oment, and I thought
that Henry was going to collapse altogether. I wonder what they are
doing now."

"Ringing up Scotland Yard, or on their way there, I should think,"
Wingate replied.

She shivered for a moment.

"You are not afraid of the police, are you?" she asked.

"I don't think we need be," he replied cheerfully, "unless we have bad
luck. Of course, I have had professional advice as to all the details.
The thing has been thought out step by step, almost scientifically. Slate
is a marvellous fellow, and I think he has gathered up every loose end.
Makes one realise how easy crime would be if one went into it unflurried
and with a clear conscience.--Tell me, by the by, was it by accident that
you opened that cable this morning?"

"Not entirely," she confessed. "I was in the library this morning talking
to Grant, my new butler."

"Satisfactory, I trust?" Wingate murmured.

"A paragon," she replied, with a little gleam in her eyes. "Well, on
Henry's desk was the rough draft of a cable, torn into pieces, and on one
of them, larger than the rest, I couldn't help seeing your name. It
looked as though Henry had been sending a cable in which you were somehow
concerned. While I was there, the reply came, so I decided to open and
decode it. Directly I realised what it was about, I brought it straight
to the office, hoping to catch you there."

"You are a most amazing woman," he declared.

She leaned a little towards him.

"And you are a most likable man," she murmured.

Wingate's luncheon party had been arranged for some days, and was being
given, in fact, at the suggestion of Lady Amesbury herself.

"I am a perfectly shameless person," she declared, as she took her seat
by Wingate's side at the round table in the middle of the restaurant. "I
invited myself to this party. I always do. The last three times our dear
host has been over to England, as soon as I have enquired after his
health and his business, and whether the right woman has turned up yet, I
ask him when he's going to take me to lunch at the Milan. I do love
lunching in a restaurant," she confided to Kendrick, who sat at her other
side, "and nearly all my friends prefer their stodgy dining rooms."

"Have you heard the news, aunt?" Sarah asked across the table.

"About that silly little Mrs. Liddiard Green, do you mean, and Jack
Fulton? I hear they were seen in Paris together last week."

"Pooh! Who cares about Mrs. Liddiard Green!" Sarah scoffe