hould like some
day, if I could do so without suspicion, to let the creditors of the firm
have it back again. What do you think?"

She nodded.

"I would rather you didn't touch it yourself," she agreed. "I think
you'll find, too, that you'll be able to earn quite enough without
wanting it. Nothing disturbing has happened to you at all, then?"

"Once I had a fright," he told her. "I was in a restaurant close to my
hotel. I was there with a young woman who is typing the play for me."

She looked towards him incredulously.

"You were there with a typewriter?" she exclaimed.

"I suppose it seems queer," he admitted. "It didn't to me. She is a
plain, shabby, half starved little thing, fighting her own battle
bravely. She came to me for work--she lives in the flat below--and
it seemed to me that she was just as hungry for a kind word as I was
lonely, and I took her out with me. Twice I have taken her. Her name is
Miss Grimes."

"I am not in the least sure that I approve," she said, "but go on."

"A friend of hers came into the restaurant, a girl in the chorus of a
musical comedy here, and she had with her a young man. I recognised him
at once. We didn't come across one another much, but he was on the
steamer."

Elizabeth's face was full of concern.

"Go on."

"He asked me twice if I wasn't Mr. Romilly. I assured him that he was
mistaken. I don't think I gave myself away. The next day he went to see
the girl I was with, Martha Grimes."

"Well, what did she tell him?"

"She told him that she had been typing my work for over a month, that I
had come from Jamaica, and that my name was Merton Ware."

Elizabeth gazed into the fire for several moments, and Philip watched
her. It was a woman's face, grave and thoughtful, a little perturbed just
then, as though by some unwelcome thought. Presently she looked back at
him, looked into his eyes long and earnestly.

"My friend," she said, "you are like no one else on earth. Perhaps you
are one of those horrible people who have what they call an unholy
influence over my sex. You have known this girl for a matter of a few
days, and she lies for you. And there's five hundred dollars reward. I
suppose she knew about that?"

"Yes, she knew," he admitted. "She simply isn't that sort. I suppose I
realised that, or I shouldn't have been kind to her."

"It's a puzzle," she went on. "I think there must be something in you of
the weakling, you know, something that appeals to th