. She had her up in a jiffy and
now she is heading her straight for the sweepstakes."

"Excuse me," Jones with affected meekness put in. "I assume that the
sacrificial victim and the filly are one and the same."

"Your perspicacity does you much credit."

Jones laughed. "I have my little talents. But you! The wizardry with
which you mix metaphors is beautiful. You produce a dinner-table and
transform it into an altar which instantly becomes a racecourse. That is
what I call genius. But to an every-day sort of chap like me, would you
mind being less cryptic?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes."

"So can I."

Again Jones laughed. "Not in my neighbourhood. You were talking of
Lennox and drifted from him into the Bible. Your thoughts of the one
recalled studies of the other and at once you had Abraham's daughter
downed on the racecourse. Well, she won't be."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it is my business to see things before they occur. Miss
Austen----"

"I never mentioned her," Verelst heatedly exclaimed. "You have no right
to----"

"I admit it. But because of Lennox the whole matter has preoccupied me
and quite as much, I daresay, as it has distressed you."

"I don't see at all what you have to do with it."

"Perhaps not. But preoccupation may lead to crystal-gazing. Now I will
wager a red pippin that I can tell what you said at the steeplechase to
the steeplestakes. You asked after his father."

Verelst stared. A man of the world and, as such, at his ease in any
circumstances, none the less he was startled. "How in God's name did you
get that?"

"It is very simple. Five minutes ago his father sailed by. You made a
remark about him. The remark suggested a train of thought which landed
you at the racecourse where you saw, or intimated that you saw, the
steeplestakes. But what visible sweepstakes are there except M. P.'s
son? You and M. P. are friends. It is only natural that you should ask
about him."

Verelst turned uneasily. "I don't yet see how you got it. The only thing
I said is that I heard he was dying."

"And five minutes ago you exclaimed at his resurrection. There is a
discrepancy there that is very suggestive."

"It is none of my making then."

"It is none the less suggestive. The death-bed was invented."

"M. P. may have recovered."

"Yes, men of his age make a practice of jumping into their death-bed and
then jumping out. It is good for them. It keeps them in training."

"Oh,