"I put her in the carriage myself. Have you not heard from her?" "No. I wired this morning, and expect an answer at any moment. But what is this about the South of France? We go to Leicestershire next week." "I can't say, of course. Your wife seemed to be a little upset about something. She only mentioned her intention casually--in fact, when I asked if we would meet soon." The other laughed, a little oddly in the opinion of his astute observer, and dismissed the matter by the remark that the expected message from his wife would soon clear the slight mystery attending her movements during the past eighteen hours. The two men set themselves to the congenial task of criticizing the horses trotting up and down the straw-covered track, and Sir Charles had purchased a nice half-bred animal for forty guineas when his groom again saluted him. "Please, sir," said the man, "here's another telegram, and Thompson told me to ask if it was the right one." Sir Charles frowned at the interruption--a second horse of a suitable character was even then under the hammer--but he tore open the envelope. At once his agitation became so marked that Bruce cried: "Good heavens, Dyke, what is it? No bad news, I hope?" The other, by a strong effort, regained his self-control. "No, no," he stammered; "it is all right, all right. She has gone somewhere else. See. This is from her sister, Mrs. Talbot. Still, I wish Alice would consider my natural anxiety a little." Bruce read: "I opened your message. Alice not here. I have not seen her for over a week. What do you mean by wire? Am coming to town at once.--EDITH." The baronet's pale face and strained voice betrayed the significance of the thought underlying the simple question. "What do you make of it, Claude?" Bruce, too, was very grave. "The thing looks queer," he said; "though the explanation may be trifling. Come, I will help you. Let us reach your house. It is the natural centre for inquiries." They hailed a hansom and whirled off to Portman Square. They did not say much. Each man felt that the affair might not end so happily and satisfactorily as he hoped. CHAPTER II INSPECTOR WHITE Lady Dyke had disappeared. Whether dead or alive, and if alive, whether detained by force or absent of her own unfettered volition, this handsome and well-known leader of Society had vanished utterly from the moment when Claude Bruce placed her in a first-class carriage of a Metropolitan Richmond train at Victoria Station. At first her husband and relatives hoped against hope that some extraordinary tissue of events had contributed to the building up of a mystery which would prove to be no mystery. Yet the days fled, and there was no trace of her whereabouts.