er hands.

"I don't say that. It depends on circumstances," he said gently.

Her face clouded. "I will swear that the man Fairfield killed him," she
cried passionately. "You will let him get away--you and your red tape."

He came and stood by her.

"Listen to me, Lady Eileen," he said earnestly. "Sir Ralph Fairfield did
not kill Mr. Grell. Of that I have proof. Will you not trust us and wait
a little? You are doing Sir Ralph a great injustice by your suspicions."

She laughed wildly, and flung herself away from him.

"You talk to me as though I were a schoolgirl," she retorted. "You can't
throw dust in my eyes, Mr. Foyle. He has bought you. You are going to
let him go. I know! I know! But he shall not escape."

The superintendent stroked his chin placidly. As if by accident he had
placed himself between her and the door. He had already made up his mind
what to do, but the situation demanded delicate handling.

"You will regret this when you are calmer," he said mildly.

He was uncertain in his mind whether to tell the distraught girl that
her lover was not dead--that the murdered man was a rogue whom probably
she had not seen or heard of in her life. He balanced the arguments
mentally pro and con, and decided that at all hazards he would preserve
his secret for the present. She took a step towards the door. She had
drawn herself up haughtily.

"Let me pass, please," she demanded.

He did not move. "Where are you going?" he asked. Her eyes met his
steadily.

"I am going to Sir Ralph Fairfield--to wring a confession from him, if
you must know," she said. "Let me pass, please."

"I will let you pass after you have given me the pistol you are carrying
in your muff," he retorted, holding out his hand.

Then the tigress broke loose in the delicately brought-up, gently
nurtured girl. She withdrew her right hand from her muff and Foyle
struck quickly at her wrist. The pistol clattered to the floor and the
man closed with her. It needed all his tremendous physical strength to
lift her bodily by the waist and place her, screaming and striking
wildly at his face with her clenched fists, in a chair. He held her
there with one hand and lifted one of the half-dozen speaking-tubes
behind his desk with the other.

In ten minutes Lady Eileen Meredith, in charge of a doctor and a
motherly-looking matron hastily summoned from the adjoining police
station in Cannon Row, was being taken back to her home in a state of
semi-