car if you like. Our roads are fairly good, you'll
find."

Bindo accepted with profuse thanks, and shot me a glance by which I knew
that he had advanced one step further towards the consummation of his
secret intentions--whatever they were. Sir Charles would, no doubt, go
with us. What, I wondered, was intended?

Three weeks later we arrived one evening at St. Mellions, and found it a
magnificent old Tudor mansion, in the centre of a lordly domain, and
approached from the high road by a great beech avenue nearly a mile in
length. The older wing of the house--part of an ancient Gothic
abbey--was ivy-covered, while in front of the place was a great lake,
originally the fish-pond of the Carmelite monks.

It wanted an hour before dinner when we arrived, and at sound of our
horn nearly a dozen merry men and women of the house-party came forth to
greet us.

"They seem a pretty smart crowd," remarked Bindo under his breath to Sir
Charles, seated beside him.

"Yes, but we'll want all our wits about us," replied the other. "I hear
that the wife of Gilling, the jeweller in Bond Street, is here with her
daughter. Suppose her husband takes it into his head to run down here
for the week-end--eh?"

"We won't suppose anything of the sort, my dear fellow. I always hate
supposing. It's a bad habit when you've got your living to earn, as we
have."

And with those words he ran along to the main entrance, and pulled up
sharply, being greeted by our hostess herself, who, in a cream serge
dress, stood upon the steps and shouted us a warm welcome.

My two friends were quickly introduced by Paul to the assembled party,
while several of the men came around the car to admire it, one of them
questioning me as to its horse-power, its make, and other details,
inquiries which showed his ignorance. Round in the garage I found my
friend Saunders, and later on he took me over the splendid old place,
filled as it was with the relics of the noble but now decadent English
family.

My eyes and ears were open everywhere. The house-party, numbering
eighteen, consisted mostly of the parvenu set, people who having made
money by trade were now attempting to pass as county families. The men
possessed for the most part the air of "the City," and the womenkind
were painfully "smart" without the good breeding necessary to carry it
off.

After dinner, under the guidance of Saunders, I managed to get a glimpse
of the great hall, where the party had asse