CHAPTER VI
BEHIND THE BOOKSHELF

"Captain Manners, this is Monsieur Defasquelle, private secretary to Monsieur Mayen, of whom you have heard me speak," Claremanagh introduced the two men, as the messenger came in. He shook Defasquelle's hand and gave him one of the delightful smiles which helped to make him popular with all types and classes.

Jack tried not to hear what Juliet's husband and the Frenchman said to each other. Not that there was any special reason why he shouldn't hear, for he'd heard Pat groan over the pawned pearls till he was sick of the subject; and he had been drawn into the business of trying to get them for Juliet after Claremanagh left France. But his part in the affair was ended, and he felt that Pat would rather be alone with Defasquelle; that he had been asked to make a third on the scene entirely through politeness. Besides, he was grimly conscious that the three men were not the only persons present. He was as sure as Simone had been that Lyda Pavoya listened from behind the Spanish screen, or the half-drawn green velvet curtains. He was angry for Juliet's sake that the woman should be in the house, and disgusted that she should be hidden. Never had he come so near disliking Pat, even on the day when Juliet broke the news of her engagement. But to his own annoyance, he could not dislike him whole-heartedly. He even found himself sneakingly half-sorry for the fellow. Wondering why this should be, he was roused from his thoughts by the raised voice of Defasquelle.

"But I must beg, Monsieur le Duc, that you open the box in my presence and verify the contents!" he exclaimed.

"I see how you feel, but I can't do that, and it's not necessary," returned Pat.

Jack Manners had seated himself on the club-fender that guarded the fine fireplace. He had taken an illustrated paper to occupy eyes and hands, but glanced up and saw on the table between Claremanagh and Defasquelle a box neatly packed in some waterproof-looking material, sealed with five fat crimson seals.

"It would spoil all the fun if I broke those seals," Pat went on, in a more human tone. "My wife must be the first to open the thing, and see the pearls. I'm extremely sorry she's out. But it can't be helped. If you care to wait——"

"When will Madame the Duchess return?" Defasquelle enquired.

"That's more than I know. Not till late, I'm afraid."

"I have made an engagement in a half hour from now," regretted the Frenchman, taking out his watch. "It is an appointment that cannot be put off, as the person is not free to change from one time to another. Monsieur, I urge you to open the box. It is only fair to the Purser of the Britannia, who kept it in his safe. It is only fair to me——"

Claremanagh laughed. "Oh, don't bother about that side of it! Those seals alone are a proof that the packet hasn't been tampered with since it left Mayen's hands. You're his secretary, Monsieur Defasquelle, and he trusts you completely, or he wouldn't have chosen you, above any one else, as his messenger. But I don't suppose he would take that seal ring I gave him off his finger to lend it even to you. He volunteered the promise to me that it should never leave his hand. In fact, when I pledged the pearls to him for two hundred thousand francs, it was he who suggested fastening them up in a box sealed with my own particular, private seal."

"You are right so far, Monsieur le Duc," admitted Defasquelle. "My employer has been true to his agreement. For one thing, the ring you had made for him with the facsimile of your seal happens to be rather small. I do not think he could remove it from his finger if he wished without having it sawed off by a jeweller."

"Very well, then!" said Pat. "There you are!"

"But I am not there," argued the Frenchman, unfamiliar with English idioms. "Seals can be taken off and fastened on again, I have heard, without the change leaving a trace. I am certain these are intact. But, putting aside myself and the Pursuer, Monsieur would not——"

"Rot, my dear fellow!" cut in the Duke. "I trust Mayen as I trust myself. Of course, I know—we all three know—the pearls are inside that box. You say you can't wait for my wife to come home. I say the seals shan't be broken by any hand but hers. Let's be sensible! Manners, come here, won't you, and reassure Monsier Defasquelle by examining these seals!" He snatched the box up from the table, and held it out to Jack. "You've got sharp eyes. I leave it to you. Can't you swear that those five red blobs have never been tampered with, even by the smartest expert alive?"

Reluctantly Jack came forward, and accepting the box, closely examined the seals. "I think I'd be prepared to swear that," he said. "All the same, Monsieur Defasquelle is right, in my opinion. You owe it to him—to everyone concerned, including the company who've insured the pearls—to open the box before you let it go out of your sight."

"You're no true friend of Juliet's, to give me such advice," Pat taunted him. "And I won't take it. That's flat. While as for the seals, look there!" As he retrieved the package, he nodded at a ring on the least finger of his right hand.

Both men's eyes went to it; Defasquelle's to note, perhaps, how precisely the raised design of the wax resembled the sunken design on the gold. But there was a different thought in Jack Manners' mind. He remembered what Juliet had written him about this ring. What had happened between her and Pat? was the question that flashed through his head. A few hours ago she had sealed her "secret letter" with her husband's ring, after some dispute concerning it. And now, here it was on Pat's finger again!

Claremanagh, unconscious of Jack's disparaging reflections, began to regain something like his old gaiety of manner. "Are you satisfied, Monsieur?" he asked. Then, seeing that Defasquelle screwed up his brilliant eyes in a near-sighted way, the Duke flung the box on the table, and pulled off the ring.

"Have a good look at it," he said, almost forcing it into the Frenchman's hand. "There's a safe in the wall of this room, made by my dead father-in-law, to keep such things as he didn't care to send to the bank. My wife and I are the only people alive who have keys to it, or know the combination. Besides, my own man is the one servant allowed in this room. So you see, Jack, I don't need to keep the box 'in sight' after Monsieur Defasquelle goes."

As he spoke, he walked toward an alcove at the left of the fireplace. It was fitted with bookshelves; and as Manners' eyes followed Claremanagh he remembered the secret of Silas Phayre's safe. Part of the top shelf had to be pulled out from the wall (after touching a spring) and then pushed up. Thus a small steel door was revealed, and could be unlocked only after a certain combination of letters had been made. Jack had not thought of the safe in years, or glanced in its direction on entering the room; but now, to his surprise, he saw that the bookshelf had already been pushed up, and the safe-door not only revealed, but opened.

Claremanagh's back was turned to him, and he could not see by a change of face whether Pat was vexed at his own forgetfulness, or indifferent. But Jack remembered the hidden fourth person in the room, and instinct told him that the safe had not been opened in readiness for the pearls. There had been some other motive. Claremanagh and the Polish woman had been interrupted in their tête-à-tête, and it would be characteristic of Pat if an unexpected rap on the door had caught him unawares. Could he have been in the act of giving Pavoya a jewel from the safe when he had been forced to answer a knock?

Luckily, no such suspicion could be in the Frenchman's head, for he had not seen Pavoya slip into the house. Jack glanced at him, and saw that he had laid the Duke's seal ring on the table beside the sealed packet. He was looking at the safe, but showed no surprise at finding it open. For him, it had been prepared to receive the pearls.

