once.

These thoughts flash through his mind as if by electricity; and then, as the Celestial approaches, he turns languidly toward the open window and rests his head against the casement, as if in utter weariness.

“‘Mellican lady slick?” queries the masker solicitously; “‘Mellican lady walm? Ching Ling flannee, flannee.”

And raising his Japanese fan, he begins to ply it vigorously.

Mentally confiding “Ching Ling,” to a region where fans are needed and are not, Stanhope sways, as if about to faint, and motions toward a reclining chair.

The mask propels it close to the window, and the detective sinks into it, with a long drawn sigh.

Then, plying his fan with renewed vigor, the Celestial murmurs tenderly:

“‘Mellican lady slick?”

“Confound you,” thinks Stanhope; “I will try and be too slick for you.” Then, for the first time, he utters a word for the Celestial’s hearing. Moving his head restlessly he articulates, feebly:

“The heat—I feel—faint!” Then, half rising from the chair, seeming to make a last effort, he reels and murmuring: “Water—water,” sinks back presenting the appearance of utter lifelessness.

“Water!” The Celestial, utterly deceived, drops the fan[99] and his dialect at the same moment, and muttering: “She has fainted!” springs to the door.

[99]

It is just what Stanhope had hoped for. When the Celestial returns with the water, the fainting lady will have disappeared.

But Fate seems to have set her face against Stanhope. The Celestial does not go. At the very door he encounters a servant, none other than the girl, Millie, who, having for some time lost sight of little Daisy, is now wandering from room to room in quest of the child.

“Girl,” calls the masker authoritatively, “get some water quick; a lady has fainted.”

Uttering a startled: “Oh, my!” Millie skurries away, and the Celestial returns to the side of the detective, who seems just now to be playing a losing game.

But it is only seeming. The case, grown desperate, requires a desperate remedy, 

 Prev. P 60/322 next