“Yes; oh, yes!” she made answer, agitatedly.  “Twice when I have gone into the Park with him, attempts have been made to separate us, to get him away from me; and once they did get him away—­so swiftly, so adroitly, that he had vanished before I could turn round.  But, although a bag had been thrown over his head to stifle his cries, he managed to make a very little one.  I plunged screaming into the undergrowth from which that cry had come, and was just in time to save him.  He was lying on the ground all bundled up in a bag, and his assailant, who must have heard me coming, had gone as if by magic.  His little lordship, however, was able to tell me that the man was a Cingalese, and that he had ’tried to cut him with a knife.’”

“Cut him with a knife?” repeated Cleek in a reflective tone, and blew out a long, low whistle.

“Oh! but that is not the worst, Mr. Cleek,” went on Ailsa.  “Three days ago a woman—­a very beautiful and distinguished-looking woman—­called to see Lady Chepstow regarding the reference of a former servant, one Jane Catherboys, who used to be her ladyship’s maid.  After the caller left, a box of sugared violets was found lying temptingly open on a table in the main hall.  Little Cedric is passionately fond of sugared violets, and, had he happened to pass that way before the box was discovered, he surely would have yielded to the temptation and eaten some.  In removing the box the parlour-maid accidentally upset it, and before she could gather all the violets up her ladyship’s little Pomeranian dog snapped up one and ate it.  It was dead in six minutes’ time!  The sweets were simply loaded with prussic acid.  When we came to inquire into the matter in the hope of tracing the mysterious caller, we found that Jane Catherboys was no longer in need of a position; that she had been married for eight months; that she knew nothing whatever of the woman, and had sent no one to inquire into her references.”

“All of which shows, my dear Cleek,” put in Narkom significantly, “that, whatever hand is directing these attempts, it belongs to one who knows more than a mere outsider possibly could:  in short, to one who is aware of his little lordship’s excessive fondness for sugared violets, and is aware that Lady Chepstow once did have a maid named Jane Catherboys.”

“If,” said Cleek, “you mean to suggest by that that this points suspiciously in Captain Hawksley’s direction, Mr. Narkom, permit me to say that it does not necessarily follow.  The clever people of the under-world do nothing by halves nor without careful inquiry beforehand; that is what makes the difference between the common pickpocket and the brilliant swindler.”  He turned to Ailsa.  “Is that all, Miss Lorne, or am I right in supposing that there is even worse to come?”