"There's a good little hidie-hole!" said Pat. "Now I'll sign the receipt, Monsieur, and you may go to your engagement with a light heart." He went back to the table, took the box, and tossed it into the aperture in the wall. Then he closed the steel door, did something to it which the eyes of neither man could follow, and pulled down the concealing bookshelf.

A moment later he was scrawling "Claremanagh" on the paper which Defasquelle rather sulkily put into his hand.

CHAPTER VII
WHAT JULIET TOLD JACK

At five minutes before five o'clock Jack Manners entered the Palm Room of the Hotel Lorne. This room adjoined the restaurant, and was crowded with small tables lit by pink-shaded electric candles. The Lorne was a good hotel, but too stodgily respectable to be amusing. As there was no band at meal times or tea time, its clients were mostly unmodern creatures with a strange preference for peace and quiet.

It was well that Jack had arrived before the hour fixed, for at five precisely Juliet appeared. He had already engaged a table in a secluded corner half screened by drooping, feather-like branches; but his eyes were on the door, and he sprang up as the tall, girlish figure drifted in between two palms.

At sight of his boyhood's love, his heart gave a bound. How lovely she was in her sheathlike grey dress, with dangling silvery things, like clouds of dawn filming a pale sunrise sky! Her hat was simple yet quaint, pushing forward her bright hair, and making her face look young as a child's—pathetically young. Yes, "pathetic" was the word, Jack thought as he went to meet her, and she came hastening to him as to a haven. And "pathetic" was a new word in connection with Juliet Phayre! She had been proud, fantastic, absurd, charming, obstinate, unaccountable, and a hundred other things, but never pathetic. Manners wondered if it could be the dip of her odd hat-brim which gave her that look of transparent pallor, and the blue shadows under her big eyes.

There were not many people in the room, as tea at the Lorne was far from a fashionable function. Those who were there seemed absorbed, in a tired, provincial-shoppers' way, in the muffin and tea business. Still, Juliet was too tall and beautiful not to be conspicuous even if unrecognized, and a few weeks ago no Sunday Supplement had been complete without her photograph. The two could do no more than gaze deep, eyes in eyes, for an instant, as they met near the door, and squeeze instead of shaking hands; but all prudence was Jack's. He saw by Juliet's face that the tea-drinkers were of no more importance to her than the chairs they sat in, and he could have kissed the face turned up affectionately to his—if he would. But he would not, and he did not even speak until he had her seated at their palm-screened table.

"Oh, Jack, it's great to see you!" Juliet said, when a too-attentive waiter had finished taking their order. Tears suddenly welled to her eyes. She dived into a gorgeous gold mesh bag for a handkerchief, which was not there. "Must be lost!" she sniffed. Hastily Jack passed his across the table, and had a heart-piercing impression that he had lived through this scene before, in happier days. But yes, of course! Often, when he was a big boy and she was a little girl, she had come to him for consolation. And she had always lost her "hanky!" It was then, when he was about sixteen, and she eleven, that he had first begun to love her, with a protecting love that had changed but never waned as the years passed. Now she belonged to another man. Yet she still called to him, across the gulf marriage had made, for help and comfort! Jack Manners wondered what had happened to his red blood, that the pain he suffered was not more acute.

"I'm too sorry for the child to think of myself just now," he diagnosed his feelings, with the picture of Pavoya in his mind. "The reaction will come by and by."

Juliet began at once to pour out her woes, forgetting to ask what had happened during Jack's visit to the house—what her husband had said, or whether the pearls had come.

"Pat doesn't love me," she broke out. "That's why I'm miserable. I don't know how to live. And I wouldn't have believed it if any one had told me—except himself."

"You don't mean that Claremanagh says——" Jack began to blunder; but Juliet cut him short. "Not in words, of course. But I found a letter from that devil, Pavoya. It began, 'My Best and Dearest Friend'. Isn't that the same thing as telling me? The woman wouldn't write to him like that if he didn't encourage her."

Jack longed to comfort the girl; but after what he had seen, he was at a loss for consoling words. "How did you happen to find the letter?" he temporized.

"Why, it had to do with the fuss about Pat's seal ring," the girl confessed. "But first, I'd better explain that when I was being married, I made firm resolutions never to mention the name of Pavoya to Pat. Emmy West almost dared me to! And that alone was enough to show me it would be a silly mistake. But one night after we'd come to New York and were settling down happily, we had an exciting, intimate sort of talk about our pasts. It was a beautiful talk! And I felt so sure of Pat, I just couldn't resist asking if he'd ever loved Pavoya. He swore he hadn't; he'd only admired her a lot, and flirted a little. It was nothing at all beside what he felt for me. He was so dear that I burst out about how nasty Emmy West and other people had been—how unhappy they'd made me, more than once. Pat said 'Damn Emmy West and all the cats!' I loved that! And while the mood was on, I asked if he were willing to promise he'd not see Pavoya in New York.

"The minute those words were spoken, I saw a change in Pat. He said he couldn't make such a promise. There might be circumstances which would force him to see her. He wouldn't call on her, though. I had to be satisfied with that, and I was—almost, till one day when I'd teased him to lend me his seal ring. It's supposed to bring luck, you know. So I thought I'd try it, for bridge. I had to wear it on my thumb; it's too big for my fingers. I was playing that afternoon at Nancy Van Esten's. I had a Frenchwoman for a partner. I'd never met her before. Perhaps you knew her in Paris? A Comtesse de Saintville: her husband is on some mission here. She's a very impulsive woman—neurotic, I should think. I didn't feel drawn to her, because I'd heard she was a great pal of Lyda Pavoya's: that they went about together a lot. Suddenly she noticed the ring. She squeaked, 'Why, I know that eye! I saw it on a letter the other day.' Then she shut up and turned red. I could see her colour through inches of powder! Of course, I guessed where she'd seen the letter. And there was only one person who could have sent it. Maybe I turned red, too. But I pretended to take no interest, and Nancy Van Esten said 'Do let's play bridge!'

"I went home perfectly wretched. Pat thought I was ill. I didn't contradict him. I hadn't made up my mind what to do. But one thing I did—I kept the ring. Day before yesterday he asked me for it. I knew what that meant! He wanted to write to her again—perhaps had a letter to answer. I showed quite plainly that I hated giving up the ring. But he didn't care. He would have it. The only sort of 'concession' he made was to say he'd give it back next day—after he'd finished a batch of correspondence. Well, the next day came, and he didn't give the ring back, though I saw he wasn't wearing it. You know how forgetful and careless he often is! I was sure he'd left the ring where he sealed his letters. He'd promised I should have it again. I suppose I had a right to take it, hadn't I?"

