cried Carrington. "Well, no wonder she bolted, Mr.
Cromarty!"

"But even that was done by Simon's advice. He actually gave her an
address in London to go to."

"Pretty thorough!" murmured Carrington.

"Now what do you make of that? And what ought one to do? And, by the
way, how did you guess Simon was at the bottom of it?"

Carrington leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment before
answering.

"We are in pretty deep waters, Mr. Cromarty," he said slowly. "As to
what I make of it--nothing as yet. As to what we are to do--also nothing
in the meantime. But as to how I guessed, well I can tell you this much.
I had to get information from someone, and so I called on Mr. Rattar and
told him who I was--in strict confidence, by the way, so that he had no
business to tell Miss Farmond or anybody else. I had started off, I may
say, with a wrong guess: I thought Rattar himself was probably either my
employer or acting for my employer, and when I suggested this he told me
I was right."

"What!" shouted Ned. "The grunting old devil told you that?" He stared
at the other for a moment, and then demanded, "Why did he tell you that
lie?"

"Fortune played my cards for me. Quite innocently and unintentionally. I
tempted him. I said if I could be sure he was my employer I'd keep him
in touch with everything I was doing. I had also let him know that my
employer had made it an absolute condition that his name was not to
appear. He evidently wanted badly to know what I was doing, and thought
he was safe not to be given away."

"Then have you kept him in touch with everything you have done?"

Carrington smiled.

"I tell you, Mr. Cromarty, my cards were being played for me. Five
minutes later I asked him who benefited by the will and I learned that
you had scored the precise sum of L1200."

"I hadn't thought of that when I made my limit L1200!" exclaimed Ned.
"Lord, you must have bowled me out at once! Of course, you spotted the
coincidence straight off?"

"But Rattar didn't! I pushed it under his nose and he didn't see it!
Inside of one second I'd asked myself whether it was possible for an
astute man like that not to notice such a coincidence supposing he had
really guaranteed me exactly that sum--an extraordinarily large and
curious sum too."

"I like these simple riddles," said Ned with a twinkle in his single
eye. "I guess your answer to yourself was 'No!'"

Carrington nodded.

"That's what I call having my c