asked.

"I mean," said Jack Glover soberly, "that it would not have been
Bulford, but I, who would have been lured from his club by a telephone
message, and told to wait outside the door in Berkeley Street. It would
have been I, who would have been shot dead by Miss Briggerland's father
from the drawing-room window."

The girl looked at him in amazement.

"What a preposterous charge to make!" she said at last indignantly. "Do
you suggest that this girl has connived at a murder?"

"I not only suggest that she connived at it, but I stake my life that
she planned it," said Jack carefully.

"But the pistol was found near Mr. Bulford's body," said Lydia almost
triumphantly, as she conceived this unanswerable argument.

Jack nodded.

"From Bulford's body to the drawing-room window was exactly nine feet.
It was possible to pitch the pistol so that it fell near him. Bulford
was waiting there by the instructions of Jean Briggerland. We have
traced the telephone call that came through to him from the club--it
came from the Briggerlands' house in Berkeley Street, and the attendant
at the club was sure it was a woman's voice. We didn't find that out
till after the trial. Poor Meredith was in the hall when the shot was
fired. The signal was given when he turned the handle to let himself
out. He heard the shot, rushed down the steps and saw the body. Whether
he picked up the pistol or not, I do not know. Jean Briggerland swears
he had it in his hand, but, of course, Jean Briggerland is a hopeless
liar!"

"You can't know what you're saying," said Lydia in a low voice. "It is a
dreadful charge to make, dreadful, against a girl whose very face
refutes such an accusation."

"Her face is her fortune," snapped Jack, and then penitently, "I'm sorry
I'm rude, but somehow the very mention of Jean Briggerland arouses all
that is worst in me. Now, you will accept Jaggs, won't you?"

"Who is he?" she asked.

"He is an old army pensioner. A weird bird, as shrewd as the dickens, in
spite of his age a pretty powerful old fellow."

"Oh, he's old," she said with some relief.

"He's old, and in some ways, incapacitated. He hasn't the use of his
right arm, and he's a bit groggy in one of his ankles as the result of
a Boer bullet."

She laughed in spite of herself.

"He doesn't sound a very attractive kind of guardian. He's a perfectly
clean old bird, though I confess he doesn't look it, and he won't bother
you or your servants. You