. Very good, sare. In one moment, sare."

George leaned back contentedly. Then it occurred to him that he had been a little remiss. He was not actually this red-eyed man's host, but they had fraternised and they both knew what it was to toil at their respective arts without encouragement or appreciation.

"Perhaps you will join me?" he said.

"Join you, sir?"

"In a high-ball. Guiseppe has gone to get me one."

"Indeed? Is it possible to obtain alcoholic refreshment in this restaurant?"

"You can always get it if they know you."

"But surely it is against the law?"

"Ha, ha!" laughed George. He liked this pleasant, whimsical fellow. "Ha, ha! Deuced good!"

He looked at him with that genial bonhomie with which one looks at a stranger in whom one has discovered a sly sense of humour. And, looking, he suddenly congealed.

Stranger?

"Great Scott!" ejaculated George.

"Sir?"

"Nothing, nothing."

Memory, though loitering by the way, had reached its goal at last. This man was no stranger. George recollected now where he had seen him before—on the roof of the Sheridan, when the other, clad in policeman's uniform, had warned him of the deplorable past of Frederick Mullett. The man was a cop, and under his very eyes, red rims and all, he had just ordered a high-ball.

George gave a feverish laugh.

"I was only kidding, of course," he said.

"Kidding, Mr. Finch?"

"When I said that you could get it here. You can't, of course. What Guiseppe is bringing me is ginger-ale."

"Indeed?"

"And my name isn't Finch," babbled George. "It—it is—er—Briskett. And I don't live in that apartment up there, I live in...."

He was aware of Guiseppe at his side. And Guiseppe was being unspeakably furtive and conspiratorial with a long glass and a coffee-pot. He looked like one of the executive staff of the Black Hand plotting against the public weal.

"Is that my ginger-ale?" twittered George. "My ginger-ale, is that what you've got there?"

"Yes, sare. Your ginger-ale. Your ginger-ale, Mr. Feench, ha, ha, ha! You are vairy fonny gentleman," said Guiseppe approvingly.

George could have kicked the man. If this was what the modern Italian was like, no wonder the country had had to have a dictatorship.

"Take it away," he said, quivering. "I don't want it in a coffee-pot."

"We always sairve the whisky in the coffee-pot, Mr. Feench. You know that."

Across the table George was appalled by a sinister sight. The man opposite was rising. Yards and yards of him were beginning to uncoil, and on his face there was a strange look of determination and menace.

"You're...."

George knew what the next word would have been. It would have been the verb "pinched." But it was never uttered. With a sudden frenzy, George Finch acted. He was not normally a man of violence, but there are occasions when violence and nothing but violence will meet the case. There flashed through his mind a vision of what would be, did he not act with promptitude and despatch. He would be arrested, haled to jail, immured in a dungeon-cell. And Molly would come back and find no one there to welcome her and—what was even worse—no one to marry her on the morrow.

George did not hesitate. Seizing the table-cloth, he swept it off in a hideous whirl of apple-pie, ice water, bread, potatoes, salad and poulet rôti. He raised it on high, like a retarius in the arena, and brought it down in an enveloping mass on the policeman's head. Interested cries arose on all sides. The Purple Chicken was one of those jolly, informal restaurants in which a spirit of clean Bohemian fun is the prevailing note, but even in the Purple Chicken occurrences like this were unusual and calculated to excite remark. Four diners laughed happily, a fifth exclaimed "Hot pazazas!" and a sixth said "Well, would you look at that!"

The New York police are not quitters. They may be down, but they are never out. A clutching hand emerged from the table-cloth and gripped George's shoulder. Another clutching hand was groping about not far from his collar. The fingers of the first hand fastened their hold.

George was not in the frame of mind to be tolerant of this sort of thing. He hit out and smote something solid.

"Casta dimura salve e pura! 'At-a-boy! Soak him again," said Guiseppe, the waiter, convinced now that the man in the table-cloth was one who had not the best interests of the Purple Chicken at heart.

George did so. The table-cloth became still more agitated. The hand fell from his shoulder.

At this moment there was a confused noise of shouting from the inner room, and all the lights went out.

