‘With whom?’

’With nobody.  After her cat.  In a cab.  I am undone.  Where can I find a cook?  You may know of some one disengaged, though it is late in the day, and dinner at seven.  Can’t you help me?’

‘Can you trust me, Mr. Fulton?’

‘Trust you; how, ma’am?’

‘Let me cook your dinner, at least till your cook catches her cat,’ said Miss Frere, smiling.

‘You, don’t mean it, a lady!’

’But a professed cook, Mr. Fulton, and anxious to help so nobly generous a patron of the art . . . if you can trust me.’

‘Trust you, ma’am!’ said Mr. Fulton, raising to heaven his obsecrating hands.  ’Why, you’re a genius.  It is a miracle, a mere miracle of good luck.’

By this time, of course, a small crowd of little boys and girls, amateurs of dramatic scenes, was gathering.

’We have no time to waste, Mr. Fulton.  Let us go in, and let me get to work.  I dare say the cook will be back before I have taken off my gloves.’

’Not her, nor does she cook again in my house.  The shock might have killed a man of my age,’ said Mr. Fulton, breathing heavily, and leading the way up the steps to his own door.  ‘Her cat, the hussy!’ he grumbled.

Mr. Fulton kept his word.  When Miss Blowser returned, with her saucepan and Rangoon, she found her trunks in the passage, corded by Mr. Fulton’s own trembling hands, and she departed for ever.

Her chase had been a stern chase, a long chase, the cab driven by Trevor had never been out of sight.  It led her, in the western wilds, to a Home for Decayed and Destitute Cats, and it had driven away before she entered the lane leading to the Home.  But there she found Rangoon.  He had just been deposited there, in a seedy old traveller’s fur-lined sleeping bag, the matron of the Home averred, by a very pleasant gentleman, who said he had found the cat astray, lost, and thinking him a rare and valuable animal had deemed it best to deposit him at the Home.  He had left money to pay for advertisements.  He had even left the advertisement, typewritten (by Miss Blossom).

’FOUND.  A magnificent Siamese Cat.  Apply to the Home for Destitute and Decayed Cats, Water Lane, West Hammersmith.’

‘Very thoughtful of the gentleman,’ said the matron of the Home.  ’No; he did not leave any address.  Said something about doing good by stealth.’

‘Stealth, why he stole my cat!’ exclaimed Miss Blowser.  ’He must have had the advertisement printed like that ready beforehand.  It’s a conspiracy,’ and she brandished her saucepan.

The matron, who was prejudiced in favour of Logan, and his two sovereigns, which now need not be expended in advertisements, was alarmed by the hostile attitude of Miss Blowser.  ‘There’s your cat,’ she said drily; ’it ain’t stealing a cat to leave it, with money for its board, and to pay for advertisements, in a well-conducted charitable institution, with a duchess for president.  And he even left five shillings to pay for the cab of anybody as might call for the cat.  There is your money.’