puzzling laugh.
"No, but I annoyed him, as Mr.——"
"No names!" broke in the detective hastily. "Names, especially modern ones, destroy romance. Even the Georgian method of using initials, or leaving out vowels, lend an air of intrigue to the veriest balderdash."
"But no one can overhear us," was the somewhat surprised comment.
"How true!" said Furneaux. "Pardon me, Miss Martin. Tell the story in your own way."
Doris had a good memory. She was invariably letter-perfect in a play after a couple of rehearsals, and could prompt others if they faltered. The detective listened in silence while she repeated the conversation between Siddle and herself. He took no notes. In fact, he hardly ever did make any record in a case unless it was essential to prove the exact words of a suspected person.
"Good!" he said, when she had finished. "That sounds like the complete text."
"I don't think I have left out anything of importance—that is, if a single word of it is important."
"Oh, heaps," he assured her. "It's even better than I dared hope. Can you tell me if Siddle's mother is dead yet?"
The question found Doris so thoroughly unprepared that she blurted out:
"Have you had a telegram, too, then?"
"No. But Siddle has had one, eh? Don't be vexed. I'm not tricking you into revealing post office secrets. I knew she was dying, and, when I saw your father take a message to the chemist's shop I simply made an accurate guess.... Now, I'm going to scare you, purposely and of malice aforethought, because I want you to be a good little girl, and obey orders. Mrs. Siddle, senior, now happily deceased, was an epileptic lunatic of a peculiarly dangerous type. She suffered from what is classed by the doctors as furor epilepticus, a form of spasmodic insanity not inconsistent with a high degree of bodily vigor and long periods of apparently complete mental saneness. Now, if I were not speaking to one who has shared her father's studies in bee-life, I would not introduce the subject of heredity. But you know, Miss Martin, that such racial characteristics are transmitted, or transmissible, I should say, by sex opposites. Thus, an epileptic mother is more likely to give her taint to a son than to a daughter.... Yes, I mean all that, and more," he went on, seeing the look of horror, not unmixed with fear, in Doris's eyes. "There must be no more irritating of Siddle, or playing on his feelings—by you, at any rate. Treat him gently. If he insists on making love to you, be as firm as you like in a non-committal way. I mean, by that, an entire absence on your part of any suggestion that you are repulsing him because of a real or supposed preference for any other man."
"Do you want me to believe that he is liable to attack me?" demanded the girl, her naturally courageous spirit coming to her aid.
"I do," said Furneaux, speaking with marked earnestness.
"Yet you ask me to endure his company if he chooses to force himself on me?"
"For a few days."
"But it may be a few years?"
"No. That is not to be thought of. Leave it to me to devise a way. Besides, you need not allow him so many opportunities that the strain would become unbearable. You are busy, owing to the certain increase of work brought about by this murder. Your time will be greatly occupied. But, don't render him morbidly suspicious. For instance, no more dinners at The Hollies. No more gadding about by night, if you hear weird noises on the other side of the river. And you must absolutely deny yourself the pleasurable excitement of Mr. Grant's company."
"You are carrying a warning to its extreme limit."
"Exactly."
"And am I to keep this knowledge to myself?"
"In whom would you confide?"
"My father, of course."
"I know you better," and the detective's voice took on a profoundly serious note. "Your father would never admit that what he knows to be true of bees is equally true of humanity. You can trust the police to keep a pretty sharp eye on Siddle, of course, but the present is a strenuous period, both for us and for people with maniacal tendencies, so accidents may happen."
"You have distressed me immeasurably," said the girl, striving to pierce the mask of that inscrutable face.
"I meant to," answered Furneaux quietly. "No half measures for me. I've looked up the asylum record of Mrs. Siddle, senior, and it's not nice reading."
"There was a Mrs. Siddle, junior, then?"
"A Mrs. Theodore Siddle, if one adopts the conventional usage. Yes. She died last month."
"Last month!" gasped Doris, feeling vaguely that she was moving in a maze of deceit and subterfuge.
"On May 25th, to be precise. She lived apart from her husband. I have reason to believe she feared him."
"Yet—"
She hesitated, hardly able to put her jumbled thoughts into words.
"Yes. That's so," said the detective instantly. "Never mind. It's a fairly decent world, taken en bloc. I ought to speak with authority. I see enough of the seamy side of it, goodness knows. Now, forewarned is forearmed. Don't be nervous. Don't take risks. Everything will come right in time. Remember, I'm not far away in an emergency. Should I chance to be absent if you need advice, send for Mr. Franklin. You can easily devise some official excuse, a mislaid letter, or an error in a telegram."
"I think I shall feel confident if both of you are near," and the ghost of a smile lit Doris's wan features.
"We're a marvelous combination," grinned Furneaux, reverting at once to his normal impishness. "I am all brain; he is all muscle. Such an alliance prevails against the ungodly."
"Is Mr. Grant in any danger?" inquired Doris suddenly.
"No."
The two looked into each other's eyes. Doris was eager to ask a question, which Furneaux dared her to put. The detective won. She sighed.
"Very well," she said. "I'm to behave. Am I to regard myself as a decoy duck?"
"A duck, anyhow."
She laughed lightly. Furneaux would vouchsafe no further information, it would appear. For a girl of nineteen, Doris was uncommonly gifted with clear, analytical reasoning powers.
The detective returned to the Hare and Hounds, and went upstairs. He met Peters on the landing.
"The devil!" he cried.
"My dear pal!" retorted the journalist.
"Are you living here?"
"Why not?"
"Why not, indeed? Where the eagles are there is the carcase."
"Your misquotation is offensive."
"It was so intended."
"Come and have a drink."
"No."
"I say 'yes.' You'll thank me on your bended knees afterwards. The South American gent is having the time of his life. I've just been to my room for Whitaker's Almanack, wherewith a certain Don Walter Hart purposes flooring him."
Wally Hart had, indeed, succeeded in running to earth the Argentine magnate, and was giving Winter a most uncomfortable quarter of an hour.
"Ha!" shouted Hart, when Furneaux came in with Peters. "Here's the pocket marvel who'll answer any question straight off. What is the staple export of the Argentine!"
"How often have you been there?" demanded the detective dryly.
"Six times."
"And you've lived there?" This to Winter.
"Yes," glowered the big man, fearing the worst.
"Then the answer is 'fools,'" cackled Furneaux.
Wally laughed. He had remembered, just in time, that he had no