The detective rose.

“Will you be here when I come back, sir?” he asked.

“I expect so.  In any case, you must follow on to my chambers.  To-night we will concert our plan of campaign.”

Margaret entered, with Helen and the two men.  Robert limped somewhat.

“How d’ye do, Brett?” he cried cheerily.  “That beggar hurt me more than I imagined at the time.  He struck a tendon in my left leg so hard that it is quite painful now.”

Brett gave an answering smile, but his thoughts did not find utterance.  How strange it was that two men, so widely dissimilar as Robert and the vendor of newspapers, should insist on the skill, the unerring certainty, of their opponent.

“Mrs. Capella,” he said, wheeling round upon the lady, “when you lived in London or on the Continent did you ever include any Japanese in the circle of your acquaintances?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

Margaret was white, her lips tense, the brilliancy of her large eyes almost unnatural.

“Tell me about them.”

“What can I tell you?  They were bright, lively little men.  They amused my friends by their quaint ideas, and interested us at times by recounting incidents of life in the East.”

“Were they all ‘little’?  Was one of them a man of unusual stature?”

“No,” said Margaret

The barrister knew that she was profoundly distressed.

“If she would be candid with me,” he mused, “I would tear the heart from this mystery to-night.”

One other among those present caught the hidden drift of this small colloquy.  Robert Frazer looked sadly at his cousin.  Natures that are closely allied have an electric sympathy.  He could not even darkly discern the truth, but he connected Brett’s words in some remote way with Capella.  How he loathed the despicable Italian who left his wife to bear alone the trouble that oppressed her—­who only went away in order to concoct some villainy against her.

Margaret could not face the barrister’s thoughtful, searching gaze.  She stood up—­like the others of her race when danger threatened.  She even laughed harshly.

“I have decided,” she said, “to leave here to-morrow morning.  Helen says she does not object Our united wardrobes will serve all needs of the seaside.  Robert’s tailor visited him to-day, and assured him that the result would be satisfactory without any preliminary ‘trying on.’  Do you approve, Mr. Brett?”

“Most heartily.  I can hardly believe that our hidden foe will make a further attack until he learns that he has been foiled again.  Yet you will all be happier, and unquestionably safer, away from London.  Does anyone here know where you are going?”

“No one.  I have not told my maid or footman.  It was not necessary, as we intended to remain here a week.”

“Admirable!  When you leave the hotel in the morning give Yarmouth as your destination.  Not until you reach King’s Cross need you inform your servants that you are really going to Whitby.  Would you object to—­ah, well that is perhaps, difficult.  I was about to suggest an assumed name, but Miss Layton’s father would object, no doubt.”