her. There were
four or five people standing outside the door of Hunterleys' apartment.
She appealed to them.

"Let me go in at once," she ordered. "I am Lady Hunterleys."

"The door is locked," one of the men declared.

"Let me go in," she insisted.

She pushed them on one side and hammered at the door. They could hear
voices inside. In a moment it was opened. It was the Commissioner of the
Police who stood there--tall, severe, official.

"Madame?" he exclaimed.

"I am his wife!" she cried. "Let me in--let me in at once!"

She forced her way into the room. Something was lying on the bed,
covered with a sheet. She looked at it and shrieked.

"Madame," the Commissioner begged, "pray compose yourself. A tragedy has
happened in this room--but we are not sure. Can you be brave, madame?"

"I can," she answered. "Of what are you not sure?"

The Commissioner turned down the sheet a few inches. A man's face was
visible, a ghastly sight. She looked at it and shrieked hysterically.

"Is that your husband, madame?" the Commissioner asked quickly.

"Thank God, no!" she cried. "You are sure this is the man?" she went on,
her voice shaking with fierce excitement. "There is no one else--hurt?
No one else stabbed? This is the man they told me was my husband?"

"He was found there, sitting at your husband's table, madame," the
Commissioner of Police assured her. "There is no one else."

She suddenly began to cry.

"It isn't Henry!" she sobbed, groping her way from the room. "Take me
downstairs, please, some one."

CHAPTER XXIII

TROUBLE BREWING

The maitre d'hotel had presented his bill. The little luncheon party was
almost over.

"So I take leave," Hunterleys remarked, as he sat down his empty liqueur
glass, "of one of my responsibilities in life."

"I think I'd like to remain a sort of half ward, please," Felicia
objected, "in case David doesn't treat me properly."

"If he doesn't," Hunterleys declared, "he will have me to answer to.
Seriously, I think you young people are very wise and very foolish and
very much to be envied. What does Sidney say about it?"

Felicia made a little grimace. She glanced around but the tables near
them were unoccupied.

"Sidney is much too engrossed in his mysterious work to concern himself
very much about anything," she replied. "Do you know that he has been
out all night two nights this week already, and he is making no end of
preparations for to-day?"

Hunterley