play with
ivory pieces instead of steel and poison. Our brains direct, and not our
muscles."

She sighed.

"It is only the one man of whom I am afraid," she said. "You have
outwitted him so often and he does not forgive."

De Grost smiled. It was an immense compliment, this.

"Bernadine," he murmured softly, "otherwise our friend, the Count von
Hern."

"Bernadine," she repeated. "All that you say is true; but when one fails
with modern weapons, one changes the form of attack. Bernadine at heart
is a savage."

"The hate of such a man," de Grost remarked complacently, "is worth
having. He has had his own way over here for years. He seems to have
found the knack of living in a maze of intrigue and remaining
untouchable. There were a dozen things before I came upon the scene
which ought to have ruined him. Yet there never appeared to be anything
to take hold of. The Criminal Investigation Department thought they had
no chance. I remember Sir John Dory telling me in disgust that Bernadine
was like one of those marvellous criminals one only reads about in
fiction, who seem when they pass along the dangerous places to walk upon
the air and leave no trace behind."

"Before you came," she said, "he had never known a failure. Do you think
that he is a man likely to forgive?"

"I do not," de Grost answered grimly. "It is a battle, of course--a
battle all the time. Yet, Violet, between you and me, if Bernadine were
to go, half the savour of life for me would depart with him."

Then there came a serious and wholly unexpected interruption. A man in
dark, plain clothes, still wearing his overcoat and carrying a bowler
hat, had been standing in the entrance of the restaurant for a moment or
two, looking around the room as though in search of someone. At last he
caught the eye of the Baron de Grost and came quickly towards him.

"Charles," the Baron remarked, raising his eyebrows. "I wonder what he
wants?"

A sudden cloud had fallen upon their little feast. Violet watched the
coming of her husband's servant and the reading of the note which he
presented to his master with an anxiety which she could not wholly
conceal. The Baron read the note twice, scrutinising a certain part of
it closely with the aid of the monocle which he seldom used. Then he
folded it up and placed it in the breast-pocket of his coat.

"At what hour did you receive this, Charles?" he asked.

"A messenger brought it in a taxi-cab about ten minutes