“‘Will you permit yourself to be searched?’ she asked, with an amused smile.  I knew it was a threat.

“‘I’m perfectly willing to submit to a search by you,’ I said.  ’The quicker you set about it, the quicker I’ll be released.  I don’t care for these diplomatic affairs; they may be regular but they seem unnecessarily dangerous.  I was simply a substitute anyway, and I won’t substitute again; though how you people discovered it I don’t see.’

“‘Because you’re new at the game,’ she replied, as we passed into the drawing-room.

“She closed the door—­and I soon satisfied her that the package was not concealed about me.

“‘I may go now?’ I inquired.

“‘I think so, but I must consult the Chief,’ she replied.  ’I’ll be back in a minute.’

“They seemed high-class knaves at least; but it was quite evident that the diplomatic game and its secret service were distinctly not in my line.  I want no more of them even to oblige a friend in distress.  I hate a mess!”

“I’m very glad for this mess,” Harleston interjected.  “Otherwise I should not have—­met you.”

“And you are the only compensation for the mess, Mr. Harleston!” she smiled.

She said it so earnestly Harleston was almost persuaded that she meant it—­though he replied with a shrug and a sceptical laugh.

“But the woman was long in returning,” Mrs. Clephane resumed; “and after a while I put out the light, and going to the window raised the shade.  The cab was no longer before the house; it had moved a little distance to the left, and the horse was lying down in the shafts.  As I was debating whether to risk the jump from the window, a man came down the street and halted at the cab.—­That man was you, Mr. Harleston.  The rest of the tale you know much better than I—­and the material portion you are to tell me, or rather to give me.”

“How did you know the man at the cab was I?  You didn’t recognize me in the corridor, this afternoon.”

“Oh, yes I did—­but I waited to see if you would follow me, or would go up to the other woman in black and roses.”

“I never was in doubt!” Harleston laughed.  “I told you, on the telephone, that I could pick you out in a crowd; after a glimpse of you, I could—­” he ended with a gesture.

“Still pick me out,” she supplied.  “Well, the important thing is that you did pick me out—­and that you’re a gentleman.  Also you forget that your picture has been pretty prominent lately, on account of the Du Portal affair; and besides you’ve been pointed out to me a number of times during the last few years as something of a celebrity.  So, you see, it was not a great trick to recognize you under the electric lights, even at one o’clock in the morning.”

Harleston nodded.  It was plausible surely.  Moreover, he was prepared to accept her story; thus far it seemed straightforward and extremely credible.