George would not have had it otherwise. Darkness just suited him. He leaped for the fire-escape and climbed up it with as great a celerity as Mrs. Waddington, some little time before, had used in climbing down. He reached the roof and paused for an instant, listening to the tumult below. Then, hearing through the din the sound of somebody climbing, he ran to the sleeping-porch and dived beneath the bed. To seek refuge in his apartment was, he realised, useless. That would be the first place the pursuer would draw.

He lay there, breathless. Footsteps came to the door. The door opened, and the light was switched on.

2

In supposing that the person or persons whom he had heard climbing up the fire-escape were in pursuit of himself, George Finch had made a pardonable error. Various circumstances had combined to render his departure from the Purple Chicken unobserved.

In the first place, just as Officer Garroway was on the point of releasing his head from the folds of the table-cloth, Guiseppe, with a loyalty to his employers which it would be difficult to over-praise, hit him in the eye with the coffee-pot. This had once more confused the policeman's outlook, and by the time he was able to think clearly again the lights went out.

Simultaneously the moon, naturally on George's side and anxious to do all that it could to help, went behind a thick cloud and stayed there. No human eye, therefore, had witnessed the young man's climb for life.

The persons whom he had heard on the fire-escape were a couple who, like himself, had no object in mind other than a swift removal of themselves from the danger-zone. And so far were they from being hostile to George that each, had they seen him, would have urged him on and wished him luck. For one of them was Madame Eulalie and the other no less a man than J. Hamilton Beamish in person.

Hamilton Beamish, escorting his bride-to-be, had arrived at the Purple Chicken a few minutes after George, and, like George, had found the place crowded to its last table. But unlike George, he had not meekly accepted this situation as unalterable. Exerting the full force of his majestic personality, he had caused an extra table to appear, to be set, and to be placed in the fairway at the spot where the indoor restaurant joined the outdoor annex.

It was a position which at first had seemed to have drawbacks. The waiters who passed at frequent intervals were compelled to bump into Mr. Beamish's chair, which is always unpleasant when one is trying to talk to the girl one loves. But the time was to arrive when its drawbacks were lost sight of in the contemplation of its strategic advantages. At the moment when the raid may be said to have formally opened, Hamilton Beamish was helping the girl of his heart to what the management had assured him was champagne. He was interrupted in this kindly action by a large hand placed heavily on his shoulder and a gruff voice which informed him that he was under arrest.

Whether Hamilton Beamish would have pursued George Finch's spirited policy of enveloping the man in the table-cloth and thereafter plugging him in the eye, will never be known: for the necessity for such a procedure was removed by the sudden extinction of the lights: and it was at this point that the advantage of being in that particular spot became apparent.

From the table to the fire-escape was but a few steps: and Hamilton Beamish, seizing his fiancée by the hand, dragged her thither and, placing her foot on the lowest step, gave her an upward boost which left no room for misapprehension. A moment later, Madame Eulalie was hurrying roofwards, with Hamilton Beamish in close attendance.

They stood together at the end of their journey, looking down. The lights of the Purple Chicken were still out, and from the darkness there rose a confused noise indicative of certain persons unknown being rather rough with certain other persons unknown. It seemed to Madame Eulalie that she and her mate were well out of it, and she said so.

"I never realised before what a splendid man you were to have by one in an emergency, Jimmy dear," she said. "Anything slicker than the way you scooped us out of that place I never saw. You must have had lots and lots of practice."

Hamilton Beamish was passing a handkerchief over his dome-like forehead. The night was warm, and the going had been fast.

"I shall never forgive myself," he said, "for exposing you to such an experience."

"Oh, but I enjoyed it."

"Well, all has ended well, thank goodness...."

"But has it?" interrupted Madame Eulalie.

"What do you mean?"

She pointed downwards.

"There's somebody coming up!"

"You're right."

"What shall we do? Go out by the stairs?"

Hamilton Beamish shook his head.

"In all probability they will be guarding the entrance."

"Then what?"

It is at moments like these that the big brain really tells. An ordinary man might have been non-plussed. Certainly, he would have had to waste priceless moments in thought. Hamilton Beamish, with one flash of his giant mind, had the problem neatly solved in four and a quarter seconds.

He took his bride-to-be by the arm and turned her round.

"Look."

"Where?"

"There!"

"Which?"

