Miss Ferriby's Clients

by Florence Warden

  Chapter 3

  For the first few moments after his surprising discovery, Welton Keynes remained in his place of concealment, almost paralysed with a sort of sick terror.

  What was this marvel which had taken place under his eyes? How was he to account for the apparent transformation of a man into a woman within the walls of The Lawns?

  And who was the person who had undergone the transformation?

  Although he had thought, when he noticed the resemblance between the portrait of the murderer, Henry Ward, in the paper, and the man he had seen admitted into the house by the tall footman, Welton had not until that moment seriously considered the possibility that the man he saw might be the murderer himself. But now he felt certain that the person who had just passed him, dressed as a woman, was no woman at all, but the man he had seen at The Lawns.

  If so, what was he doing at The Lawns? And why had he gone in as a man and come out as a woman?

  The answer was disturbing. For there could be only one. If the man with the black beard, whom he had seen admitted into The Lawns, was Henry Ward, the murderer, and if the person he had just seen dressed as a woman were the same person, then it was clear that the mysterious rumours of the neighbours as to the dubious character of the pretty suburban house, were amply justified.

  Welton Keynes' spirits fell.

  In spite of the disturbing influence of the strange things which he had seen and heard since his arrival in the neighbourhood a little more than two hours before, he had felt considerable elation on finding himself engaged by Miss Ferriby; and had not, in accepting her offer, troubled his head about the disappearance of her former secretaries, alleged by the talkative old lady who had come from the newspaper shop.

  But since this odd circumstance of the reincarnation of the black-bearded visitor as a woman, it was inevitable that he should begin to ask himself whether the situation he had obtained was all that his fancy had painted it, and that he should have doubts as to the wisdom of his having anything more to do with the woman from The Lawns.

  As for Miss Ferriby herself, he felt attracted rather than repelled by her; for in spite of her deformity, and what many people would have considered her ugliness, there was in her great grey eyes so much keen intelligence, in her voice strange capacity for change from grave to cheerful, from harsh to sweet, that he was interested in her, and very anxious to know more about her. Was her charity so great that she not only relieved the destitute, but helped the outcast and the criminal? And would his duties as secretary bring him into close contact with the very off-scourings of society?

  Noble as Miss Ferriby's motives no doubt were, if he was right in thinking her charity so extensive at this, he felt considerable repugnance to the idea of having to assist, not only the needy, but the criminal and the vicious.

  He understood, if this were the truth about Miss Ferriby and her wide sympathies, why it was that she was unable to keep a secretary for long. Even the most broad-minded of philanthropists must feel an occasional qualm at giving assistance to men who were outside the pale of human sympathy by reason of their crimes. And while he could not doubt that Miss Ferriby could find ample excuse and support for her actions in the teachings of humanity and religion, he felt that she must find it difficult to find other people of the same degree of liberality as she.

  If the man he had just seen was really Henry Ward, and if he had gone straight to the large-hearted hunchback for sympathy and active assistance, was there not something hideous and revolting in the thought that the man who had murdered a helpless woman without the least compunction, should find every care and assistance from another woman, without his having expiated his crime?

  On the whole, Welton Keynes found it impossible to accept such wide charity as this as right or justifiable. He had to decide, with much regret, that the post which he had thought too good to be within his reach, must be given up now that he had accepted it.

  He glanced at the first of the three little houses opposite the neglected garden in which he had hidden himself. It was that in which the lady and her pretty daughter lived, his chance acquaintances of the morning.

  He felt inclined to knock at the door, to relate what he had just seen, and to ask whether the ladies could help him to a solution of the little mystery which perplexed him, since they probably knew more than they had felt justified in telling a stranger.

  On second thoughts, however, he decided that in the first place he would lay his perplexities before his young brother, who would be at his lodgings by the time he returned, and who was a singularly shrewd lad for his age.

  So he took a motor omnibus from Hammersmith to Oxford Street, and reached home in the lodgings in a little street on the north side of that thoroughfare, just as his young brother was beginning to get anxious as to what had become of him.

  "Hello!" said Basil, as his brother came into their somewhat dingy, but on the whole comfortable, sitting room on the second floor. "What have you been up to? You said you would be in to dinner at seven. We shan't have time to get to the theatre."

  "Theatre! Oh, I'd forgotten. You go without me. I don't feel inclined for the theatre tonight."

  Basil stared at him in astonishment. The younger brother was a handsome, black-eyed lad with curly hair, and a sharp business instinct which promised to develop into a useful quality by and by.

