see the proprietor," he said.

"Mr. Meyer is engaged at the moment, sir," was the reply.

"Where is he?"

"In his office upstairs, sir. He will be down in a moment."

The waiter hurried away, and Harley stood glancing up the stairs as if
in doubt what to do.

"I cannot imagine how such a place can pay," he muttered. "The rent must
be enormous in this district."

But even before he ceased speaking I became aware of an excited
conversation which was taking place in some apartment above.

"It's scandalous!" I heard, in a woman's shrill voice. "You have no
right to keep it! It's not your property, and I'm here to demand that
you give it up."

A man's voice replied in voluble broken English, but I could only
distinguish a word here and there. I saw that Harley was interested,
for catching my questioning glance, he raised his finger to his lips
enjoining me to be silent.

"Oh, that's the game, is it?" continued the female voice. "Of course you
know it's blackmail?"

A flow of unintelligible words answered this speech, then:

"I shall come back with someone," cried the invisible woman, "who will
make you give it up!"

"Knox," whispered Harley in my ear, "when that woman comes down, follow
her! I'm afraid you will bungle the business, and I would not ask you to
attempt it if big things were not at stake. Return here; I shall wait."

As a matter of fact, his sudden request had positively astounded me,
but ere I had time for any reply a door suddenly banged open above and
a respectable-looking woman, who might have been some kind of upper
servant, came quickly down the stairs. An expression of intense
indignation rested upon her face, and without seeming to notice our
presence she brushed past us and went out into the street.

"Off you go, Knox!" said Harley.

Seeing myself committed to an unpleasant business, I slipped out of the
doorway and detected the woman five or six yards away hurrying in the
direction of Piccadilly. I had no difficulty in following her, for
she was evidently unsuspicious of my presence, and when presently she
mounted a westward-bound 'bus I did likewise, but while she got inside I
went on top, and occupied a seat on the near side whence I could observe
anyone leaving the vehicle.

If I had not known Paul Harley so well I should have counted the whole
business a ridiculous farce, but recognizing that something underlay
these seemingly trivial and disconnected episodes, I lighted a ciga