use it when he found himself facing Sir Harry
Brace.

'Oh, it's you!' said Captain Pendle, lamely. 'Well, with your
experience, you should know better than to pull up a fellow unawares.'

'You talk in riddles, my good George,' said Harry, staring, as well he
might, at this not very coherent speech.

'I have just left Miss Arden,' explained George, quite unabashed, for he
did not care if the whole world knew of his love.

'Oh, I beg your pardon, I understand,' replied Brace, with a broad
smile; 'but you must excuse me, old chap. I am--I am out of practice
lately, you see. "My love she is in Germanee," as the old song says. I
wish to speak with you.'

'All right. Where shall we go?'

'To the club. I must see you privately.'

The Beorminster Club was just a short distance down the street, so
George followed Harry into its hospitable portals and finally accepted a
comfortable chair in the smoking-room, which, luckily for the purpose of
Brace, was empty at that hour. The two young men each ordered a cool
hock-and-soda and lighted two very excellent cigarettes which came out
of the pocket of extravagant George. Then they began to talk, and Harry
opened the conversation with a question.

'George,' he said, with a serious look on his usually merry face, 'were
you on Southberry Heath on the night that poor devil was murdered?'

'Oh, yes,' replied Captain Pendle, with some wonder at the question. 'I
rode over to the gipsy camp to buy a particular ring from Mother Jael.'

'For Miss Arden, I suppose?'

'Yes; I wished for a necromantic symbol of our engagement.'

'Did you hear or see anything of the murder?'

'Good Lord, no!' cried the startled George, sitting up straight. 'I
should have been at the inquest had I seen the act, or even heard the
shot.'

'Did you carry a pistol with you on that night?'

'As I wasn't riding through Central Africa, I did not. What is the
meaning of these mysterious questions?'

Brace answered this query by slipping his hand into his breast-pocket
and producing therefrom a neat little pistol, toy-like, but deadly
enough in the hand of a good marksman. 'Is this yours?' he asked,
holding it out for Captain Pendle's inspection.

'Certainly it is,' said George, handling the weapon; 'here are my
initials on the butt. Where did you get this?'

'It was found by Mother Jael near the spot where Jentham was murdered.'

Captain Pendle clapped down the pistol on the table with an ejaculation