"That."

"What?" Bewilderment was limned upon the girl's fair face. "I don't understand. What do you want me to specially look at?"

"At what do you want me especially to look," corrected Hamilton Beamish mechanically. He drew her across the roof. "You see that summer-house thing? It is George Finch's open-air sleeping-porch. Go in, shut the door, switch on the light...."

"But...."

"... and remove a portion of your clothes."

"What!"

"And if anybody comes tell him that George Finch rented you the apartment and that you are dressing to go out to dinner. I, meanwhile, will go down to my apartment and will come up in a few minutes to see if you are ready to be taken out to dine." Pardonable pride so overcame Hamilton Beamish that he discarded the English Pure and relapsed into the argot of the proletariat. "Is that a cracker-jack?" he demanded with gleaming eyes. "Is that a wam? Am I the bozo with the big bean or am I not?"

The girl eyed him worshippingly. One of the consolations which we men of intellect have is that, when things come to a crisis, what captures the female heart is brains. Women may permit themselves in times of peace to stray after Sheiks and look languishingly at lizards whose only claim to admiration is that they can do the first three steps of the Charleston: but let matters go wrong; let some sudden peril threaten; and who then is the king pippin, who the main squeeze? The man with the eight and a quarter hat.

"Jimmy," she cried, "it's the goods!"

"Exactly."

"It's a life-saver."

"Precisely. Be quick, then. There is no time to waste."

And so it came about that George Finch, nestling beneath the bed, received a shock which, inured though he should have been to shocks by now, seemed to him to turn every hair on his head instantaneously grey.

3

The first thing that impressed itself on George Finch's consciousness, after his eyes had grown accustomed to the light, was an ankle. It was clad in a stocking of diaphanous silk, and was joined almost immediately by another ankle, similarly clad. For an appreciable time these ankles, though slender, bulked so large in George's world that they may be said to have filled his whole horizon. Then they disappeared.

A moment before this happened, George, shrinking modestly against the wall, would have said that nothing could have pleased him better than to have these ankles disappear. Nevertheless, when they did so, it was all he could do to keep himself from uttering a stricken cry. For the reason they disappeared was that at this moment a dress of some filmy material fell over them, hiding them from view.

It was a dress that had the appearance of having been cut by fairy scissors out of moon-beams and star-dust: and in a shop-window George would have admired it. But seeing it in a shop-window and seeing it bunched like a prismatic foam on the floor of this bedroom were two separate and distinct things: and so warmly did George Finch blush that he felt as if his face must be singeing the carpet. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth. Was this, he asked himself, the end or but a beginning?

"Yes?" said a voice suddenly. And George's head, jerking convulsively, seemed for an instant to have parted company with a loosely-attached neck.

The voice had spoken, he divined as soon as the power of thought returned to him, in response to a sharp and authoritative knock on the door, delivered by some hard instrument which sounded like a policeman's night-stick: and there followed immediately upon this knock sharp and authoritative words.

"Open up there!"

The possessor of the ankles was plainly a girl of spirit.

"I won't," she said. "I'm dressing."

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

"Never mind who I am."

"Well, never mind who I am, then!"

There was a pause. It seemed to George, judging the matter dispassionately, that the ankles had had slightly the better of the exchanges to date.

"What are you doing in there?" asked the male duettist, approaching the thing from another angle.

"I'm dressing, I keep telling you."

There was another pause. And then into this tense debate there entered a third party.

"What's all this?" said the new-comer sharply.

George recognised the voice of his old friend Hamilton Beamish.

"Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish, with an annoyed severity, "what the devil are you doing, hanging about outside this lady's door? Upon my soul," proceeded Mr. Beamish warmly, "I'm beginning to wonder what the duties of the New York constabulary are. Their life seems to consist of an endless leisure, which they employ in roaming about and annoying women. Are you aware that the lady inside there is my fiancée and that she is dressing in order to dine with me at a restaurant?"

Officer Garroway, as always, cringed before the superior intelligence.

"I am extremely sorry, Mr. Beamish."

"So you ought to be. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"There has been some little trouble down below on the premises of the Purple Chicken, and I was violently assaulted by Mr. Finch. I followed him up here on the fire-escape...."

