“I feel I'm giving you a lot of trouble,' she apologized.
He waved her excuses aside.
'Not at all, my dear Miss Holm. It's a pleasure. And the trouble is negligible — for a bachelor, I'm very domesticated, and dispensing tea is one of my social, assets.'
He was genial and unreserved. The secret amusement which she had noticed was no longer evident. Either he had ceased to see the funny side of the situation, or his pleasure in it had become too great to show. She found herself again falling under the spell of his avuncular bonhomie, but the memory of that half-hidden mockery in his eyes continued to bother her. Wouldn't a man with nothing to conceal have shown his amusement openly, if he found anything comic in being appealed to for advice on such a matter? What other explanation could there be except the one that Lapping was playing a shrewd game?
Perhaps the Saint would know. The bare facts must be placed in his possession at once, for Patricia felt that she was hopelessly out of her depth. She ate and drank sparingly, praying for the earliest moment at which she could take her leave without seeming in too great a hurry. Lapping, either ignoring her perturbation or failing to see any signs of it, chatted pleasantly; Patricia did her best to keep up the part she was playing. She must have done it successfully, for he appeared pained and surprised when she made a tentative move to gather up her belongings.
'Must you leave me so soon?'
'I've promised to see my aunt before dinner,' she said. 'There's some business to talk over — something about my investments. It's an awful bore, but the letter's got to be written to-night so that it can go off first thing in the morning.'
It was amazing what a fluent and convincing liar she had become of a sudden.
'Needless to say, I'm heartbroken,' he vowed, pressing her hand. 'But perhaps I can hope that you'll come again? I'll talk as seriously as you want me to — I think I can understand your difficulty, and perhaps, with all due respect to Miss Girton, I'm the best qualified person in Baycombe to advise you. Perhaps you could even arrange to bring Mr. Templar with you? He needn't know that I have your confidence.'
“I’ll try to get him to see you,' she averred truthfully.
'I'd be delighted. I'm very idle, and I hate ceremony, so we don't have to bother about a formal invitation. Just drop in without notice — you'll find me at your service.'
She thanked him, and he escorted her to the gate. She had just passed through it when an inspiration struck her. And the blow staggered her, so desperate and daring was the idea. But she carried it out before she had time to falter.
'By the way,' she said, 'how's Harry the Duke?'
The question sprang to her lips so artlessly and naturally, so apropos of nothing that they had been talking about for a long time, that she could not have contrived it better to take him off his guard. She was watching his face keenly, knowing how much depended on his reaction. But not a muscle twitched and his eyes did not change — she was studying those intently, well aware that the expression of the eyes is a hard thing for even the most masterly bluffer to control. He looked surprised, and thought for a second.
'Why, whatever makes you ask that?' he inquired in frank bewilderment.
'Simon — Mr. Templar mentioned that you'd once sentenced a dangerous criminal of that name, and he said he thought the man might make an attempt on your life.'
He nodded.
'Yes, I remember — Templar said as much to me the first time we met. Harry the Duke swore from the dock that he'd get even with me. But I’ve heard the same threat several times, and I'm still alive, and it hasn't spoiled my sleep.'
Patricia made her escape as soon after that as she could. She had to confess herself utterly baffled. However Lapping had behaved earlier in the afternoon, his response to that startling question of hers could not have been more open or more genuine. The name of Harry the Duke conveyed nothing more to Lapping than a crook he had sent to prison in the course of his duty — she would have given her oath for it. He had been unaffectedly taken off his guard, and yet there had been no vestige of fear or suspicion in his puzzlement. Could a guilty man have accomplished such a feat — even if he were the most consummate actor that was ever born?
The girl felt a crying need for Simon Templar*s superior knowledge and acuter judgment. She was helpless — beaten. But for the amusement she had detected in Lapping's eyes, she would not have hesitated to acquit him. Even now she was strongly impelled to do so, in the light of developments subsequent to that, and she was casting around for some theory that would eliminate any malevolent motive and still account satisfactorily for the indisputable fact that he had seen at once what she had been driving at and had calmly and effectively refused to allow himself to be inveigled into saying any more than he chose to say.
But then — the realization only came fb her with stunning conviction when she was walking up the drive to the Manor — if Lapping were blameless, then the only person who could be the Tiger was Agatha Girton!
Chapter XIII
THE BRAND
She was aghast at the thought.
Could she have been living for months and years in the home of the Tiger? It seemed impossible, and yet the theory seemed to get more watertight with every second. It would account for Agatha Girton's continual absences abroad, and the letters which came from the Riviera could easily have been fake alibis. But in that case the trip to South Africa would have been real enough — the Tiger would naturally have gone there to look for a derelict gold mine to salt with his plunder, as the Saint had explained. And she remembered that Agatha Girton had been away just about the time when the Tiger had broken the Confederate Bank.
So the Tiger was a woman! That was not outside the bounds of credibility, for Miss Girton would have had no trouble in impersonating a man.
Patricia had to fight down her second panic that afternoon before she could open the front door and center the house. It struck her as being unpleasantly like walking into the Tiger's jaws as well as walking into his den — or her den. If Miss Girton were the Tiger, she would already be suspicious of Patricia's sudden friendship with Simon Templar; and that suspicion would have been fortified by the girl's adventure of the previous night and her secre- Itiveness about it. Then, if Lapping was suspect also, it would not be long before the Tiger's fears would be confirmed, and she would be confronted with the alternatives of making away with Patricia or chancing the girl's power to endanger her security. And, from all Simon's accounts of the Tiger, there seemed little doubt on which course the choice would fall.
The Tiger must be either Lapping or Miss Girton. The odds about both stared Patricia in the face — and it looked as if Aunt Agatha won hands down.
At that moment the girl was very near to flying precipitately back to the Pill Box and surrendering all the initiative to Simon: the thought of his trust in her checked that instinct. She had been so stubbornly insistent on being allowed to play her full part, so arrogantly certain of her ability to do it justice, so impatient of his desire to keep her out of danger — what would he think of her if she ran squealing to his arms as soon as the fun looked like becoming too fast and furious? To have accepted his offer of sanctuary would not necessarily have lowered her in his eyes; but to have refused it so haughtily and then to change her mind as soon as she winded the first sniff of 'battle would' be a confession of faintheartedness which he could not overlook.
'No, Patricia Holm,' she said to herself, 'that's not in the book of the rules, and never has been. You would have a taste of the soup, and now you've fallen in you've jolly well got to swim. He wouldn't say anything, I know, and he'd be as pleased as Punch — for a day or two. But after a bit he'd begin to think a heap. And then it'd all be over — smithereened! And that being so we'll take our medicine without blubbering, even if the jam has worn a trifle thin.... Therefore, Patricia Holm, as our Saint would say, where do we go from here?'
Well, she'd done all she could about Lapping, and she must wait to see what he thought of the evidence. There remained Agatha Girton, and the Saint's orders must be obeyed under that heading the same as under the other. Patricia braced herself for the ordeal, and just then her hand touched something hard in her pocket. She brought it out and took a peep at it — the automatic which Simon had given her. It was marvellously encouraging to
