ng-table."

"You've got the tenner with you?" the young man asked anxiously.

Francis produced a well-filled pocketbook. His nephew led the way to
a writing-table, lit a cigarette which he stuck into the corner of his
mouth, and in painstaking fashion wrote the few lines which Francis
dictated. The ten pounds changed hands.

"Have one with me for luck?" the young man invited brightly. "No?
Perhaps you're right," he added, in valedictory fashion. "You'd better
keep your head clear for Daisy!"

CHAPTER XI

Miss Daisy Hyslop received Francis that afternoon, in the sitting-room
of her little suite at the Milan. Her welcoming smile was plaintive and
a little subdued, her manner undeniably gracious. She was dressed in
black, a wonderful background for her really gorgeous hair, and her
deportment indicated a recent loss.

"How nice of you to come and see me," she murmured, with a lingering
touch of the fingers. "Do take that easy-chair, please, and sit down and
talk to me. Your roses were beautiful, but whatever made you send them
to me?"

"Impulse," he answered.

She laughed softly.

"Then please yield to such impulses as often as you feel them," she
begged. "I adore flowers. Just now, too," she added, with a little sigh,
"anything is welcome which helps to keep my mind off my own affairs."

"It was very good of you to let me come," he declared. "I can quite
understand that you don't feel like seeing many people just now."

Francis' manner, although deferential and courteous, had nevertheless
some quality of aloofness in it to which she was unused and which she
was quick to recognise. The smile, faded from her face. She seemed
suddenly not quite so young.

"Haven't I seen you before somewhere quite lately?" she asked, a little
sharply.

"You saw me at Soto's, the night that Victor Bidlake was murdered," he
reminded her. "I stood quite close to you both while you were waiting
for your taxi."

The animation evoked by this call from a presumably new admirer,
suddenly left her. She became nervous and constrained. She glanced again
at his card.

"Don't tell me," she begged, "that you have come to ask me any questions
about that night! I simply could not bear it. The police have been here
twice, and I had nothing to tell them, absolutely nothing."

"Quite right," he assented soothingly. "Police have such a clumsy way of
expecting valuable information for nothing. I'm always glad to hear of
their being