"to begin with, where's the duchess?"

"at a rehearsal, monsieur, of an entertainment madame van esten has got up. mademoiselle pavoya will——"

"we don't want to hear about her. the duchess isn't at the rehearsal."

"then i do not know where she is. it is her affair, not mine." simone looked the picture of injured innocence.

"perhaps you don't know," agreed sanders. "but you see, you've made so many of her affairs your affairs, it's hard to tell where you draw the line."

the french maid turned pale in rather a repulsive way she had, beginning at the lips, which she bit to keep their colour. from her looks she might have been furious—or frightened.

"i do not understand you, monsieur," she almost spat.

"that doesn't matter much. what does matter is, we understand you."

under her black-dotted veil simone's olive sallowness greened. "monsieur accuses me of—something?" sanders grinned with the utmost cruelty. "well, what do you think?"

"i think a person has perhaps told lies about me, monsieur!"

"ah!" the detective leapt in his chair as if he had caught her—as if she had given him a chance for which he'd waited. "ah! what's the name of that person?"

the frenchwoman began to feel sick. her fears, though acute, had been vague. suddenly they became definite. she floundered. so much depended on saying the right thing that she was terribly afraid of saying the wrong one. she glanced at captain manners again, but he had taken up a paper. to her horror it was the inner circle, which sanders had bought and brought in to discuss. her knees turned to water. she could not help giving a faint gasp. her eyes were fixed on the "whisperer's" page, which was held up—as if purposely. both men saw the stare: and into the minds of both sprang the same thought.

jack had had it before. he had even hinted it to juliet, who laughed it to scorn, and remarked that she knew simone better than he could possibly know her. sanders had had the thought, and mentioned it to manners. but there was no proof; and the frenchwoman's "shadower" had never seen her go to the office of the inner circle. as for letters—sanders had put togo onto watching for them. simone had sent out none at all from the house. yet now that one bleak glare at the open paper, and both men were as sure as if the woman had confessed.

"you think your editor has been talking, eh?" the detective said. "that's as may be. anyhow, we know."

the telephone bell rang. jack took up the receiver. "yes, mr. sanders is here," he replied to some question. "he'll speak with you in a second. hold the line."

sanders bounded to the 'phone. "yes—yes—good!" were the only words he said. but jack knew he was speaking to his man at the café. then he turned again to simone. "come here and call your friend defasquelle," he sharply ordered. "tell him he must turn up at his house at once or there'll be a disaster for you both."

simone grasped the back of a chair, and clung to it. "i cannot, monsieur," she gulped. "i know monsieur defasquelle only by seeing him here. i——"

"don't waste words," sanders cut her short. "it'll be the worse for you if you do. you've just been with him now, at rudin's. call him up at his hotel."

"if—if i will not?" she stammered.

"do you want to go to prison while he's left free—to marry his girl in marseilles?"

that was a chance shot, but it found its billet.

"he has no girl in marseilles!" simone shrilled.

"oh, yes, he has. i have his dossier from the paris police. if you get him here and make him tell the truth, i promise you that marriage won't take place."

"i will call him," said simone, sickly pale. she flitted across the room to the telephone.

sanders rubbed his hands, and nodded to jack. but jack was glancing at his wrist-watch.

"what am i to do?" he asked the detective in a low voice. "the time's almost here for me to keep my appointment with mademoiselle pavoya."

"go to it!" said sanders. "i'm equal to simone and defasquelle. now i've got proof enough to bluff on—my waiter man 'phoned that the pair were talking about the pearls and apparently blackguarding each other! i'll strip them of their secrets like a tree of ripe fruit. but look here, i have a 'hunch' that there's more in this inner circle business than meets the eye. simone's been a catspaw. there may be wheels within wheels. when you go to meet mademoiselle pavoya take my tip and accept old nick's offer."

"what, have him with me?"

"yes, wherever pavoya sends you."

"she may not send me anywhere."

