gone to bed; Marguerite was washing up, for Mrs. Morris had the "servant's mind," which means that she could never keep a servant.
The sound of crashing plates had come to the dining-room and interrupted Mr. Morris at a most important point of his narrative. He jerked his head round.
"That's the girl," he said; "she's going to be a handful."
"Get her married," said Job Martin wisely.
He was a hatchet-faced man with a reputation for common-sense. He had another reputation which need not be particularized at the moment.
"Married?" scoffed Mr. Morris. "Not likely!"
He puffed at his cigar thoughtfully for a moment, then:
"She wouldn't come in to dinner--did you notice that? We are not good enough for her. She's fly! Fly ain't the word for it. We always find her nosing and sneaking around."
"Send her back to school," said the third guest.
He was a man of fifty-five, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven, who had literally played many parts, for he had been acting in a touring company when Morris first met him--Mr. Timothy Webber, a man not unknown to the Criminal Investigation Department.
"She might have been useful," Mr. Morris went on regretfully, "very useful indeed. She is as pretty as a picture, I'll give her that due. Now, suppose she----"
Webber shook his head.
"It's my way or no way," he said decidedly. "I've been a month studying this fellow, and I tell you I know him inside out."
"Have you been to see him?" asked the second man.
"Am I a fool?" replied the other roughly. "Of course I have not been to see him. But there are ways of finding out, aren't there? He is not the kind of lad that you can work with a woman, not if she's as pretty as paint."
"What do they call him?" asked Morris.
"Bones," said Webber, with a little grin. "At least, he has letters which start 'Dear Bones,' so I suppose that's his nickname. But he's got all the money in the world. He is full of silly ass schemes, and he's romantic."
"What's that to do with it?" asked Job Martin, and Webber turned with a despairing shrug to Morris.
"For a man who is supposed to have brains----" he said, but Morris stopped him with a gesture.
"I see the idea--that's enough."
He ruminated again, chewing at his cigar, then, with a shake of his head----
"I wish the girl was in it."
"Why?" asked Webber curiously.
"Because she's----" He hesitated. "I don't know what she knows about me. I can guess what she guesses. I'd like to get her into something like this, to--to----" He was at a loss for a word.
"Compromise?" suggested the more erudite Webber.
"That's the word. I'd like to have her like that!" He put his thumb down on the table in an expressive gesture.
Marguerite, standing outside, holding the door-handle hesitating as to whether she should carry in the spirit kettle which Mr. Morris had ordered, stood still and listened.
The houses in Oakleigh Grove were built in a hurry, and at best were not particularly sound-proof. She stood fully a quarter of an hour whilst the three men talked in low tones, and any doubts she might have had as to the nature of her step-father's business were dispelled.
Again there began within her the old fight between her loyalty to her mother and loyalty to herself and her own ideals. She had lived through purgatory these past twelve months, and again and again she had resolved to end it all, only to be held by pity for the helpless woman she would be deserting. She told herself a hundred times that her mother was satisfied in her placid way with the life she was living, and that her departure would be rather a relief than a cause for uneasiness. Now she hesitated no longer, and went back to the kitchen, took off the apron she was wearing, passed along the side-passage, up the stairs to her room, and began to pack her little bag.
Her mother was facing stark ruin. This man had drawn into his hands every penny she possessed, and was utilizing it for the furtherance of his own nefarious business. She had an idea--vague as yet, but later taking definite shape--that if she might not save her mother from the wreck which was inevitable, she might at least save something of her little fortune.
She had "nosed around" to such purpose that she had discovered her step-father was a man who for years had evaded the grip of an exasperated constabulary. Some day he would fall, and in his fall bring down her mother.
Mr. Cresta Morris absorbed in the elaboration of the great plan, was reminded, by the exhaustion of visible refreshment, that certain of his instructions had not been carried out.
"Wait a minute," he said. "I told that girl to bring in the kettle at half-past nine. I'll go out and get it. Her royal highness wouldn't lower herself by bringing it in, I suppose!"
He found the kettle on the kitchen table, but there was no sign of Marguerite. This was the culmination of a succession of "slights" which she had put on him, and in a rage he walked along the passage, and yelled up the stairs:
"Marguerite!"
There was no reply, and he raced up to her room. It was empty, but what was more significant, her dresses and the paraphernalia which usually ornamented her dressing-table had disappeared.
He came down a very thoughtful man.
"She's hopped," he said laconically. "I was always afraid of that."
It was fully an hour before he recovered sufficiently to bring his mind to a scheme of such fascinating possibilities that even his step-daughter's flight was momentarily forgotten
* * * * *
On the following morning Mr. Tibbetts received a visitor.
That gentleman who was, according to the information supplied by Mr. Webber, addressed in intimate correspondence as "Dear Bones," was sitting in his most gorgeous private office, wrestling with a letter to the eminent firm of Timmins and Timmins, yacht agents, on a matter of a luckless purchase of his.
"DEAR SIRS GENENTLEMEN" (ran the letter. Bones wrote as he thought, thought faster than he wrote, and never opened a dictionary save to decide a bet)--"I told you I have told you 100000 times that the yacht _Luana_ I bought from your cleint (a nice cleint I must say!!!) is a frord fruad and a _swindel_. It is much two too big. 2000 pounds was a swindel outraygious!! Well I've got it got it now so theres theirs no use crying over split milk. But do like a golly old yaght-seller get red of it rid of it. Sell it to _anybody_ even for a 1000 pounds. I must have been mad to buy it but he was such a plausuble chap...."
This and more he wrote and was writing, when the silvery bell announced a visitor. It rang many times before he realized that he had sent his factotum, Ali Mahomet, to the South Coast to recover from a sniffle--the after-effects of a violent cold--which had been particularly distressing to both. Four times the bell rang, and four times Bones raised his head and scowled at the door, muttering violent criticisms of a man who at that moment was eighty-five miles away.
Then he remembered, leapt up, sprinted to the door, flung it open with an annoyed:
"Come in! What the deuce are you standing out there for?"
Then he stared at his visitor, choked, went very red, choked again, and fixed his monocle.
"Come in, young miss, come in," he said gruffly. "Jolly old bell's out of order. Awfully sorry and all that sort of thing. Sit down, won't you?"
In the outer office there was no visible