dumbbell. I thought it was one of you fellows joking at first, but when he began to jump on me it percolated through that I was being massacred. Butchered to make a butler’s beano, in fact.”

He paused and smiled fatuously.

“I began to hit back then,” he continued. “The bird was tight, of course, but I’m glad you fellows turned up. I didn’t like the idea of him chipping bits off the ancestral home with me.”

“My dear fellow, I’m frightfully sorry this has happened. The man shall be discharged tomorrow. I’ll see to it.” Wyatt spoke with real concern, but Abbershaw was not nearly so easily satisfied.

“Where did he get at you?” he said, suddenly stepping forward. “Where were you?”

Mr. Campion met the question with charming ingenuousness.

“Just coming out of my room⁠—that’s the door, over there,” he said. “I opened it and walked out into a war.”

He was buttoning up his waistcoat, which had been ripped open in the fight, as he spoke.

Abbershaw glanced at the grandfather clock at the head of the staircase. It showed the hour at eight minutes past four. Mr. Campion followed the direction of his eyes.

“Yes,” he said foolishly, “I⁠—I always get up early.”

“Amazingly early,” said Abbershaw pointedly.

“I was, this morning,” agreed Mr. Campion cheerfully, adding by way of explanation, “I’m one of those birds who can never sleep in a strange bed. And then, you know, I’m so afraid of ghosts. I didn’t see any, of course,” he went on hastily, “but I said to myself as I got into bed last night, ‘Albert, this place smells of ghosts,’ and somehow I couldn’t get that idea out of my head all night. So as soon as it began to get light I thought a walk was indicated, so I got up, dressed, and sallied forth into the fray.” He paused and yawned thoughtfully. “I do believe I shall go back to bed now,” he remarked as they all stared at him. “I don’t feel much like my walk now. In fact, I don’t feel much like anything. Bung-ho, everybody, Uncle Albert is now closing down until nine-thirty, when the breakfast programme will begin, I hope.” On the last word he waved his hand to them and disappeared into his own room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

As Abbershaw turned to go back to his bedroom he became aware of a slender figure in a dressing-gown at his side. It was Meggie. Seized by a sudden impulse, he spoke to her softly.

“Who brought Campion down?”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Why, Anne,” she said. “I told you. They arrived together about the same time that I did. Why the interest? Anything I can do?”

Abbershaw hesitated.

“Well, yes,” he said at last. “She’s a friend of yours, isn’t she?”

Meggie nodded.

“Rather; I’ve known her for years.”

“Good,” said Abbershaw. “Look here, could you get her to come down into the garden? Meet me down there in half an hour in that shrubbery we found last night? There’s one or two things I want to ask her. Can you manage that for me?”

“Of course.” She looked up at him and smiled; then she added, “Anything happened?”

Abbershaw looked at her, and noticed for the first time that there was a faintly scared expression in her narrow brown eyes, and a sudden desire to comfort her assailed him. Had he been a little less precise, a little less timid in these matters, he would probably have kissed her. As it was, he contented himself by patting her hand rather foolishly and murmuring. “Nothing to get excited about,” in a way which neither convinced her nor satisfied himself.

“In half an hour,” she murmured and disappeared like a fragile ghost down the corridor.

VII

Five O’Clock in the Morning

George Abbershaw stood in front of the fireplace in his bedroom and looked down into the fast-greying embers amongst which some red sparks still glowed, and hesitated irresolutely. In ten minutes he was to meet Meggie and Anne Edgeware in the garden. He had until then to make up his mind.

He was not a man to do anything impulsively, and the problem which faced him now was an unusual one.

On the mantelpiece near his head lay a small leather wallet, the silk lining of which had been ripped open and something removed, leaving the whole limp and empty. Abbershaw looked down on a sheaf of paper which he held in one hand, and tapped it thoughtfully with the other.

If only, he reflected, he knew exactly what he was doing. The thought occurred to him, in parenthesis, that here arose the old vexed question as to whether it was permissible to destroy a work of art on any pretext whatsoever.

For five minutes he deliberated, and then, having made up his mind, he knelt down before the dying fire and fanned the embers into a flame, and after coolly preparing a small bonfire in the grate stood back to watch it burn.

The destruction of the leather case was a problem which presented more difficulties. For a moment or two he was at a loss, but then taking it up he considered it carefully.

It was of a usual pattern, a strip of red leather folded over at either end to form two inner pockets. He took out his own case and compared the two. His own was new; an aunt had sent it to him for his birthday, and in an excess of kindliness had caused a small gold monogram stud to be made for it, a circular fretted affair which fastened through the leather with a small clip. This stud Abbershaw removed, and, gouging a hole in the red wallet, effected an exchange.

A liberal splodging with ink from his fountain pen completed the disguise, and, satisfied that no one at a first or second glance would recognize it, he ripped out the rest of the lining, trimmed the edges with a pair of nail scissors, and calmly transferred his papers, with the exception of a

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