es the
detective despaired of following. News from Paris, received only that
morning, would seem to indicate that a similar state of affairs
prevailed in the French capital. With whom, Sheffield asked himself, had
he to deal? Who _was_ Severac Bablon? That he was in some way associated
with Jewish people and Jewish interests the Yard man was convinced. But
he could not determine, to his own satisfaction, if Severac Bablon's
activities were inimical to Juda or otherwise. It was a bewildering
case.

"I hope Mr. Oppner hasn't gone out," he said, after a pause. "I
particularly wanted to see him again."

"Is there some new clue?" asked Zoe eagerly.

Inspector Sheffield was nonplussed. Here was the daughter of J. J.
Oppner, the last girl in the world whom any sane man would suspect of
complicity in the Severac Bablon outrages; yet, for reasons of his own,
Sheffield wondered if she were as wholly ignorant of Bablon's identity
as the rest of the world. He distrusted everyone. He had said to
Detective-Sergeant Harborne, who was associated with him in the case,
"Where Severac Bablon is concerned, I wouldn't trust the Lord Mayor of
London--no, nor the Archbishop of Canterbury."

Accordingly, he replied, "I think not, Miss Oppner. I'll just run
upstairs and see if there's anybody about."

CHAPTER XII

LOVE, LUCRE AND MR. ALDEN

Zoe was waiting for Lady Mary Evershed. Lady Mary was late--an
unremarkable circumstance, since Lady Mary was a woman, and less
remarkable than ordinarily for the reason that Lady Mary had met Sir
Richard Haredale on the way. At the time she should have been at the
Astoria she was pacing slowly through St. James's Park, beside Haredale.

"My position is becoming impossible, Mary," he said, with painful
distinctness. "Every day seems to see the time more distant, instead of
nearer, when I can say good-bye to Mr. Julius Rohscheimer. My situation
is little better than that of his secretary. By hard work, and it _is_
hard work to act as Rohscheimer's social Virgil!--and by harder
self-repression, I have struggled to earn enough to enable me to cry
quits with the other rogues who preyed upon me, when--before I knew you.
I've scarcely a shred of self-respect left, Mary!"

She looked down at the gravelled path and made no answer to his
self-accusation.

"It is only my sense of humour that has saved me. But one day I shall
break out! It is inevitable. I cannot pander for ever to Rohscheimer's
s