Perhaps at first I overdid it, but something is to be conceded to nervousness. Aunt Hannah kept tapping her teaspoon against her saucer with nervous little taps. The constant "small noise" was very irritating. Determined to stop it, I leant suddenly forward across the little table, till my face was close to Aunt Hannah's. Anger boiled in my heart. Sympathy for Dulcie rose up and flooded my mind. Though I allowed my most charming "boudoir" smile to overspread my face, it was all I could do not to seize hold of that old lady and shake her.

Inwardly I craved to grasp her lean wrists in a firm grip, and force her to listen to reason. "A dear" Dulcie had sometimes called her. "A dear"

she might be when in a nice mood, but in the peevish vein she was now in, her obstinacy held a particularly maddening quality.

"You know," I said, still smiling hypocritically, "you are really _trying_ to disbelieve me now. You are trying to make mischief between Dulcie and me--and you enjoy it," and I glanced in the direction of my darling, whose eyes were shining strangely. "Why don't you answer?" I went on, as Aunt Hannah remained silent; I could hear her gulping with rage. At last she spoke:

"What impudence--what unwarrantable impudence!" The words were shot from between her teeth. "You--you dare to speak to me like this--you--you--"

"After all, Miss Challoner," I cut in, "it's true. I no more sent that, or any telegram, to Dulcie than I am flying over the moon at this moment. And if you still disbelieve me, at least tell me why. Yes, I must know. Don't evade an answer. You have something else in your mind, I can see that, and I am not going to rest until I know what that something is."

"Oh, you very rude young man," she burst out. "Yes, you shall know what it is! If, as you say, the telegram was not sent by you--and I suppose I must believe you--why was it not sent to Sir Roland? Such a telegram should have been sent to him, and not to his daughter--if the stolen property had been found, it was for him to come to Town, or even for me to, but certainly it was not Dulcie's place to go gallivanting about in London. Now, I maintain it was sent to Dulcie because the sender knew Sir Roland to be away from home--and who, but you, knew him to be away?

He left only yesterday, and he should return to-night. You knew because, so my niece tells me, she told you in a letter that he was to leave home for a day."

"My niece!" Really, Aunt Hannah was qualifying for _opera bouffe!_ Just then she knocked her spoon so loudly against her cup that it startled me.

"Don't worry, Dulcie," I said, seeing how distressed she looked. "You believe I didn't send it, anyway--I don't mind what anybody else thinks," I added spitefully. "The mystery will be cleared up sooner or later, and 'he laughs longest ...' you know the rest. Only one thing I wonder," I ended, again facing Aunt Hannah, "if you thought that, why did you bring Dulcie up to town? Why didn't you leave her at Holt, and come up alone?"

"I will tell you why," she snapped back. "Because, wilful and disobedient as she has always been, she refused to stay at Holt and let me come up alone."

Dulcie looked at me without answering, and I read love and confidence in her eyes. That was all I really cared to know, and the look afforded me immense relief.

I felt there was no good purpose to be served by remaining there longer, so after shaking hands warmly with Dulcie--to the manifold disapproval of Aunt Hannah, who stared at me frigidly and barely even bowed as I took my leave--I sauntered out into Piccadilly.

My thoughts wandered. They were not, I must say, of the happiest.

Obviously there was an enemy somewhere--it might be enemies. But who could it be? Why should I have, we have--for Dulcie suffered equally--an enemy? What reason could anyone have for wishing to make Dulcie, or me, or any of the Challoners, unhappy? Everybody I knew who knew them seemed to love them, particularly the tenantry. Sir Roland was looked up to and respected by both county people and villagers for miles around Holt Stacey, while Dulcie was literally adored by men and women alike, or so I believed. True, old Aunt Hannah sometimes put people out owing to her eccentricities and her irascible temper, but then they mostly looked upon her as a rather queer old lady, and made allowances for her, and she had not, I felt sure, an enemy in the country-side.

As for myself, well, I could not recollect ever doing any particularly bad turn--I had my likes and dislikes among the people I knew, naturally. Then suddenly a thought struck me--my engagement to Dulcie.

Could that be--

I smiled as I dismissed the thought--it seemed too grotesque. No; once and for all I decided that the whole affair could have nothing to do with any kind of personal animosity. Criminals were at work, desperate criminals, perhaps, and Osborne and Dulcie and I had chanced to prove very useful as p.a.w.ns in some scheme of theirs for securing plunder. I glanced at my watch. It was just five o'clock. Concluding that Jack Osborne must now be at his rooms, I drove to the Russell Hotel. Yes, he particularly wanted to see me; would I please go up at once, the clerk said when he had telephoned up my name and my inquiry if Mr. Osborne were at home to anybody.

Easterton was with him still; a doctor was on the point of leaving as I entered the room where Jack sat in his dressing-gown in a big chair, drinking a cup of soup. Already he looked better, I thought, than when I had seen him at the house in Grafton Street, barely two hours before.

After exchanging a few remarks with him, and being a.s.sured by Easterton that the doctor had said that Jack might now see anyone he pleased, I came straight to the question of the telegram, repeating to him almost word for word what I had told Aunt Hannah.

For nearly a minute after I had stopped speaking he did not utter. He appeared to be thinking deeply, judging by the way his brows were knit.

