pretty free with her tips. Her son is here too.” [Pg 94] Whoever or whatever she was, it was evident that Bindo was busily engaged ingratiating himself with her, having previously established a firm friendship with her son, who, by the way, had left Scarborough on the previous day. I happened to have a friend who was chauffeur to a doctor in Peterborough, therefore I wrote to him that evening, making inquiries regarding St. Mellions and its owner. Three days later a reply came to the effect that the Hall was about ten miles from Peterborough, and one of the finest country seats in Northamptonshire. It had been the property of a well-known earl, who, having become impoverished by gambling, had sold it, together with the great estate, to old Joshua Clayton, the Lancashire millionaire. “She keeps a couple of cars,” my friend concluded. “One is a Humber voiturette, and the other a twenty-four Mercedes. You know her chauffeur—Saunders—from the Napier works.” Of course I knew Saunders. He was once a very intimate friend of mine, but for the past couple of years I had lost sight of him. [Pg 95] [Pg 95] Why, I wondered, was Bindo so intensely interested in the over-dressed old crone? He walked with her constantly on the Spa, or along the Esplanade; he lounged at her side when she sat to watch the parading summer girls and their flirtations, and he idled at coffee with her every evening. After a few days Sir Charles Blythe, alias Sinclair, was introduced. By prearrangement the bogus baronet chanced to be standing by the railings looking over the Spa grounds one morning when Bindo and his companion strolled by. The men saluted each other, and Bindo asked Mrs. Clayton’s leave to introduce his friend. The instant the magic title was spoken the old lady became full of smiles and graces, and the trio walking together passed along in the direction of Holbeck. Two days later Henderson appeared on the scene quite suddenly. I was walking along Westborough late one evening when somebody accosted me, and, turning, I found it was our friend—whom I believed to be still on the Continent. He was dressed as foppishly as usual, and certainly betrayed no evidence that he was a “crook.” “Well, Ewart?” he asked. “And how goes things? Who’s this old crone we’ve got in tow? A soft thing, Bindo says.” I told him all I knew concerning her, and he appeared to be
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