"You're a good little devil," he said with a forced smile. "When this poor girl's better, get her to say where Sylvia is. She'll tell you.

And let me know when the whole damned thing's straightened out. I'm off to Bombay in ten days' time. And it isn't very cheerful going off without knowing where Sylvia is. Now we've been out long enough," he added in firm, normal tones.

All three of us looked up quickly as the door opened. Culling's hat was once more on his head, and he was trying to pull on a pair of gloves and light a cigarette at the same time.

"All over but the cheering," he began abruptly. "High and low we've searched, and not found enough of a woman would make a man leave Eden, and she the only woman in the world."

"You've searched every room?" asked Nigel with a suspicious glance at the Seraph.

"Cellar to garret," answered Culling serenely, "and no living creature but a pair of goldfinches, and one of them dead; unless you'd be counting the buxom matron that the Seraph dashes my hopes by sayin'

has a taste for drink like the many best of us, and she married already, and the mother of fourteen brace of twins and a good plain cook into the bargain."

Nigel picked up his papers and turned to Gartside for corroboration.

"We searched every room," he was told, "and Miss Davenant's not here.

Seraph, we owe you...."

The apology was cut short, as speaker and listeners paused to catch a sound that floated through the silent hall and in at the open library door. A long, troubled moaning it was, the sound I had heard all night and dreaded all the morning.

"I shall have to check the verbal information after all," said Nigel as he put back his hat and papers on the table.

"Where are you off to?" asked Gartside as he approached the door.

"It seems I must search the house myself."

"You undertook to accept our finding."

"I thought I could trust you."

"I have said Miss Davenant is not in these rooms," said Gartside in a warning voice.

"If you said it a hundred times I should still disbelieve you. Let me pass, please."

He raised a hand to clear himself a passage, but in physical strength he had met more than his match. Seizing both wrists in one hand and both ankles in the other, Gartside carried him like a child's doll across the room to the open library window, thrust him through it, and held him for ninety seconds stretched at arm's length three storeys above the level of the street. The veins stood out on his forehead, and I heard his voice rumbling like the distant mutter of thunder.

"When I say a thing, Nigel, you have to believe me. The moon's of green cheese if I tell you to believe it, and when I say Miss Davenant's not in this flat, she's not and never has been, and never will be. You see?"

Stepping back from the window, he dropped his burden on a neighbouring sofa. Nigel straightened his tie, brushed his clothes, and once more gathered up his hat, his papers, and the remains of his dignity.

"Culling says there is no woman but a cook in the house," he began, with the studied tranquillity of an angry man. "He clearly lies.

Gartside says Miss Davenant is not in the flat. He probably lies, but it is always possible that the sound we heard may have come from some woman Aintree thinks fit to keep in his rooms. In either event, I do not feel bound by the undertaking I have given." He pulled out a note-book and pretended to consult it. "To-day's Wednesday. If my sister and Sylvia have not been restored to their families by midday on Monday, I shall apply for a warrant to have these rooms searched.

They will, of course, be watched in the interval. If Lord Gartside or any other person presumes to lay a finger on me, I shall summon him for assault."

Pocketing the note-book he passed out of the flat with the air I suspect Rhadamanthus of assuming, when he is leaving the court for the luncheon interval, and has had a disagreeable morning with the prisoners. Culling accompanied him to prevent a sudden bolt at a suspicious-looking door, Philip followed with the Seraph, I brought up the rear with Gartside. All of us were smarting with the Englishman's traditional dislike of a "scene."

"I never congratulated you on the Bombay appointment," I said, with praiseworthy design of scrambling onto neutral territory. "How soon are you off?"

"Friday week," he answered.

"It's little enough time--nine days."

"Oh, I've known for some little while beyond that. It was only made public to-day."

"It's a pleasant post," I said reflectively. "In a tolerably pleasant country. I shall probably come to stay with you; I'm forgetting what India's like."

"I wish you would," he said warmly.

"How are you going? P. and O. I suppose?"

"No, I shall go in my own yacht."

Culling turned round to reprove me for my forgetfulness.

"We Gartsides always take our own yachts when we cross the ocean to take up our new responsibilities of Empire," he explained.

"Where do you sail from?" I ask. "Marseilles?"

"Southampton. Are you coming to see me off?"

"I might. It depends whether I can get away. Half London will be there, I suppose?"

Candidly I cannot say whether my questions were prompted by what the Seraph would call a sub-conscious plan of campaign. Gartside undeniably thought they were, and met me gallantly.

"I'm eating a farewell dinner every night till I sail," he said. Then, sinking his voice, he added, "You know the yacht--she's roomy, and there will be only my two aide-de-camps and myself. No one will be seeing me off, because I haven't told them when I'm sailing. It's the usual route--anywhere in the Mediterranean. But I can't sail before Friday week."

"I see. Well," I held out my hand, "if I _don't_ see you again, I'll say good-bye."

"Good-bye. Best of luck!" he answered, and waved a hand as I walked back and rejoined the Seraph in the hall.

He was so white that I expected every moment to see him faint, and his clothes were wet with perspiration. I, who am not so fine-drawn, had found the last hour a little trying.

"You're going to bed in decent time to-night," I told him. "I'm going to see Nurse, and find out if she knows of any one she can trust to come and help her. And I'm going to keep you out of the sick-room at the point of a bayonet if you've got one."

I had expected a protest, but none came. He sat with closed eyes, resting his head on his hand.

"I suppose that will be best," he assented at last.

"And now you're coming to get something to eat," I said, leading him into the dining-room.

"I'm not hungry," he complained.

"But you're going to eat a great deal," I said, pushing him into his chair and selecting a serviceable, sharp-pronged pickle-fork.

After luncheon I had my usual siesta, prolonged rather beyond my usual hour. It was five o'clock when I awoke, and I found the Seraph playing with a sheet of paper. He had written "Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday" on it, and after "Monday," "12.0 P.M."

"What's all this?" I asked.

"Our days of grace."