“You fool, do you think I wish to keep you after what you’ve done?” he blurted out.  “All I ask is to be rid of you before those fellows get here.  I thought I’d have one kiss—­but I wouldn’t take it now if you gave it to me.  Sims, run down into the basement and let her out that way.  Now, you young devil, after him, if you don’t want to be choked and buried in the cellar.”

Hardly knowing what she did, Win obeyed.  Tripping in the rags of her torn gown, she followed the man, who opened a door that led to a narrow stairway.  Next came a vague vision of a basement corridor and a disordered kitchen.  A minute later she was pushed into a dark area, a door was shut behind her, she was stumbling up some stone steps; then, hurrying along the street as fast as she could go, conscious only that danger was behind her, that she must fly from it and put a long distance between her and that closed house.

If Win had known that the door had shut upon Jim Logan also, and that he had walked out of the house almost on her heels, she would have hurried even faster.  But she did not know.  And luckily he took the opposite direction, making straight for the New Cosmopolitan Club at the corner, which she had noticed when passing in the taxi.

Hardly five minutes after he had interrupted his guest in her call to the police, Jim Logan was inquiring of the hall porter whether Mr. Fred Fortescue had come in that evening.

“He came, sir, but has gone out again,” replied the man, thinking that the immaculate Mr. Logan—­one of the best-dressed, best-groomed members of the New Cosmopolitan—­appeared to be feeling the heat severely.

“Jove, I’m sorry to hear that,” and Logan’s expression confirmed his words.  “I wanted to see him badly.  Let me think.  Who else is here?  What about Mr. Pindar?”

“Hasn’t been in, sir, for weeks,” was the reply.

“Gee!” muttered Logan.  He seemed worried, and in the brilliant light of the fine hall—­white-panelled, and hung with clever caricatures of well-known men—­his face was pale and even drawn.  He looked, it occurred to the hall porter (a man of imagination), rather like a caricature of himself, not so well coloured as those on the walls.  Evidently conning the names of friends who might be useful in an emergency, Logan’s eyes were fixed on the stairway, as if thence inspiration or salvation might come.  He had the air of having sent his astral body hastily upstairs to reconnoitre the reading and smoking room, but at that minute Peter Rolls, Jr., appeared on the landing, and Logan and his astral body joined forces again.

“Hello, Rolls!” he called out.  “You’re just the man I want.  Will you do me a great favour in a big hurry?”

Petro, whose inmost self had also been absent on some errand, came to earth again with a slight start.  “Hello!” he echoed, hastening his steps.