"Mr. Finch? You are drivelling, Garroway. Mr. Finch is on his wedding-trip. He very kindly lent this lady his apartment during his absence."

"But, Mr. Beamish, I was talking to him only just now. We sat at the same table."

"Absurd!"

The dress had disappeared from George's range of vision now, and he heard the door open.

"What does this man want, Jimmy?"

"A doctor, apparently," said Hamilton Beamish. "He says he met George Finch just now."

"But George is miles away."

"Precisely. Are you ready, darling? Then we will go off and have some dinner. What you need, Garroway, is a bromo-seltzer. Come down to my apartment and I will mix you one. Having taken it, I would recommend you to lie down quietly on the sofa and rest awhile. I think you must have been over-exercising your brain, writing that poem of yours. Who blacked your eye?"

"I wish I knew," said Officer Garroway wistfully. "I received the injury during the fracas at the Purple Chicken. There was a table-cloth over my head at the moment, and I was unable to ascertain the identity of my assailant. If, and when, I find him I shall soak him so hard it'll jar his grandchildren."

"A table-cloth?"

"Yes, Mr. Beamish. And while I was endeavouring to extricate myself from its folds, somebody hit me in the eye with a coffee-pot."

"How do you know it was a coffee-pot?"

"I found it lying beside me when I emerged."

"Ah! Well," said Hamilton Beamish, summing up, "I hope that this will be a lesson to you not to go into places like the Purple Chicken. You are lucky to have escaped so lightly. You might have had to eat their cheese. Well, come along, Garroway, and we will see what we can do for you."

4

George stayed where he was. If he had known of a better 'ole, he would have gone to it: but he did not. He would have been the last person to pretend that it was comfortable lying underneath this bed with fluff tickling his nose and a draught playing about his left ear: but there seemed in the circumstances nothing else to do. To a man unable to fly there were only two modes of exit from this roof,—he could climb down the fire-escape, probably into the very arms of the constabulary, or he could try to sneak down the stairs, and most likely run straight into the vengeful Garroway. True, Hamilton Beamish had recommended the policeman after drinking his bromo-seltzer to lie down on the sofa, but who knew if he would follow the advice? Possibly he was even now patrolling the staircase: and George, recalling the man's physique and remembering the bitterness with which he had spoken of his late assailant, decided that the risk was too great to be taken. Numerous as were the defects of his little niche beneath the bed, considered as a spot to spend a happy evening, it was a good place to be for a man in his delicate position. So he dug himself in and tried to while away the time by thinking.

He thought of many things. He thought of his youth in East Gilead, of his manhood in New York. He thought of Molly and how much he loved her; of Mrs. Waddington and what a blot she was on the great scheme of things; of Hamilton Beamish and his off-hand way of dealing with policemen. He thought of Officer Garroway and his night-stick; of Guiseppe and his coffee-pot; of the Reverend Gideon Voules and his white socks. He even thought of Sigsbee H. Waddington.

Now, when a man is so hard put to it for mental occupation that he has to fall back on Sigsbee H. Waddington as a topic of thought, he is nearing the end of his resources: and it was possibly with a kindly appreciation of this fact that Fate now supplied something else to occupy George's mind. Musing idly on Sigsbee H. and wondering how he got that way, George became suddenly aware of approaching footsteps.

He curled himself up into a ball, and his ears stood straight up like a greyhound's. Yes, footsteps. And, what was more, they seemed to be making straight for the sleeping-porch.

A wave of self-pity flooded over George Finch. Why should he be so ill-used? He asked so little of Life,—merely to be allowed to lie quietly under a bed and inhale fluff: and what happened? Nothing but interruptions. Nothing but boots, boots, boots, boots, marching up and down again, as Kipling has so well put it. Ever since he had found his present hiding-place, the world had seemed to become one grey inferno of footsteps. It was wrong and unjust.

The only thing that could possibly be said in extenuation of the present footsteps was that they sounded too light to be those of any New York policeman. They had approached now to the very door. Indeed, they seemed to him to have stopped actually inside the room.

He was right in this conjecture. The switch clicked. Light jumped at him like a living thing. And when he opened his eyes he found himself looking at a pair of ankles clad in stockings of diaphanous silk.

