“I say, officer,” he whispered nervously, “can’t you manage to keep my name out of it?  I mean to say, my people will kick up the deuce.  Anything up to a tenner. . . .”

The whisper faded away.  Kerry’s expression had grown positively ferocious.

“Put your card on the table,” he said tersely, “and get out while my hands stay in my pockets!”

Hurriedly the noble youth (he was the elder son of an earl) complied, and departed.  Then, one by one, the rest of the company filed past the Chief Inspector.  He challenged no one until a Jew smilingly laid a card on the table bearing the legend:  “Mr. John Jones, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

“Hi!” rapped Kerry, grasping the man’s arm.  “One moment, Mr.  ‘Jones’!  The card I want is in the other case.  D’you take me for a mug?  That ‘Jones’ trick was tried on Noah by the blue-faced baboon!”

His perception of character was wonderful.  At some of the cards he did not even glance; and upon the women he wasted no time at all.  He took it for granted that they would all give false names, but since each of them would be followed it did not matter.  When at last the room was emptied, he turned to the scowling proprietor, and: 

“That’s that!” he said.  “I’ve had no instructions about your establishment, my friend, and as I’ve seen nothing improper going on I’m making no charge, at the moment.  I don’t want to know what sort of show takes place on your platform, and I don’t want to know anything about you that I don’t know already.  You’re a Swiss subject and a dark horse.”

He gathered up the cards from the table, glancing at them carelessly.  He did not expect to gain much from his possession of these names and addresses.  It was among the women that he counted upon finding patrons of Kazmah and Company.  But as he was about to drop the cards into his overcoat pocket, one of them, which bore a written note, attracted his attention.

At this card he stared like a man amazed; his face grew more and more red, and: 

“Hell!” he said—­“Hell! which of ’em was it?”

The card contained the following:—­

    Lord Wrexborough
    Great Cumberland Place, V. 1
    “To introduce 719.  W.”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE MOODS OF MOLLIE

Early the following morning Margaret Halley called upon Mollie Gretna.

Mollie’s personality did not attract Margaret.  The two had nothing in common, but Margaret was well aware of the nature of the tie which had bound Rita Irvin to this empty and decadent representative of English aristocracy.  Mollie Gretna was entitled to append the words “The Honorable” to her name, but not only did she refrain from doing so but she even preferred to be known as “Gretna”—­the style of one of the family estates.