r
Kerry--who is in charge of poor Lucy's murder! Oh, Bill! this is lovely!
Something is going to happen! Do come down!"

Followed by the obedient but reluctant "Bill," Mollie ran downstairs,
and almost into the arms of a tall dark girl, who, carrying a purple
opera cloak, was coming up.

"You're not going yet, Dickey?" said Mollie, throwing her arm around the
other's waist.

"Ssh!" whispered "Dickey." "Inspector Kerry is here! You don't want to
be called as a witness at nasty inquests and things, do you?"

"Good heavens, my dear, no! But why should I be?"

"Why should any of us? But don't you see they are looking for the people
who used to go to Kazmah's? It's in the paper tonight. We shall all be
served with subpoenas. I'm off!"

Escaping from Mollie's embrace, the tall girl ran up the stairs, kissing
her hand to Bill as she passed. Mollie hesitated, looking all about the
crowded room for Chief Inspector Kerry. Presently she saw him, standing
nearly opposite the stairway, his intolerant blue eyes turning right and
left, so that the fierce glance seemed to miss nothing and no one in the
room. Hands thrust in his overcoat pockets and his cane held under
his arm, he inspected the place and its occupants as a very aggressive
country cousin might inspect the monkey-house at the Zoo. To Mollie's
intense disappointment he persistently avoided looking in her direction.

Although a popular dance was on the point of commencing, several
visitors had suddenly determined to leave. Kerry pretended to be
ignorant of the sensation which his appearance had created, passing
slowly along the room and submitting group after group to deliberate
scrutiny; but as news flies through an Eastern bazaar the name of the
celebrated detective, whose association with London's latest crime
was mentioned by every evening paper in the kingdom, sped now on magic
wings, so that there was a muted charivari out of which, in every key
from bass to soprano, arose ever and anon the words "Chief Inspector
Kerry."

"It's perfectly ridiculous but characteristically English," drawled
one young man, standing beside Mollie Gretna, "to send out a bally
red-headed policeman in preposterous glad-rags to look for a clever
criminal. Kerry is well known to all the crooks, and nobody could
mistake him. Damn silly--damn silly!"

As "damn silly" Kerry's open scrutiny of the members and visitors must
have appeared to others, but it was a deliberate policy very pop