The door closed. And Mrs. Waddington, who had just reached the top of the fire-escape, charged across the roof and, putting her ear to the keyhole, stood listening intently. Things, felt Mrs. Waddington, were beginning to move.

5

For a moment, all that George Finch felt as he glared out at this latest visitation was a weak resentment at the oafishness of Fate in using the same method for his tormenting that it had used so short a while before. Fate, he considered, was behaving childishly, and ought to change its act. This ankle business might have been funny enough once: but, overdone, it became tedious.

Then to indignation there succeeded relief. The remarks of Hamilton Beamish in his conversation with the policeman had made it clear that the possessor of the ankles had been his old friend May Stubbs of East Gilead, Idaho: and, seeing ankles once again, George naturally assumed that they were attached, as before, to Miss Stubbs, and that the reason for her return was that she had come back to fetch something—some powder-puff, for example, or a lipstick—which in the excitement of the recent altercation she had forgotten to take along with her.

This, of course, altered the whole position of affairs. What it amounted to was that, instead of a new enemy he had found an ally. A broad-minded girl like May would understand at once the motives which had led him to hide under the bed and would sympathise with them. He could employ her, it occurred to him, as a scout, to see if the staircase was not clear. In short, this latest interruption of his reverie, so far from being a disaster, was the very best thing that could have happened.

Sneezing heartily, for he had got a piece of fluff up his nose, George rolled out from under the bed: and, scrambling to his feet with a jolly laugh, found himself gazing into the bulging eyes of a complete stranger.

That, at least, was how the girl impressed him in the first instant of their meeting. But gradually, as he stared at her, there crept into his mind the belief that somewhere and at some time he had seen her before. But where? And when?

The girl continued to gape at him. She was small and pretty, with vivid black eyes and a mouth which, if it had not been hanging open at the moment like that of a fish, would have been remarkably attractive. Silence reigned in the sleeping-porch: and Mrs. Waddington, straining her ears outside, was beginning to think that George could not be in this lair and that a further vigil was before her, when suddenly voices began to speak. What they were saying, she was unable to hear, for the door was stoutly built: but beyond a doubt one of them was George's. Mrs. Waddington crept away, well content. Her suspicions had been confirmed, and now it remained only to decide what it was best to do about it. She moved into the shadow of the water-tank, and there remained for a space in deep thought.

Inside the sleeping-porch, the girl, her eyes fixed on George, had begun to shrink back. At about the third shrink she bumped into the wall, and the shock seemed to restore her power of speech.

"What are you doing in my bedroom?" she cried.

The question had the effect of substituting for the embarrassment which had been gripping George a sudden bubbling fury. This, he felt, was too much. Circumstances had conspired that night to turn this sleeping-porch into a sort of meeting-place of the nations, but he was darned if he was going to have his visitors looking on the room as their own.

"What do you mean, your bedroom?" he demanded hotly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mrs. Mullett."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Frederick Mullett."

Mrs. Waddington had formed her plan of action. What she needed, she perceived, was a witness to come with her to this den of evil and add his testimony in support of hers. If only Lord Hunstanton had been present, as he should have been, she would have needed to look no further. But Lord Hunstanton was somewhere out in the great city, filling his ignoble tummy with food. Whom, then, could she enroll as a deputy? The question answered itself. Ferris was the man. He was ready to hand and could be fetched without delay.

Mrs. Waddington made for the stairs.

"Mrs. Mullett?" said George. "What do you mean? Mullett's not married."

"Yes, he is. We were married this morning."

"Where is he?"

"I left him down below, finishing a cigar. He said we'd be all alone up here, nesting like two little birds in a tree top."

George laughed a brassy, sardonic laugh.

"If Mullett thought anyone could ever be alone for five minutes up here, he's an optimist. And what right has Mullett to go nesting like a little bird in my apartment?"

"Is this your apartment?"

"Yes, it is."

"Oh! Oh!"

"Stop it! Don't make that noise. There are policemen about."

"Policemen!"

"Yes."

Tears suddenly filled the eyes that looked into his. Two small hands clasped themselves in a passionate gesture of appeal.

"Don't turn me over to the bulls, mister! I only did it for ma's sake. If you was out of work and starvin' and you had to sit and watch your poor old ma bendin' over the wash-tub...."

