prefers to court arrest
for complicity in a murder rather than tell what he knows!"

"It's unbelievable."

"It would be, Innes, if Nicol Brinn's fears were personal."

Paul Harley checked his steps in front of the watchful secretary and
gazed keenly into his eyes.

"Death has no terrors for Nicol Brinn," he said slowly. "All his life
he has toyed with danger. He admitted to me that during the past seven
years he had courted death. Isn't it plain enough, Innes? If ever a man
possessed all that the world had to offer, Nicol Brinn is that man. In
such a case and in such circumstances what do we look for?"

Innes shook his head.

"We look for the woman!" snapped Paul Harley.

There came a rap at the door and Miss Smith, the typist, entered. "Miss
Phil Abingdon and Doctor McMurdoch," she said.

"Good heavens!" muttered Harley. "So soon? Why, she can only just--" He
checked himself. "Show them in, Miss Smith," he directed.

As the typist went out, followed by Innes, Paul Harley found himself
thinking of the photograph in Sir Charles Abingdon's library and waiting
with an almost feverish expectancy for the appearance of the original.

Almost immediately Phil Abingdon came in, accompanied by the sepulchral
Doctor McMurdoch. And Harley found himself wondering whether her eyes
were really violet-coloured or whether intense emotion heroically
repressed had temporarily lent them that appearance.

Surprise was the predominant quality of his first impression. Sir
Charles Abingdon's daughter was so exceedingly vital--petite and
slender, yet instinct with force. The seeming repose of the photograph
was misleading. That her glance could be naive he realized--as it could
also be gay--and now her eyes were sad with a sadness so deep as to
dispel the impression of lightness created by her dainty form, her
alluring, mobile lips, and the fascinating, wavy, red-brown hair.

She did not wear mourning. He recalled that there had been no time to
procure it. She was exquisitely and fashionably dressed, and even the
pallor of grief could not rob her cheeks of the bloom born of Devon
sunshine. He had expected her to be pretty. He was surprised to find her
lovely.

Doctor McMurdoch stood silent in the doorway, saying nothing by way
of introduction. But nothing was necessary. Phil Abingdon came forward
quite naturally--and quite naturally Paul Harley discovered her little
gloved hand to lie clasped between both his own. It was more li