"i think she will send you somewhere. meanwhile, i'll pump simone and defasquelle dry. when you get back i may have the pearls in pink cotton!"

manners was torn. he wished to hear what simone said over the telephone. he wished to stay and witness the scene through between her, defasquelle, and sanders. but most of all he wished not to be late for lyda. nothing was worth that!

jack arrived at the theatre just after lyda had finished rehearsing a dance which she herself had arranged for the charity fête with mrs. van esten's spoiled little girl.

mademoiselle pavoya was in her dressing room, he was told, and was expecting him. he went there quickly, afraid of being caught by someone he knew on the way, and forced to stop and talk nonsense, for the place was like a rabbit-warren—alive with pretty women and men who thought they were society incarnate.

lyda wore the swan costume she had worn the first night of their meeting—or one much like it; and the thought of that wonderful night thrilled him. how had he lived before that time? yet he had gone out of her presence to doubt her truth, her honour! never could he forgive himself for that, never could he worship her quite enough to make up for those hours of disloyalty.

she held out her hands to him, and he crushed first one then the other against his lips. "my swan goddess!" he exclaimed. "you're too marvellous like this. i can hardly believe you're flesh and blood—that i'm not dreaming you. i love you so much!"

she drew her hands away, and pushed him back when he would have taken her in his arms, wings and all.

"perhaps you are dreaming me!" she smiled, "dreaming the woman you think i am. and—you're not to do that! my hands only!"

"yet you said you cared! you said you'd never felt for any man as you felt when our eyes first met."

"ah, i said that when you'd confessed doubting me, and begged forgiveness, and vowed that nothing on earth or in heaven—or the other place—could ever make you doubt again. i owed you some confession in return."

"then it was true?"

"yes, it was true——"

"and is still?"

"but—of course! i do not change. yet we are to be friends and nothing more until all is made clear—until even your cousin believes in me and doesn't think you'd be better dead than loving lyda pavoya. if that day could ever come!"

"it will come—soon. oh, lyda, remember that first night—at your house. you let me hold you in my arms then."

"but that was as a friend. you understood, i know! i was so stirred, so hard pressed, i wanted protection from someone sincere. and you were the sincerest man i ever saw."

"yes, i did understand. i do now. and—i won't bother you, lyda—though it's hard work, this friendship business to a man who worships a beautiful woman as i worship you. but it's a bargain: friendship till—the day. may it be to-morrow!"

"amen!" she echoed, with one of her fleeting smiles that came so seldom. "now let us talk not of ourselves but of your cousin. we ought to have begun with her!"

"no!"

"yes. because there may be danger. i'll tell you quickly all i know. you have met a friend—an acquaintance—of mine, the comtesse de saintville?"

"oh, yes—wife of a diplomat of sorts, isn't she? i've heard you were intimate."

"that isn't true; but she has polish blood, and for that or some other reason she likes to come to my house. i have been able to do her a good turn now and then. i wouldn't tell this to any one except you, mon ami, but she's a great bridge player, and loses more money than she ought. lately she got into a bad—what you call scrape. she asked me to lend her a thousand dollars (you see, she dared not let her husband know!) but i couldn't. it was when i was putting aside every sou for markoff. i could do nothing except promise to help later. i do not love sonia de saintville, yet i am sorry for her. i was afraid that in desperation she would do some stupid thing! the other day i had a windfall. a friend in paris who'd borrowed fifty thousand francs sent it back to me. i'd never expected to see the money again! so i 'phoned sonia that now i could let her have the thousand dollars. she answered that a thousand would no longer be of use. but two thousand would save her. from the way she spoke, i understood that things were very grave. i said she should have the two thousand. she came to my house and i gave it to her in notes. i hadn't seen her for days, and she was looking ill—changed. i spoke kindly to the poor thing, and she broke down. it is the confession she made which will interest you, my friend. you would never guess! she had got into the power of that inner circle band."

"they were blackmailing her?"

"yes, in a queer way. did you ever suspect that mr. lowndes—'billy lowndes' i hear him called—was for something in that paper?"