Juliet paused, her eyes dry now, challenging Jack. But he did not speak, and she hurried on to defend herself. "I felt I had the right," she persisted, without conviction. "So yesterday I went into the room that used to be Dad's den. It's Pat's den now. He wasn't in——"

"Did you think he would be?"

"No-o. As a matter of fact, he'd gone to the bank. You know he works there. He's quite keen. He'd been late about getting off, so he'd started in a hurry. His desk wasn't locked. I don't know whether he ever locks it, because I never tried the drawers before. Anyhow, in the top drawer a lot of letters were tumbled in—letters he'd received, and letters he'd written—not in envelopes yet. All sorts of things were there in disorder—fountain pens, sealing wax, and—the ring! It was on an open letter that lay face up, a letter with a purple monogram of L.P. A perfume came up from the paper—a queer perfume, and the writing—in purple ink—was queer, too. I saw the beginning I told you about: 'My Best and Dearest Friend'—in French. Oh, Jack, I thought I should have died. I almost wish I had!"

"Nonsense!" Jack scouted her grief. "If the letter had had anything in it Pat was ashamed to have you see, you may be sure even he wouldn't have been so careless."

"It wasn't exactly carelessness made him leave it," Juliet said, sadly. "It was trust in me. He didn't dream that I—would do such a thing as read a letter of his. And I didn't read it. I didn't read another word, Jack. One side of me wanted to, horribly. The other side was disgusted at the idea—the stronger side, it turned out."

"Good girl!" cried Jack.

"Yes, I do think I was a saint. But virtue never has any reward except its own. I left the ring and the letter. But I felt half dead. I decided things couldn't go on as they were. I meant to speak to Pat when he came home."

"And did you?"

"No, because he was ill—had a bad headache—the beginning of a cold. Or else he was pretending. I can't trust him now! But he looked pale and odd, so I nobly left him alone till this morning. Then I went to the study, and asked him to keep his promise about the ring. He pulled open the drawer. There it was on the letter, as I saw it yesterday. That gave me my chance. I said, 'Pavoya has been writing to you. I see her monogram.' And I pretended to read, 'My Best and Dearest Friend', for the first time."

"By George!" exclaimed Jack, as Juliet stopped for breath.

"By George, indeed!" she echoed. "Pat accused me of being suspicious. I accused him of being untrue. We had a scene! I never thought I could say such things to Pat as I said. The way he took them made me worse. He just looked at me in silence, with his mouth shut like a steel trap. I suppose he hates me now. If he hadn't deserved every word I said, I should deserve to be hated for saying them. If he'd loved me, he would have boxed my ears! I half expected he would. But seeing him stand like a graven image, I turned to leave the room. He opened the door for me to go out, and handed me the ring."

"You took it!"

"I had to, or fling it in his face. I went straight off and wrote that letter to you, which I sealed with the ring. Then I sent it back to him by Old Nick. I haven't seen Pat, of course, since he shut the door on me. And I don't know how we are going to behave to each other when we meet next."

"You will behave as if nothing had happened, of course," Jack said with decision.

"That's your advice?"

"Certainly. And nothing has really happened, so far as you know. You have no proof that Claremanagh has broken his word about calling on Pavoya. And you've seen no letter from him to her——"

"Someone else saw his seal!"

"The most innocent words may have been under it. And you can't blame a man if a woman chooses to address him as her 'dearest friend'. At least you've no right to do so."

"Don't you think I have? That's because you're a man, always ready to defend another man. And you don't understand women."

"Good heavens, I don't claim to! And I do not defend Claremanagh. I merely say, give him the benefit of the doubt. Only men and women in melodrama refuse to hear any defense from the suspected one. You asked for my advice. There it is, my child, whether it pleases you or not."

"Well, if you want me to be as cool and reasonable as you are, you've got to stand by me, and see me through."

"I'm neither cool nor reasonable where you're concerned, Juliet. But you know I'll stand by you."

"You mean, you'll not go to Long Island? You'll stay in New York, and be our guest?"

"I'll not go to Long Island—at present. I'll stay in New York. But I won't be your guest."

"You're cruel, Jack! You're selfish!" Juliet cried, as she had often unjustly cried before.

"You know better," he said. "It is the outsider who sees the game. I ought to see it—if I'm to help. And I wouldn't be an outsider if I were your guest. I've taken rooms at the Hotel Tarascon, only one street away from your house and Pat's."

Juliet was silent for a moment. She had a hideous fear that, in her anger, she had flung Her house, Her money, Her everything, at Claremanagh's stone pale face.

CHAPTER VIII
JULIET BREAKS THE SEALS

At six forty-two the Duchess of Claremanagh descended from a plebeian taxicab in front of her pretentious home. She had sent away her own car, before going to the Lorne, and though there was no wrong in her secret, she was weighed down by a sense of guilt as she went to her room. This annoyed her, because the one guilty person in the house was Pat!

She had heard, toward the end of her conversation with Jack, that the pearls had come while he was with the Duke; but the girl was too wretched to care. How did she know that the story about Monsieur Mayen was not a "fake"? It was quite possible that Pavoya had had the pearls for months, and had only now given them up, under cover of Mayen's name, and his messenger on the Britannia. Juliet felt as Emmy West had expected her to feel: She hated the pearls! Whatever the truth was, she could take no pleasure in wearing them. All the same, she would wear them, to show curiosity-mongers that they were not in Lyda Pavoya's hands. She would wear them this very night.

She and Claremanagh were engaged to dine at the Van Estens', and he had insisted in the morning that he would be well enough to go. Now, for all she could tell, he might have changed his mind, and 'phoned that his cold would keep him at home. That excuse should not affect her, however. If he did not bring or send the pearls to her room, Simone should take him a note. In this, Juliet would say, not that Jack had told her, but that she "supposed the messenger had arrived," and she would ask for the pearls to wear at Nancy's dinner party—ask for them not as a favour, but because of the right she had, as Duchess of Claremanagh.

"Madame is very late!" were Simone's first words as Juliet flung open her bedroom door. "I began to be anxious."

Juliet glanced at her wrist-watch and a French clock on the mantel. It was true, she was late! She had a new gown which there had been no time to try, and dinner was at eight. The girl's nerves, tensely strained all day, began to get out of control. She was "jumpy" and cross as Simone unfastened the many little hidden hooks and tiny lace buttonholes of the "dawn-cloud" dress. Simone's hands were cold as ice, she complained. She hoped Simone wasn't "sickening for something!" Then, it seemed that the quaint grey hat had spoiled her hair, which usually remained in perfect order throughout the day. It had to be let down; and being immensely long and thick, would take twenty minutes to rearrange. Never, never had Simone been so awkward! Her fingers were all thumbs!

