self-preservation had contrived to escape, I was a toy worth playing with. She wanted to play with me. All the women I knew, not busy with better toys, wanted to play with me. My brother Haslemere, who had been ashamed of my extremely clever, rather successful book, and the undoubted detective talent it showed, was proud of me as a mere bomb-dropper. So, too, was my sister-in-law. I was the principal object of attraction at the moment in Violet's zoo—I mean her convalescent home. She had cried because men were not being wounded fast enough to fill its expensively appointed rooms; I was captured, therefore, to make up for deficiencies and shown off to Violet's many friends, who were duly photographed bending beautifully over me. 

 There was, as I had feared, a letter from Irene Anderson; there was also—even worse—one from Mrs. Allendale. But the third letter was from Carr Price. On the envelope was the address of the New York theatre where the play he had dramatised from my book would shortly be produced. He had come to England a million years ago, before the war, to consult me about his work, which would have been brought out in London if the war had not upset our manager's plans. I like Carr Price, who is as much poet as playwright; a charming, sensitive, nervous, wonderful fellow. I gave his letter precedence. 

 

 "DEAR LORD JOHN," he began, and I judged from the scrawl that he wrote in agitation—"for goodness' sake, what have you done to Roger Odell that he should have a grouch on you? It must have been something pretty bad. I wish to Heaven you'd given me the tip last summer that you'd made an enemy of him. Roger Odell, of all men in America! I suppose the brother of a marquis can stand on his own feet in his own country, but even if his brother's an archangel his feet are apt to get cold in New York if Roger Odell turns the heat off. 

 "The facts—as I've just heard from Julius Felborn—are these. Yesterday Odell sent for Julius, who went like a bird, for he and Odell are friends. Odell's money and influence put Julius where he is now, as a manager, up at the top, though still young. What was Julius's horror, however, when Odell blurted out a warning not to produce any play dramatised from a book of yours, because he—Odell—would do his best to ruin it! Julius asked what the dickens he meant. Odell wouldn't explain. All he'd say was, that he'd be sorry to hurt Julius and had nothing against me, but The Key would get no chance in New York or any old town in the United States where Roger Odell had a finger in the pie. 

 "Well, you must 

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