"good lord, no! billy lowndes!—not that i ever liked him. but i didn't think he was as big a rotter as that! he was in love with my cousin juliet, hard hit, before she married. and by a sort of coincidence lowndes' sister emmy—lady west (you may have met her war-working in paris or london)—made rather an ass of herself over claremanagh."

"perhaps that partly explains—some things, if we can patch them together. listen! it was at mrs. billy lowndes', sonia said, that she lost most of her money. there's a set there that plays very high. they make the lowndes' flat a sort of private club. sonia was dunned—and frightened of her husband. billy lowndes offered to lend her the whole lot. she thought, how good-natured! but soon she learned it was not goodness. he wanted something. the condition was that she should get the duchess of claremanagh to go and consult a palmist, crystal-gazer person, a madame veno. did you ever hear of her?"

"no. yes! by jove, her name's on the building of the inner circle! the plot thickens."

"but how?"

"oh, sanders and i have caught my cousin juliet's maid. we're sure it's she who gave away things to the 'whisperer.' sanders is putting her through the 'third degree' now. i couldn't stop to hear it out. i was due here. besides, it looks as if the woman—simone—was mixed up in the disappearance of the pearls, with the chap who brought them from france—defasquelle. perhaps this veno person is in the affair, too. and the whole business may be one—with ramifications."

"that is what i've wondered—since sonia confessed to-day what they made her do. she was to go to the duchess, and tell her that madame veno had seen claremanagh in the crystal—that she could help her find him. sonia suspected something queer. she was sure at once that lowndes was on that horrid paper—perhaps editor—of that vile 'whisperer'. and she'd heard the story about his being in love with your cousin when she was miss phayre. so she told him she couldn't do this commission. then lowndes lost all his good nature. he threatened that the 'whisperer' of the inner circle might get some new material from him to whisper about: that there'd be paragraphs hinting of her debts and the ruin of her husband's career. that would have been the end of all things for sonia! so she consented, after all. she called on the duchess and told her that madame veno wanted to see her."

"when was that?"

"three days ago."

"juliet never breathed a word to sanders or me. she left us in the dark."

"she would! most women would. i should have let you know before, but sonia told me only to-day. i wrote at once and asked you to come."

"thank you, my white swan. many women in your place would have sat still and let poor juliet go to the devil for treating you in the cattish way she has."

"i've no grudge against her! i should have done so in her place, if—if the man had been you, instead of claremanagh."

"darling! you expect to keep me at arms' length after that?"

"yes—yes! listen. the duchess went to madame veno."

"how do you know?"

"the veno woman herself was to inform sonia if she didn't turn up. in that case sonia was to urge the duchess. she—sonia, i mean—was forced to go to veno's place as if to have her hand read, because they wouldn't risk anything in writing. luckily she had to make only one visit, because the very first time she was told the duchess had been there. she was to come again on the third day. that was all arranged, though sonia imagined that the duchess didn't know this. she was to think the arrangement was made later. but the third day is to-day. sonia thought the first call the duchess made was late in the afternoon, and something was dropped about the 'same hour next time'. i believe she must be at veno's at this moment. and if those inner circle people are in the thing, and it's a plot of some sort——"

"i'll go there now!"

"what, to the inner circle office?"

"not first, anyhow. maybe later. that depends! but now, to madame veno's."

"oh, i'm worried!" lyda put out her hands, and laid them on his khaki-clad arms. "they say these inner circle people may be a nest of crooks!"

"i don't doubt 'they' are right for once! but i'm not going alone."

"i thought your detective was busy with the maid and the pearl carrier."

"he is. but you know old nick? you must! you couldn't have known pat without old nick."

"good old nick! of course i know him—since paris, when claremanagh was ill at my house."

"well, nick's going 'over the top' with me, as a volunteer. i don't know whether i shall find anything for him to do, but if so, he'll be ready!"

"yes—yes! he'd do anything for claremanagh."

"and even for claremanagh's wife. good-bye, my darling. wish me luck."

"i do—i do."

"a kiss to speed the wish?"

"no. only my hand. wait!"

"how long—in god's name?"

"till—the duke's found—and the pearls."