d's sandy eyebrows go up in a definite arch.

"Fifty thousand!" muttered Appleyard. "Whew! It's a stiff figure, Mr.
Allerdyke. You've put a thick finger in that pie, I'm thinking!"

"One half from the Princess; twenty thousand from me; five thousand from
the singing lady," whispered Allerdyke. "That's how it's made up, my lad.
And naught'll please me better than to see it paid out--that's a fact!"

"You'll have some triers," said Appleyard, with an emphatic wag of the
head. "Make no mistake about that! Fifty thousand! Gosh!--why, anybody
that's got the least clue, the slightest idea--and there must be
somebody--'ll have a go in for all he or she's worth!"

"Let 'em try!" exclaimed Allerdyke. "The welcome man's the chap that
enables us to recover and convict. Here, shove that bill in your pocket,
and read it at your leisure--there's something to think about in what it
says, I promise you."

Appleyard went away from the club an hour and a half later, thinking hard
enough. But he was not thinking about the reward bill. What he was
thinking about, had been thinking about from the moment in which
Allerdyke had drawn him into the smoking-room window and pointed her out
to him, was--Mrs. Marlow. For Appleyard knew Mrs. Marlow well enough, but
(always those buts in life, he reflected with a cynical laugh as he
threaded his way back to Gresham Street) he knew her by another
name--Miss Slade. And now he was wondering why Miss Slade or Mrs. Marlow
had two names, and why she appeared to be one person as he knew her in
private life, and another as he had seen her that very morning.

On Appleyard's first coming to town in the capacity of sole manager of
the London warehouse of Allerdyke and Partners, Limited, he had set
himself up in two rooms in a Bloomsbury lodging-house. He knew little of
London life at that time, or he would have known that he was thus
condemning himself to a drab and dreary existence. As it was, he quickly
learnt by experience, and within six months, having picked up a
comfortable knowledge of things, he transferred himself to one of those
well-equipped boarding establishments in the best part of Bayswater,
wherein bachelors, old maids, young women, widowers, and married couples
without encumbrance, can live together in as much or as little friendship
and intercourse as pleases their individual tastes. Ambler Appleyard took
his time and selected the likeliest place he could find after much
inspection of man