t you--run away from home
or something?"

"I have come to live in London," he said, evasively. "I have always
wanted to."

She shook her head.

"You'd better have stopped away. You are young, and you look good.
You'll be neither long. Ugh! Here we are."

He stepped aside and let her pass in first through the swing doors. She
led the way into what was called a private bar. They sat in cushioned
chairs, and Douglas gave his order mechanically. A few feet away, with
only a slim partition between them, was the general room full of men.
The tinkle of glasses and hum of conversation grew louder and louder.
It was a cold evening and a busy time. Douglas sipped his wine in
silence. The girl opposite was humming a tune and beating time with her
foot. She was watching him covertly but not unkindly.

"He'll be caught right enough. They even know 'is name. Serve 'im
right, too, for it was an 'orrible murder . . . Douglas Guest."

Douglas started suddenly in his chair, a cry upon his lips, his eyes
almost starting from his head. The girl's gloved hand was pressed
against his mouth and the cry was stifled. Afterwards he remembered all
his life the smell of patchouli or some cheap scent which assailed him
at her near presence.

"Hush!" she whispered. "Don't be a silly fool."

He sat back in his chair, pale to the lips, trembling in every limb.
The mirrors, the rows of glasses, the cushioned seats seemed flying
round, there was a buzzing in his ears. Again she rose and poured wine
down his throat.

"Sit still," she said, hoarsely. "You'll be all right in a moment."

The whole story, in disconnected patches, came floating in to them. He
heard it, gripping all the while the sides of his chair, struggling with
a deadly faintness. She too listened, watching him carefully all the
time lest he should call out. In their corner they were scarcely to be
seen even from the bar, and she had moved her seat a little so as to
wholly shield him. It sounded bad enough. An old man over sixty, a
farmer living in a northern village, had been found in his bedroom dead.
By his side was a rifled cash box. There had been the best part of a
hundred pounds there, all of which was gone. There were no signs of any
one having broken in, but a young man named Douglas Guest, an inmate of
the house and a distant relative, was missing. The thing was clear
enough.

Another voice chimed in--its owner possessed a later edition. Only that
night there had b