  "What have you been doing with yourself?" he asked, as the other threw himself on the little hard springless sofa, and stretched himself out with a sort of weary impatience. "You look as if you've been ruffled by something."

  "So I have. I've been through the most extraordinary adventures that ever happened to me in my life, all through an advertisement I saw in the paper this afternoon, and at once went after."

  "No good, then?"

  "Why yes, it was, in a way. At least I've got the offer of the post. Secretary to a charitable old lady. Salary five hundred a year."

  "By Jove! What luck!"

  "But I'm not going to take it."

  Basil stared at his brother as if he had gone mad. "Why, what on earth do you expect to get? I should have thought you would have jumped at it."

  "So should I. I'll tell you all about it."

  Slowly and deliberately, trying to keep the thread of his narrative clear, Welton told his brother all his adventures of that day, not forgetting any detail, and not laying undue stress upon the uncanny and odd parts of the story. When he had finished, he said, "There now, that's about all. If you were in my place, would you go to The Lawns again?"

  "Of course I would," replied Basil readily. "Why not?"

  Welton frowned. "I suppose," he said, after a little pause, "I've not succeeded in conveying to you exactly the impression all these things made upon me."

  "I've gathered," said Basil, "that you think there's something too unpleasant about the old lady herself, and about her protégés, for you to care to have anything more to do with her."

  "Well, remembering to start with that the neighbours say no secretary ever stays with her, and that the salary appears large for the work to be done, I think I'm justified in saying that there's something serious against the post. And after what I saw myself, I begin to feel sure that Miss Ferriby's a wilful old woman with whims which nobody could put up with."

  "I don't see what proof you have of that. And if I were you, I wouldn't throw it up until I'd given the post a trial. It may be that being grateful to you as you say she is, for saving her from the two rascals who attacked her in the lane, she'll listen to reason from you, and will perhaps learn to use a little more discrimination in her charities. She was very nice to you, you say?"

  Welton hesitated. "Well, yes, she was," he said at last. "But there's something a trifle uncanny even in her amiability. She's a fascinating, odd sort of creature; but the impression she made upon me was that she was disturbingly weird, and that she might be very difficult to deal with."

  "Well, don't be satisfied to take an impression, but give the post a trial.
You can always throw it up, as the others have done, can't you?"

  "Yes. But there seems to be an idea that the others went away rather mysteriously"

  "Surely you can't suppose that the old woman poisoned them, or made away with them?"

  "No, of course not. Still, on the whole, I'm not at all eager to give the post a trial. I'll go back there tomorrow morning, if you like, but I'm ready to bet it will be the last time."

  Basil laughed. It seemed to him strange that his brother, who was not at all inclined to be timid by temperament, should have let himself be influenced so strongly by what he himself thought were fancies and nothing more. Basil did not give one moment's thought to the suggestion that the man he had seen enter The Lawns was the murderer, Henry Ward, of whom the police were in search. Still less did he credit what seemed to him the ridiculous notion that the woman whom his brother had seen passing the garden where he was in hiding, was in reality no woman at all, but a man disguised.

  It seemed to Basil that the very fact of his brother's having hidden himself in the deserted garden to watch for the man with the black beard, showed that he was under the influence of fanciful terrors, the result of the singular nature of his adventures that evening. Not for one moment did Basil credit the rumours about the old woman, or the vague suspicions which his brother had formed.

  Being a very shrewd lad, he pointed out that hunchbacks are nearly always invested by the popular mind with unusual attributes, that they very often are eccentric, by reason of the difference their deformity makes in their lives. And he also pointed out that as Miss Ferriby appeared to be rich, she would inevitably appear more eccentric than ever, as she would be able to indulge her whims.

  "And just as it's a whim of hers to engage me, so it will probably soon be another to get rid of me."

  "What does that matter?" retorted Basil. "I dare say by that time you will have had enough of it, and in the meantime you will be earning something, and you can be looking out for a post to suit you better."

  This advice was so sound that Welton, although with a reluctance which he himself could scarcely understand, agreed to give the post a trial.

  And on the following morning, punctually at ten o'clock, he was admitted by the footman and ushered into a room at the back of the house, furnished with a rolltop desk, writing table and other handsome, solid-looking furniture of the kind suited to a room which was evidently part library, part office.

