he was rather like a male Sleeping
Beauty just roused from a hundred years' nap--full of reawakened fire
and vigour, though not yet knowing what use to make of his brand-new
energy. It was my job to advise _him_, not his to counsel me! And if I
flung at his head my version of the "Cecil" story, his one impulse would
be to batter down the sported oak of the garden court suite.

He and I had agreed, in calm moments, that it would be vain and worse
than vain to appeal to the police. But calm moments were ended,
especially for Terry. _He_ might think that the police would act on the
story we could now patch together. _I_ didn't think so, or I wouldn't
have stolen the heir of all the Scarletts.

Well, I _had_ stolen him. Here he was in my small sitting room, stuffing
chocolates bestowed on me by Terry. On top of uncounted cakes they would
probably make him _sick_; and I couldn't send for a doctor without
endangering the plot.

No! the child must be disposed of, and there wasn't a minute to waste.
Terry's lodgings were as unsuited for a hiding-place as my rooms at the
inn. Both of us were likely to be suspected when Bertie was missed. I
didn't much care for myself, but I did care for Terry, because my
business was to keep him out of trouble, not to get him into it, even
for his love's sake.

Suddenly, as I concentrated on little Fox-face, and how to camouflage
him for my purpose, Jim Courtenaye's description of the child drifted
into my head.

_Jim!_ The thought of Jim just then was like picking up a pearl on the
way to the poor-house!

_Dear_ Jim! I hadn't been sure what my feeling for him was, but at this
minute I adored him. I adored him because he was a wild-western devil
capable of lassoing enemies as he would cows. I adored him because the
fire of his nature blazed out in his red hair and his black eyes. Jim
was an anachronism from some barbaric century of Courtenayes. Jim was a
precious heirloom. He had called the Scarlett boy a "venomous little
brute!" I could hear again his voice through the telephone "_I'd do more
than that for you_."

Idiot that I was, in that I'd _rung him off_! And I hadn't made a sign
of life since, though he was sure to have heard that I was at Dawley St.
Ann, within forty miles of the Abbey and Courtenaye Coombe.

I could have torn my hair, only it's too pretty to waste. Instead, I ran
into the next room, pulled the bell-rope and demanded the village taxi
immediately, if not sooner.