elf easy in
the doorway, where his glance could command the entrance she had used.
He mechanically took out a cigar-case, but after looking at the cigars
for a moment put them away again with a sigh. Smoking would not soothe
him. He had passed beyond the artificial.

His waiting suddenly ended. It seemed hardly three minutes after
Jasmine's entrance when she appeared in the doorway again, and, after a
hasty glance up and down the street, sped away as swiftly as she could,
and, at the corner, turned up sharply towards the Strand. Her movements
had been agitated, and, as she hurried on, she thrust her head down
into her muff as a woman would who faced a blinding rain.

The interview had been indeed short. Perhaps Fellowes had already gone
abroad. He would soon find out.

He mounted the deserted staircase quickly and knocked at Fellowes'
door. There was no reply. There was a light, however, and he knocked
again. Still there was no answer. He tried the handle of the door. It
turned, the door gave, and he entered. There was no sound. He knocked
at an inner door. There was no reply, yet a light showed in the room.
He turned the handle. Entering the room, he stood still and looked
round. It seemed empty, but there were signs of packing, of things
gathered together hastily.

Then, with a strange sudden sense of a presence in the room, he looked
round again. There in a far corner of the large room was a couch, and
on it lay a figure--Adrian Fellowes, straight and still--and sleeping.

Stafford went over. "Fellowes," he said, sharply.

There was no reply. He leaned over and touched a shoulder. "Fellowes!"
he exclaimed again, but something in the touch made him look closely at
the face half turned to the wall. Then he knew.

Adrian Fellowes was dead.

Horror came upon Stafford, but no cry escaped him. He stooped once more
and closely looked at the body, but without touching it. There was no
sign of violence, no blood, no disfigurement, no distortion, only a
look of sleep--a pale, motionless sleep.

But the body was warm yet. He realized that as his hand had touched the
shoulder. The man could only have been dead a little while.

Only a little while: and in that little while Jasmine had left the
house with agitated footsteps.

"He did not die by his own hand," Stafford said aloud.

He rang the bell loudly. No one answered. He rang and rang again, and
then a lazy porter came.

CHAPTER XXIII

"MORE WAS LOST AT