was back again with an excuse instead of

tea.

"It's the range m'lady. It seems to 'ave gone hout. But the tea won't be long. And Sir William says, will Miss von Sworsenburg kindly step into the next room."

CHAPTER X

Miss von "Sworsenburg" had obliged with a cloudless face. It was Lady McIntyre who looked disturbed, even guilty. She took refuge in a work-bag, which she unhooked from the back of her chair. She jerked it open hurriedly on her knees and bent her head to rummage in the depths. Conversation between Napier and Nan languished. Both were listening to those voices in the next room.

The door opened abruptly, and in bustled Sir William, ruffling up the little hair he had left and looking the very picture of discomfort.

"Perfect dolt, that fella!" he threw over his shoulder to Miss Greta. She followed Sir William with an air of calmness, not to say detachment, that even she, past mistress in the art of conveying the finer shades of superiority, had never excelled. "I left my gloves, I think," she said. Sir William had gone to the bell and rung twice.

"That fella says she ought to go and register. Makes out he 'll get into trouble if she does n't go at once.'

her smile. But it was the look on Nan's face that now struck Napier-a look that haunted him afterward. If it had n't been absurd, he would have thought she was thanking him with all her soul; was giving him something; something of unbelievable sweetness, "just because I stooped to pick up that woman's gloves!"

It was all in a flash. The next moment Nan stood buttoning up the coat she had so lately unbuttoned, and saying, "If you really must, I 'm coming, too!" her eyes angry, her face ashamed. Miss von Schwarzenberg made no answer. Lady McIntyre was jerking out a succession of nervous questions that nobody took the trouble to notice.

"What we 're coming to, I don't know." Sir William fumed and strutted up and down.

"Yes, Sir William." The servant stood there.

"Where's the tea?" Lady McIntyre in a sinking ship would have cried, "Where's the lifeboat?" with much the same accent and look of desperation.

"It's coming, m'lady. It's on the way up."

"Did n't I tell you five minutes ago"the footman was catching it on the other side now,—“you were to get the telephone for the car?"

"Yes, Sir William. It's coming round now, Sir William.”

"Come, then," Miss Greta said, as though Nan were the person desired by the

"Well, well," his wife soothed him, "tell the creatures, if they 're in such a ridiculous hurry, she 'll motor over tomorrow."

"To-morrow won't do. He's had orders. It's got to be to-night." Sir William spoke in his most testy tone.

Nan had sprung up and gone to her friend. Napier, too, had come forward. He picked up the missing gloves.

"Oh, thank you," said Miss Greta, with

"Oh, my dear!" Lady McIntyre rose with precipitation. The bag rolled to the ground, but she did n't notice. Her blue eyes were on Greta's face a second, and then turned beseechingly on her husband. "William," she hurried over to him,"surely, William, you-"

"Mere red-tape, mere red-tape, my dear," he said to his wife, "though, if Lord Dacre was n't coming over at halfpast six on official business, I'd go with you," he said handsomely to Miss von Schwarzenberg. Miss von Schwarzenberg murmured that she would n't on any account have Sir William take trouble.

Lady McIntyre had jerked her head at Napier. But Napier seemed not to know his part in this scene. He stood silent, looking at the indignant face of Miss Greta's "little friend."

"It's too dreadful to let you go without one of us!" Lady McIntyre wailed. "Shall I come, Greta dear?" And then, a good deal unstrung at the possibility of having her offer accepted: "N-not that I'd be much good, I'm afraid. I was never in a police station in my life."

"I don't imagine," said Miss Greta, with her fine mixture of tolerance and delicate contempt, "that any of us have been much in police stations."

Recollection of Lord Dacre had not brought entire repose to Sir William. He twisted round in the comfortable chair.

"What do you say, Gavan? You won't mind representing me in this little-" he paused as the butler passed between them with a tray. The footman at his heels announced the car.

"Oh, she can't go without tea!" Lady McIntyre cried. Then with extreme felicity she added, "Before they hang people they give them tea!"

Nan bit her lip, but Greta smiled.

"It does n't the least matter about tea, dear Lady McIntyre. And I'd rather get to Newton Hackett before the po— the place shuts." The fraction of an instant her eye rested on the servants, and then she said, as she went toward the door, "So good of you, so kind to let me have the motor!"

Miss Greta had contrived, with an economy of means beyond all praise, to give the expedition an air of being devised for her special convenience.

Napier was, as Sir William put it, to "represent" him in this little matter. As the three were getting into the car, Madge leaned out of an upper window.

"Well, I do think, sending me up here to wait for you! Where are you going?" "Newton Hackett, dearest. Back soon." Miss Greta waved her handkerchief.

In a long bare room a figure in uniform confronted them.

"Are you Inspector Adler?" Napier at once began.

Yes, the big fair man with a high color and heavy jaw was Inspector Adler. "You were telephoned to, I believe?" Yes, Inspector Smith had telephoned from Lamborough.

"Then you know all about this lady's errand." Napier stood aside for Miss Greta. The interrogation went speedily forward. "Your surname is Sworsenberg?" the inspector asked.

"No; von Schwarzenberg."

He seemed not greatly to like having his pronunciation corrected. "Will you spell it?"

She spelt it.

"Your Christian name?" "Johanna Marguerite." "Please spell them."

She obliged.

"Where were you born?" "At Ehrenheim."

"Will you spell it?" And when she had done so, he looked at the word with suspicion. "Where is it?"

"In Hanover."

"In Germany, you mean."
"In Hanover, Germany."

"In Germany." He put down the word about which already such a host of new connotations had begun to cling.

Nan lifted her eyes from the register to the man's face. He was taking this business too seriously, with his "Germany, you mean," as if Greta had tried to pretend that Hanover was somewhere else.

"I'm not English either," said Miss Ellis in an explanatory tone.

"No?" The inspector fixed her with his serious, blue eyes. "What are you?" "American."

"Oh," he said and lost interest. "Now, Miss-a-Sworsenburger, what is the date of your birth?"

If Miss Greta hesitated a second, it seemed to be from a natural disgust at hearing her name murdered.

"Born 1886, and the name is von Schwarzenberg." She must have been aware of the touch of hauteur in the tone of her correction, for instantly she changed.