has been
spirited away! I want to know where! You say you don't know. It may be
true, but it doesn't sound like it."

Trent's under-lip was twitching, a sure sign of the tempest within, but
he kept himself under restraint and said never a word.

Francis continued, "Now I do not wish to be your enemy, Scarlett Trent,
or to do you an ill turn, but this is my word to you. Produce Monty
within a week and open reasonable negotiations for treating him fairly,
and I will keep silent. But if you can't produce him at the end of that
time I must go to his relations and lay all these things before them."

Trent rose slowly to his feet.

"Give me your address," he said, "I will do what I can."

Francis tore a leaf from his pocket-book and wrote a few words upon it.

"That will find me at any time," he said. "One moment, Trent. When I saw
you first you were with--a lady."

"Well!"

"I have been away from England so long," Francis continued slowly, "that
my memory has suffered. Yet that lady's face was somehow familiar. May I
ask her name?"

"Miss Ernestine Wendermott," Trent answered slowly.

Francis threw away his cigarette and lit another.

"Thank you," he said.

CHAPTER XXXV

Da Souza's office was neither furnished nor located with the idea of
impressing casual visitors. It was in a back-street off an alley, and
although within a stone's throw of Lothbury its immediate surroundings
were not exhilarating. A blank wall faced it, a green-grocer's shop
shared with a wonderful, cellar-like public-house the honour of its more
immediate environment. Trent, whose first visit it was, looked about him
with surprise mingled with some disgust.

He pushed open the swing door and found himself face to face with Da
Souza's one clerk--a youth of unkempt appearance, shabbily but flashily
dressed, with sallow complexion and eyes set close together. He was
engaged at that particular moment in polishing a large diamond pin upon
the sleeve of his coat, which operation he suspended to gaze with much
astonishment at this unlocked-for visitor. Trent had come straight from
Ascot, straight indeed from his interview with Francis, and was still
wearing his racing-glasses.

"I wish to see Mr. Da Souza," Trent said. "Is he in?"

"I believe so, sir," the boy answered. "What name?"

"Trent! Mr. Scarlett Trent!"

The door of an inner office opened, and Da Souza, sleek and curled,
presented himself. He showed all his white teeth in th