Winifred Child had listened to Ena Rolls’s warnings and had taken them deeply to heart.  It had seemed to her impossible that a sister could, for any motive whatever, calumniate a brother whom she loved.  And then, Win had reminded herself that her own ignorance of men was profound They were said to be “all alike” in some dreadful ways, even those who seemed the noblest, the most chivalrous—­or more especially those.  So she had believed Ena’s words, against her own instinct, and had not told herself that she lacked her favourite virtue—­loyalty.

But with Peter it was exactly the opposite.  He trusted his instinct before everything, and though he thought that his lost dryad had been in this shut-up house with Jim Logan, he knew that she had come innocently.

Somehow Logan had met her, admired her (that went without saying), and tricked her into the place.  When she had understood the trick she had, of course, tried to get away. (Why, if proof were needed, was not the torn wisp of chiffon enough?) Her quick intelligence had suggested the telephone, and somehow she had contrived to call the police before she could be stopped by Logan.

Yes, that was like her!  Then Logan had been scared and let her go, lest she should be found and he should get into disgrace.  This was the natural thing for such a man to do in the circumstances, and equally natural that he should dash out to find a supper companion—­some accommodating fellow whose presence would account for the table with its two places.

But that he—­he, of all men in New York, should be the accommodating fellow found to screen the beast from punishment!  This was the astounding thing—­the terrible thing—­and yet, the providential thing.  Through Logan and the coincidence which had brought them together at a certain moment in the hall of the New Cosmopolitan Club, Petro told himself that he would by and by reach Winifred Child.  It was a hateful combination of circumstances; but finding her thus would be no worse than discovering a rare jewel in a toad’s head.

While the two detectives tossed off their champagne Peter Rolls sat still, his thoughts flashing on behind a face deprived of all expression, as a screen of motionless dark trees can hide the white rush and sparkle of a cataract.  His vague contempt for Jim Logan had turned in the last few minutes to active loathing, even to hatred.  He wanted the fellow punished, as he would have wanted a rattlesnake to have its poison fangs drawn.  He wished to speak out and tell the now laughing policemen the brief story of Logan’s hurried visit to the club.

Down would go the half-full champagne glasses on the table.  The cheerful grins would be wiped from the two strong faces as by an artist who, with a stroke, changes the expression of a portrait.  Peter Rolls’s word was at least as good as Jim Logan’s.  Questions would be asked.  Jottings would be made in notebooks.  Perhaps they would both have to go to the police station.  The girl’s name would be demanded; Logan might be forced to tell it.  That would be one way of finding Winifred—­but it would be a way intolerable.