  The first impression made by the sight of The Lawns on a bright October morning, with the sun shining through a little autumnal mist, was calculated to dispel all unpleasant fancies. The garden looked charming still, although many of the flowers had died off, and those that remained were beginning to straggle and wither. But the smooth, velvety lawns, the well trimmed evergreens, the warm tinted walls with the fruit trees trained over them, all gave an impression of cosiness and tranquil happiness, while the house itself, seen in a brighter light, looked handsomer and more luxurious than ever.

  There was not a good light in the library, into which he was shown, for the outlook was on to a sort of quadrangle which, though it was laid down in grass and adorned by yew trees which shut out the view of the kitchens opposite, suffered by reason of the confined space between the one wing of the house and the other.

  However, it could scarcely be called dark; and Welton Keynes, as he went to the window and looked out, saw the same evidences of care and taste as on the other side of the house.

  Upon the rolltop desk, which was open, he saw a huge pile of letters and papers of various kinds, which he guessed he would have to deal with by and by. In the meantime he looked about him.

  The bookcases, of which there were several in the room, were handsomely carved and filled with well-bound volumes, mostly standard works in two or three modern languages. They did not look as if they were often touched.

  There was a comfortable revolving chair by the writing table, and in the darkest corner of the room, close to the fireplace, and opposite to the writing table, there was a luxurious easy chair.

  By the look of it, Welton judged that this would be Miss Ferriby's seat, for he noticed that like the chair in which he had seen her seated on the previous evening, it was very high and had a tall, square footstool in front of it. It was piled with exceedingly handsome brocaded cushions, each of which was hung with four enormous tassels of silk and bullion.

  He had scarcely finished his survey of the room when he saw a long hand protruding from behind a curtain which hung in a corner of the room beside the tall chair. And he knew it was Miss Ferriby who was coming in.

  He could not quite understand the shudder which passed through him as he became aware of the fact that she was entering the room, but it was perhaps only the sight of the large pale hand grasping the curtain and remaining quite still for a moment, before he could see the figure to which it belonged, that made him so sensitive to this impression.

  The next moment, out of the dark corner, he saw the deformed figure of Miss Ferriby, standing under the curtain which she was holding aside. No light came in from the space behind her, and Welton wondered where she came from. She dropped the curtain while he bowed, and mounting the high square footstool by the help of a little gold-headed cane which she carried, she ensconced herself in the chair in the dark corner. At last, she said, in the soft voice she could use when she pleased, "Good morning, Mr. Keynes. I'm very glad to see you again."

  He returned her greeting, took hold of the large pale hand which she held out to him with a curiously regal air, and felt that the large grey eyes were piercing him through and through.

  He was conscious of an uneasy sense that she suspected the doubt which had made him hesitate whether he should come to her, and he felt he did not care to meet her eyes with the frankness she seemed to expect.

  "And now are you ready to begin work?" she asked with a smile, which made her large white teeth gleam in the darkness of her corner. "If so, take your chair -- the one in front of the desk, and let us see what my correspondence consists of this morning."

  Welton Keynes seated himself as he was told to do, on the other side of the writing table, which was conveniently placed in front of the window sideways, so that the light from the left fell upon the table.

  "Is this the pile we have to deal with?" he asked, touching the great double pile of letters and papers addressed to "Miss Ferriby," "Miss A. Ferriby," "Miss Adeline Ferriby."

  "That is it," she said. "Tear them open, and tell me what they are about."

  He obeyed, opening one letter after another and noting, on the envelopes of those she directed him to keep, the sort of answer he was to make.

  Already he was beginning to feel that he had been rather a fool to worry himself about her eccentricities. The letters were of the usual type sent to rich persons of benevolence, and included a very large proportion which they both at once saw to be nothing more or less than begging letters.

  If he had doubted Miss Ferriby's intelligence, the ease with which she saw through the conventional begging letter would have put him right. He began to know when to expect the little low-voiced, incredulous chuckle with which she received any variation of the well-worn begging letter.

  "Wastepaper basket," it was her habit to say softly, when he had read halfway through an epistle of this kind. And into the big basket beside him the letter would go, and the next on the pile would be opened and considered.

  Many of the letters were from people of title and position who were interested in philanthropic or educational matters, some consulting Miss Ferriby, some enclosing donations or subscriptions to specific charities, some making appointments or asking for donations or subscriptions towards different benevolent institutions.

  The remaining letters, asking for help in various ways, were put into a pile by themselves and handed one by one to Miss Ferriby when the rest of the correspondence was disposed of.

