le derisively. Then, suddenly aware of
some lack of sympathy between himself and his friend, he broke off and
glanced curiously at the latter.

"You're not taking him seriously, are you?" he enquired.

Francis nodded.

"Certainly I am," he confessed.

"You don't believe that he was getting at us?"

"Not for a moment."

"You believe that something is going to happen here in this place, or
quite close?"

"I am convinced of it," was the calm reply.

Wilmore was silent. For a moment he was troubled with his old fears as
to his friend's condition. A glance, however, at Francis' set face and
equable, watchful air, reassured him.

"We must see the thing through, of course, then," he assented. "Let us
see if we can spot the actors in the coming drama."

CHAPTER IX

It happened that the two men, waiting in the vestibule of the restaurant
for Francis' car to crawl up to the entrance through the fog which
had unexpectedly rolled up, heard the slight altercation which was
afterwards referred to as preceding the tragedy. The two young people
concerned were standing only a few feet away, the girl pretty, a little
peevish, an ordinary type; her companion, whose boyish features were
marred with dissipation, a very passable example of the young man about
town going a little beyond his tether.

"It's no good standing here, Victor!" the girl exclaimed, frowning. "The
commissionaire's been gone ages already, and there are two others before
us for taxis."

"We can't walk," her escort replied gloomily. "It's a foul night.
Nothing to do but wait, what? Let's go back and have another drink."

The girl stamped her satin-shod foot impatiently.

"Don't be silly," she expostulated. "You know I promised Clara we'd be
there early."

"All very well," the young man grumbled, "but what can we do? We shall
have to wait our turn."

"Why can't you slip out and look for a taxi yourself?" she suggested.
"Do, Victor," she added, squeezing his arm. "You're so clever at picking
them up."

He made a little grimace, but lit a cigarette and turned up his coat
collar.

"I'll do my best," he promised. "Don't go on without me."

"Try up towards Charing Cross Road, not the other way," she advised
earnestly.

"Right-oh!" he replied, which illuminative form of assent, a word spoken
as he plunged unwillingly into the thick obscurity on the other side of
the revolving doors, was probably the last he ever uttered on earth.

Left alon