afraid she wouldn't take me seriously as things are. So let us say that I propose to apply the rather unconventional methods of Miss Hull's sheiks'
'I am also very fond of Patricia,' said Miss Girton.
'You ought to tell her,' replied the man sardonically. 'But mind you break it to her gently. No, my dear, that shouldn't trouble you very much. On a suitable occasion I shall ask Patricia to marry me, and nothing could be more respectable than that.'
Miss Girton stared:
'Why lie?' she asked bitterly. 'There are no witnesses.'
'But I mean it,' persisted the man.
The woman's gaunt face twisted in a sneer, and there was a venomous hatred in her eyes,
'Some people say that all crooks are slightly mad,' she answered. 'I'm beginning to think they're right.'
The man lifted his face a trifle, so that he could look reproachfully at her. He ignored her sally, but he spoke again in a soft, dreamy, singsong tone.
'I was never more serious in my life. I have succeeded in my profession. In my way I am a great man. I am educated, clever, cultured, travelled, healthy, entertaining. I have all the wealth that a man could desire. My youth is passing away, though I still look very young. But I see the best years slipping past and leaving me alone. I love Patricia. I must do this to show her that I am in earnest; afterward she will refuse me nothing....'
The voice trailed away, and Miss Girtoff wrenched a chair round savagely.
'Mad!' she muttered, and hesatup with a start.
'What was I saying?' His eye fell on the glistening white pellet marooned in the expanse of polished walnut, 'Oh, yes. Do you understand?'
Agatha Girton came close to him again.
'You're mad,' she rasped — 'I'll tell you so again. With all this money, all this wealth you boast about, why did you have to put the black on me? If you're so rich, what was a mere twenty thousand to you?'
'One can never have too much,' said the man. 'And now, as things have fallen out, it is all going back where it belongs — as a dowry. Anyway, is twenty thousand so much to pay for liberty, and even life? They might manage to get you for murder, you know, Aunt Agatha.'
'Don't call me Aunt Agatha,'
'Then — ”
'Nor that, either.'
The man shrugged.
'Very well, O Nameless One,' he said with calculated insolence. 'Remember this. Nameless One, that I have taken a lot of money from you, but now I want something that money cannot buy. And you will give it to me.... Otherwise — But you dare not be stupid!'
Miss Girton still looked at him with those deep-set eyes of hate.
'I don't know,' she said slowly. 'For years you've made my life a misery. I've a mind to end it. And putting you where you belong might make them forget some of the things they know about me. The busies are always kind to squeakers.'
The man was silent for a short space; then he put up his hand and pulled his hat a little farther over his eyes. He turned his head, but he could only have seen her feet.
'I am not like the busies,' he returned in a voice that was cold and flat and hard like a sheet of ice. 'Don't talk like that — or I might be tempted to put you where you will have no power to threaten me.'
He stood up and walked to the door, his hands in the side pockets of his coat and his shoulders hunched up. He turned the key and pulled the door open quickly and silently. Leaning out, he glanced up and down the hall, then half pulled the door to while he spoke to Miss Girton.
'I can Jet myself out. The lady upstairs, isn’t she?'
'I heard her moving about overhead a little while ago.'
He waited a moment, as though listening.
'Your ears are better than mine,' he said, and looked at her warningly. 'Do exactly as I told you, and don't try to double-cross me. You mightn't succeed. Good-evening.'
The door closed behind him, and she could hear him moving across the hall.
For a moment she hesitated.
Then she crossed the room swiftly and pulled out the drawer of the writing bureau. She felt in the cavity and tugged. When she straightened up there was a small automatic pistol in her hand. She went to the windows at the front, snapping back the jacket of the gun as she did so and pushing over the safety catch.
The heavy curtains swung away as she jerked at the cord that controlled them, and she saw the man hurrying down the drive. Without looking round, he turned and went down the road to the left, and Agatha Girton opened the French windows and stepped out on to the terrace. The range was about twenty-five yards, but the hedge at the bottom of the garden was a low one, and his body could be seen above it from the waist upward.
Miss Girton raised the gun and extended her arm slowly and steadily, as she might have done in a Bisley competition. At that moment the man turned to the right again into a field, and so his back was squarely presented to her.
The echoes of the two rapid shots rattled clamorously in the still air of the evening. She saw the man fling up his arms, stagger, and fall out of sight.
Suddenly she found Patricia beside her.
'Who was it?' gasped the girl, white-faced and shaking. 'What have you done?'
'Killed him, I hope,' said Agatha Girton coolly.
She was standing on tiptoe, gazing out into the gathering dusk, trying to see the result other shooting. But there was the hedge at the end of the Manor garden and the hedge that lined the field into which the man had passed, both hiding the more distant ground from her, and she could see no sign of him.
'Stay here while I go and see,' she commanded.
She walked quickly down the drive, and the automatic still swung in her hand. Patricia saw her enter the field.
The man was lying on the grass, sprawled out on his back. His hat had fallen off, and he stared at the sky with wide eyes. Miss Girton put down her gun and bent over him, feeling for the beating of his heart...
Patricia heard the woman's shrill scream', arid then she saw Agatha Girton standing up, swaying, with her hands over her face.
The girl's fingers closed over tlie butt of the automatic in her pocket as she raced down the drive and out into the road. Miss Girton was still standing up with her face in her hands, and Patricia saw with a sudden dread that blood was streaming down between the woman's fingers. There was no trace of the man.
'He was shamming,' gasped Agatha Girton. 'I put down my gun — he caught me — he had a knife....'
'What's he done?'
Miss Girton did not answer at once. Then she pointed to a clump of trees and bushes in the far corner of the field, which was not a big one.
'He took the gun and ran that way — there's a sunken lane beyond.'
'I'll go after him,' said Patricia, without stopping to think of the consequences, but Agatha Girton caught her arm in a terrible grip.
'Don't be a little fool, child!' she grated. 'That's death.... I lost my head.... All he said was:
The woman's hands were dripping red, and Patricia had to lead her back to the house and up the stairs.
Agatha Girton went to the basin and filled it. She bathed her face, and the water was hideously dyed. Then she turned so that the girl could see, and Patricia had to bite back an involuntary cry of horror, for Miss Girton's forehead was cut to the bone in the shape of a capital T.
Chapter XIV