  Upon the envelope of each, as she handed it back to Welton Keynes, he had to write notes
as to the answer he was to give. This done, Miss Ferriby gave him the key of one of the drawers of the writing table and asked him to take out the various account books he would find there, referring to various charities with which she was interested. In these he had to make various entries at her dictation. Then followed the writing of several letters, most of them to persons of rank or wealth, in connection with other institutions of a charitable nature, or to the secretaries of such institutions themselves.

  This done, Miss Ferriby sighed, and leaned back in her chair as if exhausted by her morning's work. By this time the marble clock on the mantelpiece had struck one.

  "And now," she said good-humouredly, "we have half an hour for a little chat. I lunch at half past one and I have told them to have your luncheon served at that time. Will that suit you?"

  "Perfectly, Miss Ferriby."

  "I dare say you will like to have it here, so that you can get on with the letters and things almost without a break. You will get three hours' relief from my society, as I take an hour's rest after luncheon and then receive my friends until half past four, when I shall come and worry you again, read the letters you have written and discuss the work for tomorrow. By half past five you will be free."

  She smiled graciously, waved one of her large white hands, and descended nimbly from her high footstool, raised the curtain and disappeared before Welton, who had sprung forward to help her, could reach the corner.

  When she had been gone some seconds, he lifted the heavy tapestry curtain to see what was behind. A foot away there was a baize covered door which he pushed. But it must have been bolted on the other side, for it did not yield to his touch.

  By the situation of the room he was in, Welton Keynes supposed that there must be a room or passage between the baize covered door and the little square, high ceilinged room in which he had seen Miss Ferriby on the preceding evening, and that Miss Ferriby had disappeared by way of that passage.

  He had scarcely returned to his desk when the other door of the room opened and the solemn footman came in with a little luncheon tray, which he placed upon a side table. The service was perfect. The man moved silently and was careful and attentive. The cutlet was well cooked; the sweet omelette which followed was excellent, and the linen, cut glass, china and silver particularly dainty and handsome.

  When Welton had finished, the tray was taken away as rapidly and noiselessly as it had been brought in. For the next two hours Welton devoted himself to his work, getting it done by four o'clock, by which time he thought he had earned the right to a cigarette in the garden, which he was longing to explore.

  So he arranged his letters and papers neatly, and passing through the wide, handsome hall at a slow pace, in order to examine as he went some choice watercolour drawings upon the walls, he went out by an open side door into the garden, where the mist from the river was beginning to gather, but which was yet pleasant and restful to his eye.

  As he passed by the long windows of the narrow drawing room through which he had walked on the preceding evening, he saw a throng of ladies, all well dressed and bearing the unmistakable stamp of luxurious and easy life, sitting and standing about the room. At the first window he passed he saw a tall, stately woman, whom he recognized as the wife of a well-known Member of Parliament. Talking to her was a handsome and exquisitely dressed woman who must, he thought, be an American.

  Both seemed angry and impatient, and he heard them complaining loudly, as he passed, of being obliged to "waste the afternoon like this."

  Rather puzzled by what he saw, Welton Keynes went on along the paths and across the lawns, extending his walk until he had passed round the right wing of the house and through the kitchen garden at the back of it.

  He noticed that the windows of the little room in which he had seen Miss Ferriby on the preceding evening were small and at a great height from the ground. There was a floor above, but he observed with some surprise that the windows of the upper floor all had their blinds down and the curtains drawn. And the suspicion that gambling was going on there crossed his mind.

  After entering the quadrangle upon which the library looked out, and noting the fact that the blinds were only down in the upper floor of the one large wing of the house, he returned by the way he had come. This wing was, he saw, so large that it dwarfed the original building altogether, and spoilt the proportions of what had been a rather small but very well built house, turning it into a much larger but irregular one.

  As he passed the windows of the long drawing room, he instinctively glanced towards the windows, and then he saw, to his surprise, that the crowd of ladies had all disappeared, melted away as if they had been a vision.

  The sudden change from a talkative crowd to desolation and silence had been effected so suddenly that he stood still in astonishment, and then walked backwards a few steps across the lawn to look up at the house, as if doubtful of the evidence of his own eyes.

  And then he saw that the blinds of the upper floor were all drawn up, and that the windows were thrown open and the curtains drawn back.

  It was all a little uncanny, and amazing, and bewildering, and he went quickly back into the house and into the library with an uncomfortable, vague feeling that he had somehow been tricked.

  He had scarcely taken his seat by the writing table, when the door by which he had come in opened behind him, and the tall footman, speaking for almost the first time since Welton's arrival, told him that Miss Ferriby would be glad if he would bring the letters with him and take tea with her in the drawing room.