For a few moments, in her need of haste and her nervous agitation, Juliet forgot the crying question of the pearls. But a knock at the door which separated Pat's room from hers set every pulse a-throb. He had come, of his own accord!

The blood rushed to her cheeks, and as she turned to the opening door, she looked gloriously beautiful. Her eyes met Claremanagh's with the desperate appeal of a loving, tortured soul, and he was disarmed.

"Could you let Simone go for a few minutes?" he asked. "I should like to speak to you alone."

A few seconds ago Juliet had been fuming because every instant counted. But suddenly time ceased to be of importance. She didn't care how late she might be for Nancy's dinner. She didn't care if she were too late to go at all!

Simone, who knew that things were not as they should be, expected her mistress coldly to refuse the Duke. She was intensely surprised to be sent away and told not to return for fifteen minutes. Sensitively jealous, the maid resented being sent out of the room for ce traitre, as she mentally called Claremanagh. What a different scene there would be between husband and wife if she had betrayed to the Duchess the secret of the afternoon! To do so would satisfy her love of drama, and her pique against the Duke; but Simone knew too well "which side her bread was buttered." For one thing, the Duchess would not hear such a tale from a servant, even her trusted maid. The Duke might be sent "packing" by the heiress, but so would Simone! And for another thing, there must be no possible suspicion when the "Whisperer" of the Inner Circle whispered next, as to where the whisper had started. It would not do for Simone to know that Lyda Pavoya had called on the Duke of Claremanagh in his American wife's absence.

The instant the Frenchwoman was out of the room, Pat came close to Juliet. He was dressed for dinner, all but coat and waistcoat, and Juliet adored him thus, in his glittering white expanse of evening shirt. She had often told him so.

"You were not very kind to me this morning," he said, looking down at her, his face graver than she had ever seen it before this day. "I may as well tell you I was a good deal hurt, and angry, too—though I haven't deserved too well of you, perhaps. But to see you as you are now makes me forget everything, except that we've been dear lovers, and that you're the most beautiful girl on earth—my girl! You look just as you looked that evening at Harridge's, a million miles away, in old London—the night before our wedding when I came in suddenly, and you'd been washing your hair. Do you still hate your poor Romeo, Giullietta mia, or do you feel like forgetting, too, and beginning all over again?"

"I never hated you—not for a minute!" cried Juliet. "I thought you hated me!"

"Then you were jolly well mistaken," said Pat.

They gazed at each other like two fencers, for a moment; then Juliet sprang up, and held out her arms. He clasped her, and kissed her hair, her face, her bare white neck. Something he held in his hand, out of her sight behind his back, fell to the floor. She started at the sound, and he let her go, laughing like his old self.

"'History repeats'!" he exclaimed. "Do you remember the little box I brought you, with its blobby seals? Well, I have another sealed box for you to-night. You're to open it as you opened that one, and you will find the same thing inside. Only, it will be the same thing with a difference."

He picked up the packet from the floor, and handed it to Juliet with a flourish. "Voilà, Madame! Les plus belles chases, pour la plus belle dame."

"The pearls!" Juliet breathed.

"The pearls!" echoed Pat.

The girl was thrilled. How could she have hated the things so angrily an hour ago? Her whole mood concerning them and concerning life had changed under Pat's kisses. She was going to love his pearls for his sake, and the sake of their own romance!

"Why, the seals haven't been broken!" she exclaimed, as she took the box.

"No, I was determined you and you alone should do the breaking."

"But—didn't the messenger insist?"

"He did. Two can play at that game, though!"

"What about the receipt? I should have thought he'd object——"

"'Object' is a mild word. I convinced him in the end, however—if not that I was right, anyhow that I meant to have my own way. Darling, this is a happy moment for me—though I didn't expect to be happy to-night. Break the seals. Open the box. And I shall know by your eyes what you think of its contents."

With trembling fingers Juliet obeyed. Each seal was so perfect, it seemed a shame to shatter the delicate eye in crimson wax. Laughing, she remarked that it was clear no thief had touched the box. Pat agreed, and took from her the waterproof wrapping as she peeled it off. Within was a wooden box, with a sliding lid, such as French jewellers use. Claremanagh had bought it himself, at Mayen's request, he explained to Juliet; and the seal (made also by his ring) which held the cover in place had been pressed by his hand in the presence of his friend, the "super money-lender."

"By Jove, I'm proud of it!" he exclaimed. "It's a work of art. I'd forgotten how good it was. The best seal I've ever done, and I've called myself an expert—a Genie of the ring!"

It needed a pair of scissors to loosen the wax from the wood. Then Juliet slipped off the lid, and took from the box something wrapped in a handkerchief of fine Irish linen. "You'll find my monogram on that rag," said Pat, apparently enjoying himself. "Mayen would make me wrap the case with the pearls in something that belonged to me—something that couldn't be copied easily by a thief. My hair wasn't quite long enough to do up a parcel in, and this was the only other thing we could think of!"

While he gaily explained, Juliet slowly—tantalizing herself—unwound the linen folds. So doing, she smelt a faint fragrance of tobacco—Pat's special tobacco which left its odour on all his clothes. It had seemed exquisitely exciting to the girl when she was engaged to Claremanagh, and it was more so than ever to-night, when they were having this heavenly reconciliation—a reconciliation partly due to Jack's advice and his defence of the Duke. But it was odd that the scent should have lasted all these months!

Juliet exclaimed over this to Pat, but he accounted for it by reminding her how closely the handkerchief had been shut up in the box.

At last she was looking at the jewel-case which had once belonged to the love-sick Tsarina! It was of white velvet, creamy now with age, and stamped with crowns in gold, pathetically and appropriately dimmed. The catch was curious and beautiful: a big cabochon ruby shaped like a heart. Juliet pushed it, and lifted the satin lid. There, on the cushion, lay the long rope of pearls curled up like a snake, with the curious diamond clasp for its head.

The girl had expected to cry out in amazed admiration at sight of the wonderful thing—"Claremanagh's ewe lamb." She had expected to be literally dazzled. But instead, she suffered a shock of disappointment.

With all the will in the world to be pleased and grateful, she was dumb. She could think of nothing to say; and she tingled with embarrassment under her husband's eyes.

"Well, darling," he said, after a few seconds of waiting. "Don't the poor pearls come up to your hopes?"

"Oh, yes!" she forced herself to answer. "Aren't they big? Aren't they blue? I never saw any so-called 'blue pearls' so really blue as these."

"All the same, you are disappointed," Pat judged, his eyes on her face. "Don't you think by this time I know your tones and your expressions? Out with it, Jule! Bless you, I shan't be hurt. I didn't make the pearls, you know. And you're a spoiled pet of fortune, brought up from your babyhood to play with better toys than these. You could have had pearls as big as plums, in a rope to your feet, if you'd wanted 'em. Only your taste was too good. What's the matter with these baubles?"

