t by rather heavy masculine
footsteps approaching the door of the drawing-room. Miss Ingate grew
instantly serious. Audrey and Jane looked at each other, and Jane Foley
went quickly but calmly to the door and opened it.

"Oh! It's Mr. Aguilar--returned!" she said, quietly. "Is anything the
matter, Mr. Aguilar?"

Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room.

"Good afternoon, Aguilar," Audrey greeted him.

"'Noon, madam," he responded, exactly as though he had been expecting to
find the mistress there. "It's like this. I've just seen Inspector Keeble
and that there detective as was here afore--_you_ know, madam" (nodding to
Audrey) "and I fancy they're a-coming this way, so I thought I'd better cut
back and warn ye. I don't think they saw me. I was too quick for 'em. Was
the bread-and-butter all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye."

Miss Ingate had risen.

"I ought to go home," she said. "I feel sure it would be wiser for me to go
home. I never could talk to detectives."

Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers on the table, and
put it back, all unwashed, into the china cupboard.

"Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they come," she said, with a
bright, happy smile to Audrey. "Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I'm ever so
much obliged to you. Now, I'll go upstairs and Aguilar shall lock me in the
tank-room and push the key under the door. We are causing you a lot of
trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but you won't mind. It might have been so much
worse." She laughed as she went.

"And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what am I to say to them?"
asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley and Aguilar had departed.

"If they're very curious, tell them you've been here to have tea with me
and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter," Audrey replied. "The detective
will be interested to see me. He chased me all the way to London not long
since. Au revoir, Winnie."

"Dear friend," said Madame Piriac, with admirable though false calm. "Would
it not be more prudent to fly back at once to the yacht--if in truth this
is the same police agent of whom you recounted to me with such drollness
the exploits? It is not that I am afraid----"

"Nor I," said Audrey. "There is no danger except to Jane Foley."

"Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless I regret ..."

"Well, darling," Audrey exclaimed. "You would insist on my coming!"

The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one glove and her
purse,