  Welton, delighted at any incident which promised to explain something of this mysterious household, gathered up his letters and papers and followed the man out into the hall, and through the long narrow, low ceilinged drawing room, about which there now hung a faint suggestion of the various perfumes used by the ladies he had seen there a few minutes before, and into the little lofty apartment where he had seen Miss Ferriby on the previous evening.

  She was sitting, as she had done on that occasion, in the high-backed Spanish chair by the fireplace, where the fire was burning low. The small, high windows, the fog which was increasing in density outside, the advancing shades of evening, and the rich dark tones of the tapestries with which the room was hung, all gave an impression of sombreness and gloom, which increased the effect of the attitude and action of Miss Ferriby, as she leaned forward in her chair and held out her hands to the feeble spark of a fire.

  "I'm cold," she said with a shiver.

  Welton was surprised to hear it, for the air of the room seemed to him to be close and sickly, and heavy with the warmth of a stove as well as with some strange subtle perfume new to him.

  He did not quite know whether he liked or disliked it, but only that it was quite new to him. But all other considerations were swallowed up in wonder at the magnificence of the jewels Miss Ferriby was wearing, and of the rich lace and brocade which adorned her poor deformed person.

  Dressed in a gown of peculiar pattern, with a robe of a yellowish tint underneath, and a long overdress of pale pink, embroidered and woven with flowers in gold and copper thread, Miss Ferriby wore a deep flounce of priceless old white lace on her skirt, and a light triangular scarf of similar lace round her shoulders and on her head.

  This lace was fastened on each side of her grey hair with pins set in amethysts and diamonds; while long chains of the same stones were wound five or six times round her neck, and drooped in long pendants as far as her knees. Her fingers sparkled with large diamonds, and a clasp set with flashing brilliants held together the sides of her overdress. Welton Keynes knew enough about precious stones to be able to make a roughly accurate guess that the jewellery she wore, pins, chains, rings, clasps, and bracelets, must be worth not less than from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds.

  He was absorbed in wonder at the exotic dress, the throng of smart women he had seen, and the rest of the odd incidents of the day. Meanwhile Miss Ferriby, not unconscious, as it seemed to him, of the effe
ct which the display of her jewels had upon him, told him to begin the work. Taking the letters he had written one by one, she read them, expressed approval of them, and helped to fasten up the envelopes.

  By that time she appeared fatigued, and leaning back in her big chair, touched the electric button beside her, and smilingly invited him to have tea with her.

  The solemn footman, who, as Welton remarked to himself, was absolutely the only member of Miss Ferriby's household whom he had so far seen, brought in a little table with the exceptionally dainty linen and china which Welton had learnt to expect, and withdrew.

  Miss Ferriby poured out the tea, and began to talk. "Well, Mr. Keynes, do you think you and I will get on together? I see you can do all I want to perfection, if you care enough about the post to do it. Today's work has afforded a fair sample of the sort of correspondence I get, and the manner in which it has to be dealt with. Of course, sometimes it is heavier, but it is generally the same sort of thing."

  "Do you get much imposed upon, dealing as you do with so many applicants?" asked Welton.

  "I don't think so. Of course I get tricked sometimes, but on the whole I think my long experience enables me to detect imposition pretty certainly. I'm so well known in these philanthropic matters, that, as you know, people consult me as to dealing with particular cases, and as to the founding of charities of various kinds. I've become a sort of specialist in charity."

  "So I see. It must be a great delight to you to know how much good you are doing."

  To his surprise, Miss Ferriby, who had been leaning forward with her teacup on her knee, slowly munching a piece of cake, suddenly turned upon him those shrewd, bright, big grey eyes of hers with an expression which puzzled while it interested him. It was a look rather of cynical amusement than of gratitude and contentment.

  The footman had turned on the electric light, which in this room was fitted in a silver lamp that hung in chains from the ceiling. The illumination was not very brilliant, the light being soft rather than powerful, well adapted to show in their fullest beauty the rich tones and colours of the dress Miss Ferriby wore, the sparkle of he jewels, the lights and shadows in the silent tapestries around her.

  "I take no more pleasure in it all than you do," she replied quietly and decisively.

  He was amazed. "And yet you take so much trouble! You spend practically your whole time in doing this good thing," he said gently, encouraged by the fact that she was inclined to talk confidentially.