"I haven't got a poor old ma," said George curtly. "And what on earth do you think you're talking about?"

He stopped suddenly, speech wiped from his lips by a stunning discovery. The girl had unclasped her hands, and now she flung them out before her: and the gesture was all that George's memory needed to spur it to the highest efficiency. For unconsciously Fanny Mullett had assumed the exact attitude which had lent such dramatic force to her entrance into the dining-room of Mrs. Waddington's house at Hempstead earlier in the day. The moment he saw those out-stretched arms, George remembered where he had met this girl before: and, forgetting everything else, forgetting that he was trapped on a roof with a justly exasperated policeman guarding the only convenient exit, he uttered a short, sharp bark of exultation.

"You!" he cried. "Give me that necklace."

"What necklace?"

"The one you stole at Hempstead this afternoon."

The girl drew herself up haughtily.

"Do you dare to say I stole a necklace?"

"Yes, I do."

"Oh? And do you know what I'll do if you bring a charge like that against me! I'll...."

She broke off. A discreet tap had sounded on the door.

"Honey!"

Fanny looked at George. George looked at Fanny.

"My husband!" whispered Fanny.

George was in no mood to be intimidated by a mere Mullett. He strode to the door.

"Honey!"

George flung the door open.

"Honey!"

"Well, Mullett?"

The valet fell back a pace, his eyes widening. He passed the tip of his tongue over his lips.

"A wasp in the beehive!" cried Mullett.

"Don't be an idiot," said George.

Mullett was gazing at him in the manner of one stricken to the core.

"Isn't your own bridal-trip enough for you, Mr. Finch," he said reproachfully, "that you've got to come butting in on mine?"

"Don't be a fool. My wedding was temporarily postponed."

"I see. And misery loves company, so you start in breaking up my home."

"Nothing of the kind."

"If I had known that you were on the premises, Mr. Finch," said Mullett with dignity, "I would not have taken the liberty of making use of your domicile. Come, Fanny, we will go to a hotel."

"Will you?" said George unpleasantly. "Let me tell you there's a little matter to be settled before you start going to any hotel. Perhaps you are not aware that your wife is in possession of a valuable necklace belonging to the lady who, if it hadn't been for her, would now be Mrs. George Finch?"

Mullett clapped a hand to his forehead.

"A necklace!"

"It's a lie," cried his bride.

Mullett shook his head sadly. He was putting two and two together.

"When did this occur, Mr. Finch?"

"This afternoon, down at Hempstead."

"Don't you listen to him, Freddy. He's dippy."

"What precisely happened, Mr. Finch?"

"This woman suddenly burst into the room where everybody was and pretended that I had made love to her and deserted her. Then she fell on the table where the wedding-presents were and pretended to faint. And then she dashed out, and some time afterwards it was discovered that the necklace was gone. And don't," he added, turning to the accused, "say that you only did it for your poor old ma's sake, because I've had a lot to put up with to-day, and that will be just too much."

Mr. Mullett clicked his tongue with a sort of sorrowful pride. Girls will be girls, Frederick Mullett seemed to say, but how few girls could be as clever as his little wife.

"Give Mr. Finch his necklace, pettie," he said mildly.

"I haven't got any necklace."

"Give it to him, dearie, just like Freddie says, or there'll only be unpleasantness."

"Unpleasantness," said George, breathing hard, "is right!"

"It was a beautiful bit of work, honey, and there isn't another girl in New York that could have thought it out, let alone gone and got away with it. Even Mr. Finch will admit it was a beautiful bit of work."

"If you want Mr. Finch's opinion ..." began George heatedly.

"But we've done with all that sort of thing now, haven't we, pettie? Give him his necklace, honey."

Mrs. Mullett's black eyes snapped. She twisted her pretty fingers irresolutely.

"Take your old necklace," she said.

George caught it as it fell.

"Thanks," he said, and put it in his pocket.

"And now, Mr. Finch," said Mullett suavely, "I think we will say good night. My little girl here has had a tiring day and ought to be turning in."

George hurried across the roof to his apartment. Whatever the risk of leaving the safety of the sleeping-porch, it must be ignored. It was imperative that he telephone to Molly and inform her of what had happened.

