ity its quota of shady characters, who congregate
wherever money and wits happen to fly away from their owners. Lord
Arthur Skelmerton, a very well-known figure in London society and in
racing circles, had rented one of the fine houses which overlook the
racecourse. He had entered Peppercorn, by St. Armand--Notre Dame, for
the Great Ebor Handicap. Peppercorn was the winner of the Newmarket, and
his chances for the Ebor were considered a practical certainty.

"If you have ever been to York you will have noticed the fine houses
which have their drive and front entrances in the road called 'The
Mount.' and the gardens of which extend as far as the racecourse,
commanding a lovely view over the entire track. It was one of these
houses, called 'The Elms,' which Lord Arthur Skelmerton had rented for
the summer.

"Lady Arthur came down some little time before the racing week with her
servants--she had no children; but she had many relatives and friends in
York, since she was the daughter of old Sir John Etty, the cocoa
manufacturer, a rigid Quaker, who, it was generally said, kept the
tightest possible hold on his own purse-strings and looked with marked
disfavour upon his aristocratic son-in-law's fondness for gaming tables
and betting books.

"As a matter of fact, Maud Etty had married the handsome young
lieutenant in the Hussars, quite against her father's wishes. But she
was an only child, and after a good deal of demur and grumbling, Sir
John, who idolized his daughter, gave way to her whim, and a reluctant
consent to the marriage was wrung from him.

"But, as a Yorkshireman, he was far too shrewd a man of the world not to
know that love played but a very small part in persuading a Duke's son
to marry the daughter of a cocoa manufacturer, and as long as he lived
he determined that since his daughter was being wed because of her
wealth, that wealth should at least secure her own happiness. He refused
to give Lady Arthur any capital, which, in spite of the most carefully
worded settlements, would inevitably, sooner or later, have found its
way into the pockets of Lord Arthur's racing friends. But he made his
daughter a very handsome allowance, amounting to over L3000 a year,
which enabled her to keep up an establishment befitting her new rank.

"A great many of these facts, intimate enough as they are, leaked out,
you see, during that period of intense excitement which followed the
murder of Charles Lavender, and when t