Then, suddenly looking straight at me, he said:

"Mike, I don't like this business--I don't like it at all. There's something radically wrong about the whole thing. Now, look here, you know that when I say a thing I mean it. Therefore I tell you this--I am going to set to work, as soon as I have quite recovered from the nightmare I have been through, to discover what is happening. I am going to solve every detail of this mystery, and if there is some gang of scoundrels at work committing burglaries and what not--because I feel quite sure this affair is in some way connected with the robbery at Holt--I am going to get them convicted. The doctor tells me I shall be perfectly all right in a couple of days. I have nothing to do. You have nothing to do. Will you join me in this attempt I am going to make to track these men down? I hear it said that you are engaged to be married to Dulcie Challoner. If that's so, then you should be even more anxious than I am to get this gang arrested--the police say it must be a gang.

They have looted some thousands of pounds' worth of jewellery which practically belonged to Dulcie Challoner. Think what it will mean to her if through your efforts all that is restored to her. Besides, she will think you a hero--I mean an even greater hero than she already considers you, most likely; I confess I don't agree with her, old man. You are a very good chap--but a hero? No. Say, then, will you help me in this search? It may prove exciting too; on the other hand, it may not."

Jack's breezy manner and almost boyish enthusiasm appealed to me. After all, I had, as he said, nothing on earth to do--I often wished I had--and I was rather keen on anything that might lead to or savour of adventure. Though I was engaged to Dulcie, there were family reasons why the marriage could not take place at once, and then I thought again of what Jack had just said about the stolen jewels--Dulcie was still greatly upset at their loss, and there was even the possibility, I thought with a smile, that if I were directly or indirectly responsible for their recovery Aunt Hannah might eventually deign again to smile upon me--which would, of course, give me great joy!

"Yes, old chap," I said, "I'll do anything you jolly well like. I'm sick of doing nothing."

"First rate!" he answered. "Then that's settled. I've all sorts of ideas and theories about the Holt Manor robbery and this affair of mine, and that telegram to-day, and other things that have happened--some you know about, some you don't. I have a friend who was for twenty years at Scotland Yard--George Preston, wonderful chap, knows London upside-down and inside-out, and now he's kicking his heels with nothing to do he'll be only too glad to earn a bit. You might ring him up for me now, and ask him to come here to-morrow."

Somebody knocked, and I went to the door, Jack having told me that he did not want to see anybody likely to bore him.

It was only an hotel messenger. The clerk in the office had tried to ring up the room, he said, but could get no answer. Turning, I saw that Jack had forgotten to replace the receiver the last time he had spoken.

"What do you want?" I asked.

The messenger said that a "young gentleman" had just called. He wanted to see "a Mr. Berrington" who was probably with Mr. Osborne.

"What about?" I said. "And didn't he give his name?"

"He wouldn't say what about, sir, though he was asked. He said it was 'most important.' He said to say 'Mr. Richard Challoner.'"

"d.i.c.k!" I exclaimed. "Good heavens, what is d.i.c.k doing up in London? Oh, go down," I said to the messenger, "and send him up at once."

"It's d.i.c.k Challoner," I said, turning to Osborne and Easterton, "Sir Roland's boy, the little chap I told you about who behaved so pluckily when the thieves at Holt got hold of him. I wonder what _he's_ doing in town, and why he wants to see me."

Then I sat down, lit a cigarette, and waited. I little suspected what an amazing story I was about to hear.

CHAPTER IX

THE SNARE

d.i.c.k's face bore a broad grin as he entered the room. He looked dreadfully mischievous. a.s.suming as serious an expression as I could conjure, I said to him:

"Why, what's the meaning of this, d.i.c.k? How do you come to be in town?

Are you with Aunt Hannah?"

"It's all right--brother-in-law," he answered lightly. "No, I am not with Aunt Hannah, nor is Aunt Hannah with me. I have come up on my own."

"'On your own'? What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you, but--won't you introduce me, Mike?"

"Easterton," I said, "this is Roland Challoner's boy, d.i.c.k. Jack, this is the boy I told you about who was chloroformed by the thieves at Holt."

Jack's eyes rested on d.i.c.k. Then he put out his hand.

"Come here, old chap," he said in his deep voice. For several moments he held d.i.c.k's hand in his while he sat looking at him.

"Yes," he said at last, "I have heard about you--d.i.c.k. I heard about what you did that day those men caught you. Keep that spirit up, my boy--your family has never lacked pluck, if history is to be trusted--and you'll become one of the kind of men England so badly needs. What are you doing in London? Is your father with you?"

"No, I have come up on my own," d.i.c.k repeated. "I am going to tell Mike why, in a moment. Are you Mr. Jack Osborne that Mike is always talking to my sister about, who took Mike to that house--the house where the fire was?"

"Yes, I am," Jack answered, laughing. "Why?"

"Oh, because my sister didn't like your taking Mike there, you know--she didn't like it a bit. She and Mike are going to be married, you know, and Mike is going to be my brother-in-law."

I pounced upon him to make him be quiet, though Easterton and Osborne clamoured that he should be left alone and allowed to say anything he liked, Jack declaring that he wanted to hear "more of this romance."