He was pulling the French window open when he heard his name called: and perceived Mullett hurrying towards him from the door that led to the stairs.

"Just one moment, Mr. Finch."

"What is it? I have a most important telephone-call to make."

"I thought you would be glad to have this, sir."

With something of the air of a conjurer who, to amuse the children, produces two rabbits and the grand old flag from inside a borrowed top-hat, Mullett unclasped his fingers.

"Your necklace, sir."

George's hand flew to his pocket and came away empty.

"Good heavens! How...?"

"My little girl," explained Mullett with a proud and tender look in his eyes. "She snitched it off you, sir, as we were going out. I was able, however, to persuade her to give it up again. I reminded her that we had put all that sort of thing behind us now. I asked her how she could expect to be happy on our duck-farm if she had a thing like that on her mind, and she saw it almost at once. She's a very reasonable girl, sir, when tactfully approached by the voice of love."

George drew a deep breath. He replaced the necklace in his inside breast-pocket, buttoned his coat and drew away a step or two.

"Are you going to let that woman loose on a duck-farm, Mullett?"

"Yes, sir. We are taking a little place in the neighbourhood of Speonk."

"She'll have the tail-feathers off every bird on the premises before the end of the first week."

Mullett bowed his appreciation of the compliment.

"And they wouldn't know they'd lost them, sir," he agreed. "There's never been anyone in the profession fit to be reckoned in the same class with my little girl. But all that sort of thing is over now, sir. She is definitely retiring from business,—except for an occasional visit to the department stores during bargain-sales. A girl must have her bit of finery. Good night, sir."

"Good night," said George.

He took out the necklace, examined it carefully, replaced it in his pocket, buttoned his coat once more, and went into the apartment to telephone to Molly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

1

Mrs. Waddington had once read a story in which a series of emotions including fear, horror, amazement, consternation and a sickly dismay were described as "chasing one another" across the face of a dastardly person at the moment of realisation that his villainy had been discovered past concealment: and it was with the expectation of watching a similar parade on the moon-like countenance of Ferris, the butler, that she pressed the bell outside the door of the apartment of Mr. Lancelot Biffen on the ninth floor.

She was disappointed. Ferris, as he appeared in the doorway in answer to her ring, lacked a little of his customary portentous dignity, but that was only because we authors, after a gruelling bout at the desk, are always apt to look a shade frazzled. The butler's hair was disordered where he had plucked at it in the agony of composition, and there was more ink on the tip of his nose than would have been there on a more formal occasion: but otherwise he was in pretty good shape, and he did not even start on perceiving the identity of his visitor.

"Mr. Biffen is not at home, madam," said Ferris equably.

"I do not wish to see Mr. Biffen." Mrs. Waddington swelled with justifiable wrath. "Ferris," she said, "I know all!"

"Indeed, madam?"

"You have no sick relative," proceeded Mrs. Waddington, though her tone suggested the opinion that anyone related to him had good reason to be sick. "You are here because you are writing a scurrilous report of what happened this afternoon at my house for a gutter rag called 'Town Gossip.'"

"With which is incorporated 'Broadway Whispers' and 'Times Square Tattle,'" murmured the butler, absently.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Ferris raised his eyebrows.

"I venture to take issue with you, madam. The profession of journalism is an honourable one. Many very estimable men have written for the Press. Horace Greeley," said Ferris, specifying. "Delane...."

"Bah!"

"Madam?"

"But we will go into that later."

"Very good, madam."

"Meanwhile, I wish you to accompany me to the roof...."

"I fear I must respectfully decline, madam. I have not climbed since I was a small lad."

"You can walk up a flight of stairs, can't you?"

"Oh, stairs? Decidedly, madam. I will be at your disposal in a few moments."

"I wish you to accompany me now."

The butler shook his head.

"If I might excuse myself, madam. I am engaged on the concluding passages of the article to which you alluded just now, and I am anxious to complete it before Mr. Biffen's return."

Mrs. Waddington caused the eye before which Sigsbee H. had so often curled up and crackled like a burnt feather to blaze imperiously upon the butler. He met it with the easy aplomb of one who in his time has looked at dukes and made them feel that their trousers were bagging at the knees.