She stopped short and looked towards the door.  Jimmy was peering in, and behind him Lord Dredlinton.

“Eh? what’s that, Sarah?” the former demanded.  “You’d what?”

Sarah rose to her feet and resumed her place in her chair.

“I was trying to pull Josephine down from the clouds,” she remarked.

Lord Dredlinton smiled across at her.  There was an unpleasant significance in his tone, as he answered, “Oh, it can be done, my dear young lady.”  He paused and looked at her disagreeably, “but I am not sure that you are the right person to do it.”

The shadow had fallen once more upon Josephine’s face.  She had become cold and indifferent.  She ignored her husband’s words.  Lord Dredlinton was looking around him in disgust.

“What on earth are we in this mausoleum for?” he demanded.

“Domestic reasons,” Josephine answered, with her finger upon the bell.  “Have you men had your coffee?”

“We had it in the dining room,” Jimmy assured her.

“I can’t think why you hurried so,” Sarah grumbled.  “How dared you only stay away a quarter of an hour, Jimmy!  You know I love to have a gossip with Josephine.”

“Couldn’t stick being parted from you any longer, my dear,” the young man replied complacently.

Sarah made a grimace.

“To be perfectly candid,” Lord Dredlinton intervened, throwing away his cigar and lighting a cigarette, “I am afraid it was my fault that we came in so soon.  Poor sort of host, eh, Jimmy?  Fact is, I’m nervous to-night.  Every damned newspaper I’ve picked up seems to be launching thunderbolts at the B. & I. And now this is the third day and there’s no news of Stanley.”

“Every one seems to know about his disappearance,” Jimmy remarked.  “They were all talking about it at the club to-day.”

“What do they say?” Lord Dredlinton asked eagerly.  “They all leave off talking about it when I am round.”

“Blooming mystery,” the young man pronounced.  “That’s the conclusion every one seems to arrive at.  A chap I know, whose chauffeur pals up with Rees’ valet, told me that he’s been having heaps of threatening letters from fellows who’d got the knock over the B. & I. He seemed to think they’d done him in.”

Dredlinton shivered nervously.

“It’s perfectly abominable,” he declared.  “Here we are supposed to have the finest police system in the world, and yet a man can disappear from his rooms in the very centre of London, and no one has even a clue as to what has become of him.”

“Looks bad,” Jimmy acknowledged.

“I don’t understand much about business affairs,” Sarah remarked, “but the B. & I. case does seem to be a remarkably unpopular undertaking.”

Dredlinton kicked a footstool out of his way, frowning angrily.

“The B. & I. is only an ordinary business concern,” he insisted.  “We have a right to make money if we are clever enough to do it.  We speculate in lots of other things besides wheat, and we have our losses to face as well as our profits.  I believe that fellow Wingate is at the bottom of all this agitation.  Just like those confounded Americans.  Why can’t they mind their own business!”