"Your husband is a wise
man, Baroness. He knows when to listen to reason."

She threw open the door of the study, which was in darkness.

"If you will wait a moment," she said, closing the door, "I will turn on
the electric light."

She touched the knobs in the wall, and the room was suddenly flooded
with illumination. At the further end of the apartment was the great
safe. Close to it, in an easy-chair, his evening coat changed for a
smoking-jacket, with a neatly tied black tie replacing his crumpled
white cravat, the Baron de Grost sat awaiting his guest. A fierce oath
broke from Bernadine's lips. He turned toward the door only in time to
hear the key turn. Violet tossed it lightly in the air across to her
husband.

"My dear Bernadine," the latter remarked, "on the whole, I do not think
that this has been one of your successes. My keys, if you please."

Bernadine stood for a moment, his face dark with passion.

"Your keys are here, Baron de Grost," he said, placing them upon the
table. "If a bungling amateur may make such a request of a professor,
may I inquire how you escaped from your bonds and reached here before
me?"

The Baron de Grost smiled.

"Really," he said, "you have only to think for yourself for a moment, my
dear Bernadine, and you will understand. In the first place, the letter
you sent me signed 'Greening' was clearly a forgery. There was no one
else anxious to get me into their power, hence I associated it at once
with you. Naturally, I telephoned to the chief of my staff--I, too, am
obliged to employ some of these un-uniformed policemen, my dear
Bernadine, as you may be aware. It may interest you to know, further,
that there are seven entrances to the warehouse in Tooley Street.
Through one of these something like twenty of my men passed and were
already concealed in the place when I entered. At another of the doors a
motor-car waited for me. If I had chosen to lift my finger at any time,
your men would have been overpowered, and I might have had the pleasure
of dictating terms to you in my own office. Such a course did not appeal
to me. You and I, as you know, dear Count von Hern, conduct our peculiar
business under very delicate conditions, and the least thing we either
of us desire is notoriety. I managed things, as I thought, for the best.
The moment you left the place my men swarmed in. We gently but firmly
ejected your guard, released Greening and my clerk, and I passed you
myself in F