"Why," the girl hesitated, "if I must say what I think you know I am supposed to be a bit of an expert, in my little amateur way, it seems to me these pearls aren't as lustrous as they ought to be. Perhaps they're 'sick'. They may need sea-water, or something. Yet they haven't the symptoms of 'dying' pearls. They haven't lost their colour. They've got almost too much—to look real."

"They're real enough!"

"Of course they must be. And the clasp is charming, isn't it? An eye made of a blue sapphire, set in white diamonds, rimmed with tiny black ones; an eye like the design of your seal, except that this one looks to the right, and——"

"To the right!" Pat caught the words from her mouth. "Impossible!"

Juliet stared. "But it does. You may see for yourself."

"Good God!" There was horror in his voice.

Juliet could not understand. This scene began to feel like a queer dream. "What is the matter?" she asked.

"Give me the thing!"

She handed him the rope.

He glared at the clasp as if the diamond and sapphire eye were a miniature head of Medusa. Then he turned to her with a dazed expression, still in silence.

"You frighten me," she faltered.

"You—you say you're an expert in pearls," he said. "How can you tell real ones from false?"

"One very simple way is to touch them to the tip of the tongue," Juliet explained, bewildered. "Real pearls are always cold. False ones can be warmish. Besides, the surface feels different. And even if the weight is right——"

"Test these," Pat said.

The girl took back the gleaming blue rope, and lifted the largest pearls to her lips.

"They are—false," she gasped, after an instant's pause.

"You are sure?"

"Yes. I am sure."

CHAPTER IX
THE EYE THAT LOOKED TO THE RIGHT

The two stared at each other in silence, and both were pale.

Juliet's mind was confused. "The pearls false!" She tried to hammer the words into her brain, and understand fully what the thing would mean for her and Pat. She thought of Louis Mayen, the "super money-lender," who had kept the pearls for months, and supposed that Claremanagh also must be thinking of him.

"What a treacherous, horrible man!" she broke out, at last. The Duke stared, almost stupidly—if he could be stupid.

"Who is treacherous—horrible?" he stammered.

"Why, your friend Mayen, of course!" she explained. "My poor Pat!"

Comprehension dawned in Claremanagh's eyes. "Oh, Mayen had nothing to do with this!" he assured her.

"Who else, then?" Juliet persisted. "The purser on the ship, who had the box in his safe, coming over? But he didn't have the seal. Mayen had it. He—or his messenger could——"

"Put that idea out of your head, my darling," urged Claremanagh. "Mayen had the seal, and of course it's on the cards that Defasquelle, his messenger, might have stolen it or had an imitation one made. But neither of them had the——"

Abruptly the Duke stopped. He had been talking fast and eagerly, and he pulled himself up so short that it was as if he stumbled. Juliet had been examining the quaint clasp of the false pearls, which she still had in her hand, but that shocked pause brought her eyes to her husband's face. It had been pale and strained, but now there was a look upon it of physical suffering.

"You've thought of the one who did it!" she cried. "Someone you care for!"

By an intense effort Claremanagh seemed to withdraw all expression from his face. It became dull, like a handsome mask. "I wish I had thought of any one," he said. "No such luck."

Juliet had pitied him unselfishly at first, for after all the pearls were his, not hers, and the loss—sentimental and material—would be very great if the Tsarina's pearls were gone. But his look, his changed tone, and the cloud that seemed to rise between them like a mist roused her vague resentment. She felt as if she had tried to comfort him and he had pushed her away.

"Pat!" she exclaimed, sharply. "It's no use your trying to put me off. You have thought who changed the pearls—or anyhow, of a person who might have done it. You've simply got to tell me. I have a right to know."

"My dear child," he protested. "You do spring to the wildest conclusions!"

Juliet's anger rose. "The whole thing is wild. Only wild conclusions are of any use. If you don't want me to try and help you, I won't. But I can't prevent myself from seeing one thing that perhaps you don't see yet. If the real thief isn't soon found, and this story gets out, there will be some horrid gossip about you."

Claremanagh flushed scarlet. "I do see," he said. "At least, I see what you're hinting at. If I purloin my own pearls, and secretly sell them, while getting credit at the same time for giving them to my wife, I bring off a very neat coup. That's what you mean, isn't it?"

The thing sounded so crudely villainous when put into words that Juliet was ashamed. But there was a fierce light in the eyes which until to-day had never looked at her except in love—or seeming love. Juliet would not let her husband fancy for an instant that he had made her flinch. "Yes, that's what I mean," she answered. "One's dear friends are capable of any insinuation."

"And even those dearer and nearer than friends!" Pat flung at her. "Oh, I realize that I'm the classic target. A poor Irish peer—the poorest of the lot!—who dares to marry America's richest girl. No beastly trick too vile to believe of him! Of course a blighter like that couldn't have married the girl for love."

To hear the words spoken, even in bitterest sarcasm, was like the prick of a knife. Juliet had pushed them out of her own mind so often that it was sharpest anguish to have them thrust into it by Pat's adored lips. If he loved her, she could not see how it was possible for him to speak like that! In thinking this, she pitied herself desperately, and forgot her own words which had lashed him to retaliation. She forgot, too, how that very morning her lips had flung this very taunt. She had shown him sharply how much her own she considered her fortune, her house, and everything he shared as her husband.

It seemed to her that now he was inadvertently confessing, rather than sneering at possible accusers. Juliet defended her own attractions pitifully, yet there was nothing pitiful in her look. She loomed tall and aggressive, and cruelly beautiful, with blazing eyes and cheeks.

"A great many men have told me they loved me, and that no one could help loving me for myself, but I never believed any of them till I met you; and then I was a conceited fool to think you could care for me after Lyda Pavoya."

Pat started as if she had boxed his ears: and Juliet, too, was surprised. She had not meant to say that. The thing had said itself. For an instant his eyes flamed. Then their fire died out, and left them cold. He looked disgusted. "I told you once that I had never loved Mademoiselle Pavoya," he said. "One isn't used to having one's word doubted. It's rather humiliating to have it happen with one's own wife. But putting that aside, why not keep to the point? Why bring up the lady's name when we are discussing quite a different affair—the affair of these pearls?"

Out of Claremanagh's coldness a demon was born, and flew straight to Juliet's heart. For an instant she lost all sense of her own love for her husband. She hated him and wished to hurt him as much as she could, because it seemed that he had gone out of his way to hurt her. She tingled all over with indignant humiliation. It was as if Pat had said, "I happen to be your husband, but you are only a commoner with no traditions of fine breeding behind you, while I am a man whose ancestors might have had yours for servants. No wonder you have no intuitive idea of decent decorum."

