of villas on
the other side of the road, and a few shops lower down. They stood
there, having carefully chosen a place remote from the gas lamps,
until at last a taxicab came crawling by. They hailed it, and Isaac
engaged the driver's attention apparently with some complicated
direction, while the others lifted their burden into the taxicab.
One man got in with him. Isaac and the other, with ordinary
good-nights, strode away. The taxicab turned around and headed
westward. Arnold, with a long breath, watched them all disappear.
Then he, too, turned homewards.

It was almost midnight when Arnold was shown once more into the
presence of Sabatini. Sabatini, in a black velvet smoking jacket,
was lying upon a sofa in his library, with a recently published
edition _de luxe_ of Alfred de Musset's poems upon his knee. He
looked up with some surprise at Arnold's entrance.

"Why, it is my strenuous young friend again!" he declared. "Have you
brought me a message from Fenella?"

Arnold shook his head.

"She does not know that I have come."

"You have brought me some news on your own account, then?"

"I have brought you some news," Arnold admitted.

Sabatini looked at him critically.

"You look terrified," he remarked. "What have you been doing? Help
yourself to a drink. You'll find everything on the sideboard there."

Arnold laid down his hat and mixed himself a whiskey and soda. He
drank it off before he spoke.

"Count Sabatini," he said, turning round, "I suppose you are used to
all this excitement. A man's life or death is little to you. I have
never seen a dead man before to-night. It has upset me."

"Naturally, naturally," Sabatini said, tolerantly. "I remember the
first man I killed--it was in a fair fight, too, but it sickened me.
But what have you been doing, my young friend, to see dead men? Have
you, too, been joining the army of plunderers?"

Arnold shook his head.

"I took your sister home," he announced. "We found a light in her
sitting-room and the door locked. I got in through the window."

"This is most interesting," Sabatini declared, carefully marking the
place in his book and laying it aside. "What did you find there?"

"A dead man," Arnold answered, "a murdered man!"

"You are joking!" Sabatini protested.

"He had been struck on the forehead," Arnold continued, "and dragged
half under the couch. Only his arm was visible at first. We had to
move the couch to discover him."

"Do you know w