'I wonder!' said Evelyn, acting at the very top of her form. 'Could it be… that car you sold'

'And,' I said, 'he paid me in bundles of notes. New notes'

We did not offer to explain to him; we threw sentences at each other as though we were solving a problem of our own, growing more and more excited over it without the matter being of the least concern to anyone else. Then Evelyn, with a look well below freezing, broke off and gave him a glance. You could see that it had shaken his reassurance.

'Both of us seem to have made a mistake,' she told him. 'However, please don't let it worry you. There is plenty of perfectly good money in my handbag in the other room.'

Now he was looking at our grimy state, and his eye wandered across to the window. Then he made his decision. He volplaned down into honest speech, and I liked him for it.

'Look here,' he said, 'if I'm making a ruddy fool of myself, I'll find it out fast enough. But I think you're a couple of crooks, and I think you've been up to something here tonight. Got any objection to being searched?'

'Yes.'

Nodding and bracing himself, he took the revolver out of his pocket. Again his film-training came to his assistance. 'Get 'em up,' he said.

'Nonsense,' cried Evelyn.

'Get 'em up,' he said, and meant it. At the back of his bead he was probably enjoying this, despite his uneasiness. It was just possible that he might cut loose with a harmless shot or two to show his mastery of the situation; and the moment that people begin firing harmless shots is the moment that somebody gets hit. Up went our hands, a queer situation for a sedate English hotel-room with a picture of 'Deer Drinking by Moonlight' on the wall. Then he beckoned to the night-porter.

'Search 'em.'

The porter, who was not a film-goer, looked uncomfortably at Evelyn and made protesting noises. The clerk was flustered.

'Well, search him, anyhow. Hop to it.'

The porter, who I could have sworn was apologizing under his breath, began gingerly to put his hands in my pockets and take out the collection of articles I had been all night transferring from one costume to the other. The first thing he found was the red-sealed envelope. The second thing he found was that ?100 bank-note.

'Gawdlummycharley!' said the porter, opening it out.

'Bring it here,' ordered our captor. I am not likely to forget him fingering that bank-note, looking up and down from it in quick jerks of his head, so as never to take his eyes off us. The muzzle of his revolver was dusty, and I think there was a fragment of cobweb inside the barrel; but it was not an object with which anybody was likely to play tricks. Then he looked up in a blaze of triumph.

'That settles it. This note is counterfeit too — yes, and not a very good counterfeit either. Willoughby's hand must have slipped. My lad, we've caught Willoughby's mob right enough.'

I peered round at Evelyn. So the note which had been in the newspaper which Mrs. Antrim said she had found in Hogenauer's scullery, — that note, was bad. And it would appear that in some fashion Hogenauer himself bad been twisted into this business of the counterfeit money. The thing was getting to be too much for my staggering wits, and the clerk grinned like a cat from Chester.

'Get to the house-phone,' he ordered the porter, 'and wake up Mr. Collins. Also 'phone the police station, and tell 'em we've got two of the Willoughby gang on toast. There's a thousand pounds reward out for them. `Kenwood Blake.' `Evelyn Cheyne.' I wonder what your real names are? Don't move or I'll drill you.'

'Oh, for God's sake!' I said in some disgust. 'Stop that kind of talk and listen to reason. Do we get a chance to explain? This is more serious than you think.'

'It can't be more serious than I think,' he informed me. 'I took a long shot and it's come off. You can explain at the police station.' He considered. Without a doubt, there was enough evidence against us to send the Archangel Gabriel to clink; he knew he was right; and he began to see himself as a hero.

'Here,' he added thoughtfully. 'This is a story that'll interest the outside world. Just to do your duty, you might ring up the `Press' office. It's — it's a story that'll interest every London paper too. I don't think it's too late to get it in; but anyway there'll be room in Stop Press-'

And also a tasty morsel for Major-General Sir Edward Kent-Fortescue Cheyne to read when he opened his paper at breakfast.

'That,' I said, 'would be fine publicity for the hotel, wouldn't it? Yes, it would. In your eye. Then you'll have neither the reward nor your job. Will you allow us to prove. who we are? Also, do you mind if I take my hands down?'

He studied this. 'Right. But put your hands in your pockets and keep 'em there.' Then the porter handed him the long red-sealed envelope which vas the will-o'-the-wisp we had been chasing throughout this entire case, and which was now passing irretrievably out of my hands. 'What's in this?'

'Just some papers.'

'Probably some more counterfeit money.'

'Well, why don't you open it and see, then?' I said. I was in such a heat of wild curiosity to know what that envelope contained that, at the moment, I should not have minded if he had read whatever was in it. 'Go ahead — open it.'

'Trap of some kind, eh?' he said swiftly. He contemplated the envelope. 'Anyhow, we'll see later. Here, Frank. Take this envelope downstairs with you and lock it up in the safe.'

Good-bye. Good-bye for ever. And there was absolutely nothing that could be done about it. He was handing it to the porter when he stopped and looked more sharply at it. 'It's smeared all over,' he muttered. 'Dirty. Just like… What is the stuff on it? Lamp-black, by George!'

The porter — our apologetic friend Frank, who had a wart on his cheek-opened his eyes and spoke unexpectedly.

'Is 'e?' he inquired with interest. 'Lamp-black! Gawdlummycharley, I bought lamp-black for Mr. Keppel last night. He sent me out for it. Nine-pennyworth. Ah.'

'I begin to see,' observed our captor, and his eyes were shinning. 'Keppel! You asked' for him when you came in, and made sure he was out. You didn't make any appointment, or he'd have been in; he's fussy. You got out that window. You walked along the ledge. You got into his room… Frank! Have you got the master-key to the Yale lock on Dr. Keeper's door?'

'Ah,' said Frank.

'We're going down there now to have a look. You two march in front of me, and don't try any tricks… Wait! Who's that coming upstairs?'

Momentarily he had glanced towards the door, and that second might have been the time to knock his weapon aside. But I did not attempt it, for at Frank's reply our last hope went up the chimney and all future prospects of a wedding dissolved in smoke. Frank replied that it was p'leece. Frank said that it was Inspector Murchison from the Bridewell — which I took to be police headquarters — and Frank seemed relieved. Our captor let out a relieved whoop and call to the deliverer, while Evelyn shut her eyes. Into the room came the burly man with the bowler hat, whom we had seen at the station. He looked round the group, and surveyed us sardonically. But that was not the end of it. Peering beyond his shoulder, eager and pink of face, trotted Mr. Johnson Stone.

Stone pointed to me.

'That's the man,' he said.

Evelyn spoke in a somewhat strangled voice, after a pause. 'OOoo, you Judas,' she breathed. 'So it was a game after all! It was ghost stories you were telling us after all. L. isn't dead. I'll bet you're L. yourself. You set him on us, did you? Well, I hope you're satisfied.'

Stone cast up his eyes. For a moment he stared and went pinker. Then he spoke in the same tangled tone.

'So now,' he said, 'now I'm a Judas, am I? That's fine. That's just dandy. I hereby take a solemn oath that never again, never if I live to be a billion, will I ever put out a helping hand to anybody again. I'll kick 'em in the face! I'll kill 'em! I'll Listen, you lunkheads, why didn't you wait and let me explain?' He put out a hand and seized the inspector by the shoulder, as though to steady himself. 'You poor, blithering, blistering….. Listen. The fellow wasn't at the station to arrest you. He never heard of you in his life. He wasn't coming to our compartment to grab you. He was at the train to meet me. He's my son-in-law, you one-horned limbs of a piebald cow, the son-in-law

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