"Is it a different affair?" she cried. "Or is it one single affair—the affair of Lyda Pavoya and your pearls?"

Again the words had spoken themselves, but a flare of enlightenment came with them. Surely something had made her speak. Something which knew what she hadn't thought of till this moment: that Lyda Pavoya had taken the pearls.

How she could possibly have got them, if they had ever been in Louis Mayen's keeping, Juliet could not see. But she had them—she had them! That was clear: and the fact would account for Pat's sudden breaking off of a sentence. He had begun to defend Mayen and Defasquelle. "But neither one of them had the——" he had said, and stopped short, with an awful look on his face—the look of seeing something which no one else must be allowed to see. What thing was there that Mayen and his messenger had not, which another person might have had? A thing which would make theft possible? A person who must be protected at any price?

Juliet could not guess yet what the thing might be, but the second guess was all too easy.

This time the Duke showed no sign of surprise, therefore he was not surprised. He merely looked more disgusted than before, which made his lack of love for his wife and his wish to defend the Polish dancer more evident to Juliet's racked mind.

"When I gave you my word about not loving Mademoiselle Pavoya I gave it also about the pearls," Claremanagh said. "I told you then that she had never had them. I can only repeat the statement, since you seem to have forgotten."

"I have forgotten nothing!" cried Juliet. "It's a man's code of honour, I suppose, to defend a woman, no matter how. But if that's not so—if you don't care enough for Lyda Pavoya to lie for her to your wife, I'd like to know how you'll answer this question: Do you swear that you don't suspect her of somehow stealing the real pearls, and putting imitation ones in their place?"

Claremanagh's face changed. He had been frankly though coldly furious. Now he looked stricken. "I would lie for no one on earth, except for you, and then only to save your life," he said. "It's an insult from you to me to ask that I should swear such a thing.

"Very well, then, your simple word is enough," said Juliet. "Give it that you don't think Pavoya has the pearls."

Claremanagh was silent, his eyes upon her. And in that silence, short as it was, Juliet heard a tiny voice speak. It whispered: "The thing Pavoya had, which the other didn't have, was a copy. She had a copy of the pearls."

"I could not believe such a thing," the Duke answered. "I have known Mademoiselle Pavoya for years. She is a good woman."

Juliet laughed, and laughing flung the false pearls on the floor. "'A good woman!' You have original ideas! I've heard a lot of things about her from a lot of people, but never that before."

"Because only malicious speeches are amusing, they are the ones 'a lot of people'—the lot we know—mostly make."

"Pooh!" sneered Juliet. "I see the whole thing now—except how she got the real pearls. But this imitation rope she had. You can't face me, and say she hadn't."

"I'll say nothing more on the subject while you're in this mood," returned Claremanagh.

"All right, if you think prevarication more honourable than lying straight out," panted Juliet, holding down sobs. "But you won't do her any good with me—or yourself either. You were scared blue when I said the eye of the clasp looked to the right instead of to the left, like the eye on your seal ring. You'd hardly believe it till you had to. Then the whole thing grew clear to you, as it's growing for me now. This copy existed. The clasp was made the wrong way, by mistake or on purpose. As soon as I spoke, you knew what had happened. Your first thought—as soon as you could think—was to save that woman. But you shan't save her! I——"

"Do you intend to make a scandal of this beastly business?" the Duke cut her short with violence. "If you do, you will repent it all your life."

Juliet quivered. "I don't care about my life now," she said. "You've spoilt it. You couldn't punish me any more than you've punished me already—for loving and trusting you. So it doesn't matter what I——"

"It matters immensely," he broke in again. "You are cruel to yourself—to me—to a woman who has never injured you. When I say that you'll repent making a scandal, I don't mean because I'd try to 'punish' you. My God, no! You'll repent because you will be doing a great injustice which can't possibly be repaired. And at heart, when you're true to yourself, you are just."

"It's no use your trying to appeal to my sense of justice," Juliet warned him. "That's the last thing for you to bring up!"

He looked at her very sadly, very strangely, it seemed to his wife, as if anger were dying out, and a great sorrow had taken its place. But that was only his cleverness—his deadly, Irish cleverness, of course!

"What, then, do you intend to do?" he asked.

Once more confusion fogged the girl's brain, a desolate confusion like chaos after ordered beauty; the end of all joy, all loveliness.

"I don't know yet," she said, dully. "I shall have to think."

As Juliet spoke, fingers tapped lightly on the door: Simone's fingers, no doubt. Her fifteen minutes of banishment had passed.

"Come in!" Juliet spoke mechanically; and if she wished to withdraw the words, it was too late. The Frenchwoman opened the door.

"Madame la Duchesse is ready for me to finish dressing her?" she asked.

Vaguely it struck Juliet that Simone's voice was not quite natural. She had probably been listening at the keyhole, and had heard everything. But, on second thoughts, what did it matter? Juliet told herself miserably that nothing could be the same as it had been. She could not go on after this, living with Pat as his wife. All the world would soon know that there was trouble between them, and Simone's knowing first was of little importance. She was only a servant, and luckily a loyal and discreet servant.

As Juliet paused a second before speaking, Claremanagh answered for her: "The Duchess is feeling very tired, and as you know, I'm not well. We've about decided to telephone that we can't go out," he said.

"But not quite decided," his wife amended. "I think that if you prefer to stay at home, I shall go and make your excuses in person."

Pat showed surprise. He had taken it completely for granted that she would not dream of dining at the Van Estens'. "No," he decided, after an instant's thought. "If you are equal to it, so am I."

"He's afraid to trust me alone," Juliet told herself, "for fear I shall say something." "Very well," she said aloud. "You better hurry up and get ready, then. We're late as it is."

Pat did not answer. Without another word or look he went to his room and shut the door between. Evidently Nickson had not been with his master to-night. Juliet wondered where the man was, and with a bitter sense of amusement pictured "Old Nick's" emotions if she began a suit for divorce against the Duke. She had always liked the queer fellow, who had been as fine a soldier, Pat said, as he was an indifferent valet: had liked him partly because of his thrilled admiration of her. Deeply as he adored her at present, however, that love was nothing beside what he felt for the Duke. It made Juliet a shade more miserable than before to know that the worshipping Nick would soon cease to worship. So far, she had kept back her tears, but they were becoming irrepressible when Simone exclaimed: "Oh, the wonderful pearls! Madame la Duchesse has let them fall on the floor."

The current of Juliet's thoughts changed instantly, and the brimming tears dried at their source.

"The wonderful pearls!" she repeated, with infinite bitterness, sure as she was that Simone had been at the keyhole. But the look of pained astonishment on the woman's face made her wonder if, after all, Simone had heard "everything." Perhaps she had caught parts only of the conversation, and had been trying to find out "for sure" whether she had heard aright.

