e took the glass, but with a rebellious face. "Oh, if you take that
tone with me--"

"I do. And now," I turned to the constable, "what name did he give for
his surety?"

"Herbert Jarmayne, same address."

"Herbert Jarmayne?" I glanced at Clara, who nodded back, pausing as she
lifted her glass! "Ah! yes--yes, of course. How much?"

"Two tenners."

"Deep answering deep. Drunk and disorderly, I suppose?"

"Blind. He was breaking glasses at Toscano's and swearing he was Sir
Charles Wyndham in _David Garrick_: but he settled down quiet at the
station, and when I left he was talking religious and saying he pitied
nine-tenths of the world, for they were going to get it hot."

"Trewlove!" I almost shouted, wheeling round upon Clara.

"I beg your pardon?"

"No, of course--you wouldn't understand. But all the same it's Trewlove,"
I cried, radiant. "Eh?"--this to Horrex, mumbling in the doorway--"the
cab outside? Step along, constable: I'll follow in a moment--to identify
your prisoner, not to bail him out." Then as he touched his hat and
marched out after Horrex, "By George, though! Trewlove!" I muttered,
meeting Clara's eye and laughing.

"So you've said," she agreed doubtfully; "but it seems a funny sort of
explanation."

"It's as simple as A B C," I assured her. "The man at Marlborough Street
is the man who let you this house."

"I took it through an agent."

"I'm delighted to hear it. Then the man at Marlborough Street is the man
for whom the agent let the house."

"Then you are not Mr. Richardson--not 'George Anthony'--and you didn't
write _Larks in Aspic?_" said she, with a flattering shade of
disappointment in her tone.

"Oh! yes, I did."

"Then I don't understand in the least--unless--unless--" She put out two
deprecating hands. "You don't mean to tell me that this is your house,
and we've been living in it without your knowledge! Oh! why didn't you
tell me?"

"Come, I like that!" said I. "You'll admit, on reflection, that you
haven't given me much time."

But she stamped her foot. "I'll go upstairs and pack at once," she
declared.

"That will hardly meet the case, I'm afraid. You forget that your brother
is downstairs: and by his look, when I left him, he'll take a deal of
packing."

"Herbert?" She put a hand to her brow. "I was forgetting. Then you are
not Herbert's friend after all?"

"I have made a beginning. But in fact, I made his acquaintance at Vine
Street jus