"It's only poor old Horrex, that you've known since a boy."

"Horrex?" Master Herbert straightened himself up. "Do I understand you to say, sir, that your name is Horrex? Then allow me to tell you, Horrex, that you are no gentleman. You hear?" He spoke with anxious lucidity, leaning forward and tapping the butler on the knee. "No gentleman."

"No, sir," a.s.sented Horrex.

"That being the case, we'll say no more about it. I decline to argue with you. If you're waking, call me early--there's many a black, black eye, Horrex, but none so black as mine. Call me at eleven-fifteen, bringing with you this gentleman's blood in a bottle. Goo'-night, go to bye-bye. . . ."

By the fleeting light of a street-lamp I saw his head drop forward, and a minute later he was gently snoring.

It was agreed that on reaching home Master Herbert must be smuggled into the bas.e.m.e.nt of No. 402 and put to rest on Horrex's own bed; also that, to avoid the line of carriages waiting in the Cromwell Road for the departing guests, the cab should take us round to the gardens at the back.

I carried on my chain a key which would admit us to these and unlock the small gate between them and the kitchens. This plan of action so delighted Horrex that for a moment I feared he was going to clasp my hands.

"If it wasn't irreverent, sir, I could almost say you had dropped on me from heaven!"

"You may alter your opinion," said I grimly, "before I've done dropping."

At the garden entrance we paid and dismissed the cab. I took Master Herbert's shoulders and Horrex his heels, and between us we carried his limp body across the turf--a procession so suggestive of dark and secret tragedy that I blessed our luck for protecting us from the casual intrusive policeman. Our entrance by the kitchen pa.s.sage, however, was not so fortunate. Stealthily as we trod, our footsteps reached the ears in the servants' hall, and we were met by William and a small but compact body of female servants urging him to armed resistance. A kitchen-maid fainted away as soon as we were recognised, and the strain of terror relaxed.

I saw at once that Master Herbert's condition caused them no surprise.

We carried him to the servants' hall and laid him in an armchair, to rest our arms, while the motherly cook lifted his unconscious head to lay a pillow beneath it.

As she did so, a bell jangled furiously on the wall above.

"Good Lord!" Horrex turned a scared face up at it. "The library!"

"What's the matter in the library?"

But he was gone: to reappear, a minute later, with a face whiter than ever.

"The mistress wants you at on'st, sir, if you'll follow me. William, run out and see if you can raise another cab--four-wheeler."

"What, at this time of night?" answered William. "Get along with you!"

"Do your best, lad." Mr. Horrex appealed gently but with pathetic dignity. "If there's miracles indoors there may be miracles outside.

This way, sir!"

He led me to the library-door, knocked softly, opened it, and stood aside for me to enter.

Within stood his mistress, confronting another policeman!

Her hands rested on the back of a library-chair: and though she stood up bravely and held herself erect with her finger-tips pressed hard into the leather, I saw that she was swaying on the verge of hysterics, and I had the sense to speak sharply.

"What's the meaning of this?" I demanded.

"This one--comes from Marlborough Street!" she gasped.

I stepped back to the door, opened it, and, as I expected, discovered Horrex listening.

"A bottle of champagne and a gla.s.s at once," I commanded, and he sped.

"And now, Miss Joy, if you please, the constable and I will do the talking. What's your business?"

"Prisoner wants bail," answered the policeman.

"Name?"

"George Anthony Richardson."

"Yes, yes--but I mean the prisoner's name."

"That's what I'm telling you. 'George Anthony Richardson, four-nought-two, Cromwell Road'--that's the name on the sheet, and I heard him give it myself."

"And I thought, of course, it must be you," put in Clara; "and I wondered what dreadful thing could have happened--until Horrex appeared and told me you were safe, and Herbert too--"

"I think," said I, going to the door again and taking the tray from Horrex, "that you were not to talk. Drink this, please."

She took the gla.s.s, but with a rebellious face. "Oh, if you take that tone with me--"

"I do. And now," I turned to the constable, "what name did he give for his surety?"

"Herbert Jarmayne, same address."

"Herbert Jarmayne?" I glanced at Clara, who nodded back, pausing as she lifted her gla.s.s! "Ah! yes--yes, of course. How much?"

"Two tenners."

"Deep answering deep. Drunk and disorderly, I suppose?"

"Blind. He was breaking gla.s.ses at Toscano's and swearing he was Sir Charles Wyndham in _David Garrick_: but he settled down quiet at the station, and when I left he was talking religious and saying he pitied nine-tenths of the world, for they were going to get it hot."

"Trewlove!" I almost shouted, wheeling round upon Clara.

"I beg your pardon?"

"No, of course--you wouldn't understand. But all the same it's Trewlove,"

I cried, radiant. "Eh?"--this to Horrex, mumbling in the doorway--"the cab outside? Step along, constable: I'll follow in a moment--to identify your prisoner, not to bail him out." Then as he touched his hat and marched out after Horrex, "By George, though! Trewlove!" I muttered, meeting Clara's eye and laughing.

"So you've said," she agreed doubtfully; "but it seems a funny sort of explanation."

"It's as simple as A B C," I a.s.sured her. "The man at Marlborough Street is the man who let you this house."

"I took it through an agent."

"I'm delighted to hear it. Then the man at Marlborough Street is the man for whom the agent let the house."

"Then you are not Mr. Richardson--not 'George Anthony'--and you didn't write _Larks in Aspic?_" said she, with a flattering shade of disappointment in her tone.

"Oh! yes, I did."

"Then I don't understand in the least--unless--unless--" She put out two deprecating hands. "You don't mean to tell me that this is your house, and we've been living in it without your knowledge! Oh! why didn't you tell me?"