Juliet had perfect trust in Simone, so far as discretion was concerned, but it was within her estimate of the maid's character that she should eavesdrop. People of her class did that sort of thing and thought it no harm. It made the drama of their lives! Simone would keep her knowledge or her suspicion to herself, of course, until whatever was fated to happen had happened. Then, no doubt, she would tell her friends that she'd "known all along." Still, Juliet suddenly disliked the thought of being pitied even by her maid. Simone was aware that her mistress had looked forward to getting the pearls. It was humiliating that she should have instead a mere string of wax or fish-scale beads! If Simone had heard, it couldn't be helped. If she hadn't, however, she should remain in ignorance.

"They're not quite as glorious as I expected them to be," Juliet remarked. "I suppose it's like that with everything in life."

"But they are very beautiful," ventured Simone with the privileged air of the old and trusted servant which she put on like a sort of chain armour at times. "Will Madame la Duchesse wear them to-night?"

Juliet was taken aback. She had, of course, intended to wear the Tsarina pearls. She had told herself that she would do so, if only that everyone should see that she, not Pavoya, had them. But since discovering the truth about them—why, it had not occurred to her that she could wear the things! Rather would she have thrown them into the fire. Suddenly, however, she saw the matter from another point of view. Suppose she did appear wearing the rope? To do so would give her time to think. And it would be interesting to see Pat's face when he caught sight of them.

"Oh, yes, I'll wear the pearls," she said. "You know perfectly well I had this shot blue and silver tissue made on purpose to go with them. Why shouldn't I wear them, Simone?"

Simone did not answer, because she understood that no answer was expected. She had overheard something, and it was not her fault that she had not overheard all. Unfortunately for her the room was large, and the Duke and Duchess had stood talking at a good distance from the door. The manner of her mistress, however, filled up several aching gaps in Simone's curiosity; and putting together what she knew and what she surmised, the maid changed her mind as to her own wisest course of conduct.

She had intended to sacrifice inclination to prudence, and say nothing to the Duchess about the Polish dancer's visit that afternoon. Now, she decided that it would be best to mention it. How to work up to the subject was the only doubt on that score left in her mind.

"Madame la Duchesse is merveilleuse—etíncilante!" she cried, as she held the rope of big blue beads over Juliet's head, and let it fall gently upon the swans-down whiteness of the bare neck. "Madame was perfect as a girl. Now she goes beyond perfection. Other women are charming—the beautiful Pole, Mademoiselle Pavoya for instance, but——"

Juliet darted upon her a piercing, angry glance. "What makes you think or speak of Pavoya just now?" she sharply questioned.

"Oh—I hardly know. Except that she is of a great beauty, and—in her way—of a strange attraction. And then, also, as no doubt Togo told Madame la Duchesse, la Pavoya called to-day."

"Called to-day!" echoed Juliet. "You don't mean here?"

"But yes, Madame. Did not Madame know? I was about to go out with the bulldog. Being permitted to pass down by the front stairs, I saw the lady arrive. To be sure, she had on a thick embroidered veil through which, perhaps, many people would not recognize the most famous features. But my eyes are sharp. And then, her figure! There are not two such. Though, to my taste, that of Madame la Duchesse is more alluring, more human. The dancer is a mere sprite! I said to myself, 'It must be about the charity performance for the Armenians that she is here to consult with my mistress'!"

As she thus interpreted her own impressions, Simone busied herself in getting Juliet's ermine cloak, which previously she had laid ready on the bed. Sometimes, when the Claremanaghs were going out together in the evening, the Duke came in and took his wife's coat from Simone, slipping it in a leisurely and loving way over the white arms, as if he never tired of touching the adorable creature who belonged to him. But Simone did not think he would come to perform that office to-night; and besides, she wanted an excuse to escape from her mistress's great, wide-open blue eyes. The maid had taken a tactful way of explaining the dancer's (possible) motive for calling; because if she dared to accuse the Duke by a hint, the Duchess would be bound to stop her.

Juliet was struck dumb for a moment. She would not have thought, after what had passed between her and Pat, that she could be surprised by anything concerning him and Pavoya, but now she knew that she could be astounded.

Pavoya had called! Togo had let her in, the traitor! bribed by Claremanagh, who had sunk low enough even for that! Still, had Togo let the woman in? It was easy to make sure.

"A pity I was out," Juliet said. "I suppose she went away when she heard that?"

"No, Madame, she came in," replied Simone with the innocence of a child. "I do not know how long she stayed. Monsieur le Duc will tell Madame that. It was to his study that Togo took her."

"Oh, very well. I can ask him what message she left," Juliet promptly cut short this confidence. She had no wish to learn more, and her suppression of Simone was no triumph of honour over curiosity. She felt a sick, languid repulsion against the whole subject, for she knew the worst now, and any further information would be a kind of horrid anti-climax.

"Oh, Pat, Pat!" her heart mourned. "How has my idol fallen! And he talked so nobly about never lying!"

That night, when the Duke and Duchess of Claremanagh came into their box in time for the second act of "Rigoletto," everyone "in the know" said "Look! She's got the Tsarina pearls at last!"

And Claremanagh wondered at her. He wondered terribly, abysmally, why, after their scene together, and her threats, she had worn the abominable things. He had wondered about that ever since, the ermine cloak removed, he had seen the blue beads on her neck at the Van Estens'.

He ought, perhaps, to have rejoiced at the sight, for she could not wear a rope of imitation pearls, and accuse Lyda Pavoya of stealing the real ones. That would be to punish him less severely than herself. Yet Pat was uneasy as well as unhappy. The only thing he understood clearly in all the hideous affair was that—he understood Juliet not at all. He asked himself over and over again a question he could not, would not ask her—what, in God's name, she intended to do next?

All the way home, when at length they were again alone together in their brilliantly lit limousine, she did not utter one word, nor once look at him. She sat quite still, pretending to be asleep, but Claremanagh knew that he was no wider awake than she. A dozen times he longed to speak; but there are some things a man cannot do. She seemed to have barricaded herself behind a transparent wall, through which he could see, yet not touch, her—as if she had been a lovely statuette under a glass case.

At the house she sprang past him quickly, without accepting his help to alight, and ran up the two or three marble steps. Claremanagh had his key, but before he could use it Juliet pressed the electric bell, and Togo appeared. The girl did not look back at her husband, to see whether he meant to follow. And suddenly he did not mean to do so. He hadn't been sure, at first, what he would do: but he could not bear to have her shut the door of her room upon him, as she surely would.

With a gesture he signed to Togo that he was not coming in. The car waited, but he said to the chauffeur in the pleasant, courteous tone which won the affection of servants, "I shan't want you—thanks."

