Deaves?"

"He's in the library, I believe."

"I'll go up there."

As they got further into the house shrill cries, muffled by several
doors, reached Evan's ears.

"What's that?" he asked startled.

"Mrs. Deaves, sir," said the man demurely.

"What's the matter with her?"

"Hysterics, I believe, sir."

"Ah!" said Evan.

He found Simeon Deaves in the library. The old man greeted him with
the unvarying sly grin. There was something inhuman about that grin.
Nothing could move the old man much--save the threatened loss of money.

"So you got here," he said with cheerful indifference. "George told me
they carried you off. How did you get clear?"

Evan told him briefly what had happened--keeping certain details to
himself.

"Pooh! Sounds like a melodrama!" said the old man. "Don't believe a
word of it!"

Evan, well-used to his ways by now, simply shrugged.

"There's the devil to pay here this morning," the old man went on,
grinning like a mischievous boy at others' misfortunes. "Maud got a
letter from them, and went into hysterics." He pointed up-stairs and
laughed his noiseless laugh. "Hear her? George is up there slapping
her hands and begging her to come to, and he'll pay the money. That's
no way to treat hysterics. George is a fool."

Evan heard a heavy step on the stairs. "Here he comes," he said.

The old man notwithstanding his expressed contempt for his son was not
anxious to face him. "Well, well, I've got to go down-stairs," he
said, shuffling rapidly out by the small door.

George Deaves entered. Evan could not but feel sorry for him, absurd
figure though he was. He looked as if his backbone had lost its pith;
he sagged. His necktie was awry, and his hair hung dankly over his
forehead, his mouth hung open; he looked like a man nauseated with
perplexity.

"So you're here," he said to Evan, not any more concerned about his
fate than his father had been.

Evan repeated his brief tale. George Deaves made no comment; scarcely
seemed to listen to it in fact.

Evan said: "I suppose the police are looking for me?"

Deaves nodded.

"Then I had better report to them?"

This partly roused Deaves from his apathy. "Leave that to me," he
said. "I will see that they are told what is necessary. I don't want
any more fuss."

"Mr. Simeon Deaves tells me another letter has been received this
morning."

"I can't discuss that with you," said George Deaves stiffly.

Evan's eyebrow