y prompted by a desire to serve his
companion. And yet, simple as the suggestion seemed, it was the very last
thing with which Steel could comply.

The novelist turned the matter over rapidly in his mind. His quick
perceptions flashed along the whole logical line instantaneously. He was
like a man who suddenly sees a midnight landscape by the glare of a
dazzling flash of lightning.

"I am sorry," he said, slowly, "very sorry, to disappoint you. Were our
situations reversed, I should take up your position exactly. But it so
happens that I cannot, dare not, tell you where I got those notes from.
So far as I am concerned they came honestly into my hands in payment for
special services rendered. It was part of my contract that I should
reveal the secret to nobody. If I told you the story you would decline to
believe it; you would say that it was a brilliant effort of a novelist's
imagination to get out of a dangerous position."

"I don't know that I should," Marley replied. "I have long since ceased
to wonder at anything that happens in or connected with Brighton."

"All the same I can't tell you, Marley," Steel said, as he rose. "My lips
are absolutely sealed. The point is: what are you going to do?"

"For the present, nothing," Marley replied. "So long as the man in the
hospital remains unconscious I can do no more than pursue what
Beaconsfield called 'a policy of masterly inactivity.' I have told you a
good deal more than I had any right to do, but I did so in the hope that
you could assist me. Perhaps in a day or two you will think better of it.
Meanwhile--"

"Meanwhile I am in a tight place. Yes, I see that perfectly well. It is
just possible that I may scheme some way out of the difficulty, and if so
I shall be only too pleased to let you know. Good-night, Marley, and many
thanks to you."

But with all his ingenuity and fertility of imagination David could see
no way out of the trouble. He sat up far into the night scheming; there
was no flavour in his tobacco; his pictures and flowers, his silver and
china, jarred upon him. He wished with all his heart now that he had let
everything go. It need only have been a temporary matter, and there were
other Cellini tankards, and intaglios, and line engravings in the world
for the man with money in his purse.

He could see no way out of it at all. Was it not possible that the whole
thing had been deliberately planned so as to land him and his brains into
the hands of