found he had given that much away, he was so scared that I thought he was going to collapse again, as he did on the staircase.

And yet he had been entrusted with a pass-key to Cassavetti’s rooms!

Only two items seemed perfectly clear. That his “gracious lady” was in danger,—I put that question to him time after time, and his answer never varied,—and that he had come to warn her, to save her if possible.

I could not ascertain the nature of the danger. When I asked him he simply shook his head, and appeared more scared than ever; but I gathered that he would be able to tell “the gracious lady,” and that she would understand, if he could only have speech with her. But when I pressed him on this idea of danger he did [Pg 8]a curious thing. He picked up Cassavetti’s key, flattened the bit of red stuff on the palm of his hand, and held it towards me, pointing at it as if to indicate that here was the clue that he dare not give in words.

[Pg 8]

I looked at the thing with interest. A tawdry artificial flower, with five petals, and in a flash I understood that the hieroglyphic on the portrait represented the same thing,—a red geranium. But what did they mean, anyhow, and what connection was there between them? I could not imagine.

Finally I made him understand—or I thought I did—that he must come to me next day, in the morning; and meanwhile I would try and arrange that he should meet his “gracious lady.”

He grovelled again, and shuffled off, turning at every few steps to make a genuflection.

I half expected him to go up the stairs to Cassavetti’s rooms, but he did not. He went down. I followed two minutes later, but saw nothing of him, either on the staircase or the street. He had vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as he had appeared.

I whistled for a hansom, and, as the cab turned up Whitehall, Big Ben chimed a quarter to eight.

[Pg 9]

[Pg 9]

CHAPTER II

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