In that mood, he could not make use of Juliet's car. He preferred the poor independence of his own feet, even while he laughed at himself, bitterly, for so petty a revolt. He walked to the "Grumblers," that one of his several clubs at which he was likely to meet a man with whom he had business—business important enough to remember even now.

"I won't keep the beastly money on me any longer," he thought. "The fellow shall have it to-night."

CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE IN A CROSSTOWN STREET

If Simone had not already telephoned to the private office of the Inner Circle's editor, she might have changed her mind about going there that night. She was less superstitious and of harder mental fibre than most Frenchwomen of the south and of her class; but after the quarrel between the Duke and Duchess something within her shrank from keeping the secret appointment she had made.

It was not that she was suddenly conscience-stricken, or that she thought her mistress had suffered enough without having the skeleton in the cupboard dangled in front of the public. The woman was incapable of any real love save self love, but she liked Juliet, and would have inflicted upon her no great gratuitous pain. The pain to be inflicted in this instance, however (as well as other instances in the past), was not gratuitous. Simone would be magnificently paid for inflicting it, and so far as Juliet was concerned, she could earn the reward without a qualm. It was for herself that she hesitated; and she did not quite know why.

That was the trouble! If she had known, she could have argued out the two sides of the matter, for and against. But it was only a vague sort of presentiment she felt, that she would somehow be sorry if she gave this story to the paper she served. And it might not be a proper presentiment at all, but only a form of indigestion. She had (she too vividly recalled) taken at luncheon three helpings of lobster salad, a dish which never agreed with her. Besides, she was naturally excited over her part in the events of the day. And then she had telephoned the office. She had camouflaged her message, lest it should be overheard, but what she had said would inform the editor that she had up her sleeve the best tit-bit he had ever got from her.

To-morrow afternoon the Inner Circle (a weekly publication) would be on sale, and the "Whisperer's" columns were always kept back till the latest possible moment, on account of just such morsels dropping in.

But to-night the last paragraphs were to be held up expressly for Simone almost beyond the time-limit. She was bound to "make good" or she would never be trusted again, and if the editor were satisfied she was to receive exactly five times the sum she got for more or less valuable items supplied each week.

With a vague, uneasy presentiment in one scale, and five hundred dollars in the other (notes, not a cheque; the Inner Circle never paid cheques for "Whisperer" stuff) the presentiment was outweighed. Simone had in any case a dinner engagement which nothing short of death would have induced her to miss; and the Duchess had not been gone quite ten minutes when she flew out to keep it.

She said nothing to her dinner companion, however, about the later appointment, and excused herself early on the plea that it would be "like Madame to flash in at home, clamouring for her maid, between Mrs. Van Esten's party and the opera, if only for a minute."

Certainly it was little more than a minute that Simone remained at the Phayre house after being brought back after dinner in a taxi. At the end of that time she was out again, and on her way to the office of the Inner Circle.

About this place there was always something mysterious even to Simone's practical and unimaginative mind, and the private office of the editor was the heart of the mystery—the inner circle of the Inner Circle. For years she had been a highly paid contributor to the scandalous little paper, ever since she had entered her first "smart" situation in New York, and had been approved by a man whose outward business was straightforward reporting for the "Society" columns of a reputable daily. When in town, Simone had been in the habit of calling in person instead of trusting to the post, and since her value had become recognized, she was invariably received by the editor himself in that very private sanctuary of his. Yet to this day she had never seen his face, and did not know his real name.

"Mr. Jones will speak to you," was the message telephoned down from regions above to the amateurish little reception room, where an elderly, mild-faced lady in old-fashioned dress received visitors and tapped a typewriter.

But the Frenchwoman was sure that outside the office HE was other than "Mr. Jones," as sure as that Simone Amaranthe was at home Simonetta Amaranti.

The editor's private office was divided practically into two by means of a fixed screen or partition of match-boarding so high that even if an enterprising caller jumped on to a chair he (or she) could not see what lay on the other side. There was no door in this screen, therefore no danger existed that the editor could be "rushed." Against the partition was placed a table and a chair of the ordinary "office furniture" type; and other decoration there was none. On the table were writing materials, and a small house-telephone. By means of this instrument one spoke to the Presence on the other side, and he spoke in return. That it was always the same Presence, Simone knew by the voice. It was peculiar, mincing, and rather effeminate, and though she shrewdly attributed this quality to disguise, it could not well have been imitated by an understudy.

This happened to be the first time Simone had ever been to the office at night. It was in a cross-town street, within possible walking distance of the Phayre house; and this was luck for her, as she would have taken a taxi with great reluctance. This errand of hers was the most ticklish she had ever carried out, and she could not afford to leave the least detail to chance, in case a hue and cry should be raised by the Claremanaghs. Twenty minutes' brisk walk brought her to the door of what had once been a private house, and was now given up to offices. The Inner Circle occupied the two lower floors, and above was quite a well-known, though not very fashionable, manicurist, Madame Veno. Still higher, the fourth (and top) floor was tenanted by a wig maker who widely advertised a hair-dye "Goldenglints"; and once, when a wave of rage against the "Whisperer" swept New York, it was rumoured that both these businesses were secretly owned by the Inner Circle. No proof was obtainable, however, and since then several new managers had come and gone, both for Madame Veno and "Goldenglints."

To-night the whole house front looked so darkly brooding to Simone's worried eyes that she could have believed anything of it, especially anything that was hideous and evil.

There were no lights in the windows, and the front door, always open by day, was closed. But the voice which answered Simone's call on the 'phone that afternoon had warned her that this would be so, and had told her what to do. Following instructions, she descended the steps to a basement door, and touched an electric bell above which, on a small brass plate, was the word "Janitor."

Two or three minutes passed, and brought no answer. But suddenly, as Simone was about to ring again, the door opened on a chain.

"What do you want?" a woman's voice demanded through the aperture.

"To see the editor of the Inner Circle," replied Simone. "I have an appointment with him."

"Oh! What is your name?" questioned the voice.

"Mademoiselle Simone Amaranthe."

The chain fell, and the door opened as if the Frenchwoman, challenged, had given the countersign. Simone squeezed through the small space allowed her, and the door instantly shut.

It was dark in the basement passage except for the light that came from a room at the back. The woman—the janitor's wife, perhaps—had a little knitted shawl over her head, as though she were suffering from neuralgia. Simone could not see what she was like, whether old or young, except that her silhouette loomed tall and slender against the dim light.

"Can you find your way up?" asked the voice.

"Yes," said Simone, "I was told it would be dark,—and that I must bring an electric torch. I have brought it."

"Very well. Go up, and knock when you come to the door. Mr. Jones is expecting you."

Simone switched on the flame of her torch, and went up.