  "Ah, but do I? I used to think I did, at first, before I knew so much. Now I doubt it very much. These highly organized charities do indeed support a very worthy and deserving class of people for the most part: the officials, servants, and employees, who form the staff, the contractors who do the repairing of the expensive buildings, and so on. But good, actual good to the persons relieved? Well, a little is done, certainly, but not much, I'm afraid. Not nearly enough to be worth the expense and the money. No. I've been undeceived there."

  "Well, privately you must help a good many deserving persons who would not come to anybody less well known for benevolence than you."

  "A few, of course. But I doubt whether one often succeeds in reaching the really deserving. I should put the proportion of the deserving cases one helps to the undeserving as one in twenty."

  Welton was amazed again. "Yet you go on!"

  "Well, one has got into the groove, and there is always the possibility that one may do some little good. There remains the fact that it has become a hobby. I wish I could honestly say more."

  "Then it has ceased to give you pleasure?"

  "I can almost say, yes. I don't know that my motives were as high as they ought to have been when I took it up. Do you know -- perhaps you don't, you are too young -- that most people who take an active part in any movement are actuated in the first place rather by a general desire to be doing something, than by a desire to do that particular thing?"

  "I can understand that."

  "Look at my life. Rich, energetic; yet shut out from the ordinary affections and interests of womanhood by my affliction, I had to do something. I am not sure that the love of gambling, which is inherent in my nature, had not its share in making me take to the course of life I follow."

  "Gambling?" he echoed in surprise.

  "Yes. Philanthropy is a gamble. One hit for twenty misses," she replied calmly. "But now it no longer satisfies me. I have to play with other stakes. Excitement, the stronger the better; that's what attracts me now."

  Her eyes glowed with a strange fire, and her voice seemed to vibrate with passions which seemed to go ill with the deformed frame and with the grey hair. He looked at her with interest so intense that, when she turned abruptly and met his eyes with her own, a sore though not unkindly look passed over her face.

  She said, in gentler tone, "You must think me a strange woman. I suppose you've never met anyone quite like me before?"

  "Indeed I haven't," replied Welton at once.

  "You will go home and tell your people that I'm mad."

  "Indeed, I shan't be so foolish or so ungrateful. I shall tell my brother that you've been very nice to me, and that -- may I say it? -- you are one of the most interesting ladies I've ever met."

  Miss Ferriby was human enough to look pleased. "I had an idea," she said, "that you looked at me this morning as if you thought I was in league with the devil."

  Welton Keynes was much startled by this remark which showed considerable penetration. "I'm sure I didn't know -- I didn't mean -- I hadn't the least idea," he stammered in confusion.

  She cut him short with an imperious movement of her hand. "Tell me now, truthfully. You know I'm the sort of woman you can tell the truth to. Why did you think there was something odd, wrong about either me, or the post or both?"

  He hesitated. But she was so winning in her frankness, in her kind, open manner, in the very cynicism of some of her remarks, that he grew bold, and resolved to tell her just what it was that surprised and alarmed him on the previous evening.

  "I will," he said gravely. "I saw a man come into this house last night -- a man whom I thought I recognized as a criminal wanted by the police."

  Her eyes were fixed upon him steadily, but not with a look or movement did she betray what she felt, or what she thought of this daring speech.

  He went on: "And I thought I saw him go out again -- dressed as a woman."

  There was a pause which seemed rather long. Then Miss Ferriby said quite composedly: "So you did."

  Welton's horror at this bold confession was infinitely greater than had been his scandal at the time. That Miss Ferriby should thus confess without the least demur to such an amazing thing seemed to him too perplexing and shocking for words. He waited patiently, with his eyes down, until she said in a measured voice:

  "The man came here for help, and I gave it him. Whether he deserved it or not I don't know. I should think it unlikely. But his daring to come was one thing in his favour, and his story was not without suggestions of veracity. So I helped him -- or rather allowed him to help himself."

  Welton could not repress a shudder. That a woman of means like Miss Ferriby should knowingly help a criminal to escape seemed rather shocking, in spite of the semblance of reasonableness in what she said.

  Miss Ferriby turned to him with a warning finger raised. "But you mustn't say anything about it, and indeed you are not supposed to know anything," she said in a whisper. "I have confided my reasons to you, but they might not get me so much sympathy from other people."

  Welton Keynes quite agreed with this, and wished he had not been quite so frank. It was much worse to know, than merely to suspect, that his employer had been guilty of aiding a criminal to escape from justice. When he got up to take his leave a few minutes later, he felt much less happy and contented with his lot than he had done ten minutes before.

  And as he went home he was tormented by this question: Should he or should he not tell Basil all about it?