’I ‘eard yer,’ said Elizabeth, ’and do you sit there and mean to tell me that you’re going to break a gentle woman’s ‘eart deliberate?’

The imputation caused me to shudder from head to foot.  ’No, no, Elizabeth.  If I have unwittingly caused the lady pain I am deeply remorseful.  But she must, as soon as possible, be disillusioned.’

‘Dish-who?’ said Elizabeth.  In this peculiar and baffling way does she express herself.  It makes a sustained conversation extremely difficult and, at times, almost impossible.

’She must be brought to dislike me, I mean.  In this matter I must ask you to help me.’  I took a ten-shilling note from my pocket.  ’If, from time to time, you will talk to Miss Warrington of my many faults—­you can invent what you like——­’

‘Shan’t need to invent much in the way o’ faults,’ put in the monstrous girl.  ’But it’s my belief she likes you for ’em.  Some women are made like that.  Anyway,’ she handed me back the note which I had endeavoured to press into her warm, moist palm.  ‘I’m not wantin’ this.  I’m not goin’ to take blood money to ’elp to break any woman’s ‘eart.’

It sounded really terrible viewed in that light.  ’There is no need for you to put it in that coarse way,’ I said, my temper rising.  ’I only ask you to help me to regain my peace of mind and secure Miss Warrington’s happiness.’

‘Well, if you put it like that o’ course,’ she said, her fingers closing over the note, ’I’m not the one to refuse good money.  I’m willin’ to do all I can to make you an’ Miss Marryun happy.’  With a broad grin she sidled out of the room.

As for me, I gathered up the fragments of my pipe and departed.  I no longer wished to talk to Henry just then.  I wanted to be alone to think, to consider my strategic position.  I must go away to some remote place, perhaps not Tibet, but at any rate a quiet spot in the country fully twenty miles out of London.  Before going, however, I must in some way show Miss Warrington the utter folly of her illusions regarding my unfortunate self.  Nothing must be left undone to achieve that object.

Alas, what troubles, what unending anxiety a woman can cause a man!  After getting over this difficulty, I swear I will not even converse with any one of them again.  In the meantime I must invoke the aid of this wretched girl Elizabeth. Necessitas non habet legem.  Elizabeth is that most irritating necessity.

CHAPTER VIII

Elizabeth often speaks of the time when she poisoned The Kid.  She says she never had such a ‘turn’ in all her life, and wouldn’t go through such an experience again for all the money in the world.  Neither, indeed, would I, or Henry, or Marion.  Looking back on the matter, I don’t think The Kid cared for it either.