She stood rooted to the spot. The young man’s preoccupied manner at the lunch-table was accounted for. He was in some deep trouble from which he was begging Mrs. Morrice to rescue him. She heard her aunt reply in tones that were half angry, half tearful. “How many times have you threatened me with that, and I have yielded. I have half ruined myself for you; it cannot go on much longer.” Suddenly she felt that she was listening to a conversation not intended for her ears, and resolutely turned away and went to her own room. For the present she would say nothing, not even to Dick, of what she had heard by the purest accident. But she thought over it all the way on the long drive to Petersham. Was there yet another tragedy going on in the Morrice household, and was her placid-looking, dignified aunt the centre of it? And what was that alternative which Archie Brookes had described in a whisper she could not catch? Had he threatened to destroy himself if his request were not acceded to? And what did Mrs. Morrice mean by saying she had half ruined herself for him? CHAPTER XIV AN ALARMING INTERRUPTION Punctually at five o’clock on the appointed evening Lane and Simmons met. On the face of the valet was a triumphant expression. “We needn’t try this new scheme of yours, Mr. Cox—Mr. Lane, I should say. I’ll come back to the flat with you; it’s all plain sailing. The drawer is unlocked. The bank-book isn’t there, and he’s taken the cheque-book with him; but he’s left the paying-in slips all right. You said these would do.” Not by any means for the first time was Gideon Lane impressed by the inconsistencies of the human temperament. Here was a shrewd, clever man like Sir George Clayton-Brookes, one who counted his cigars and wine-bottles to prevent his valet helping himself to a surreptitious smoke or drink! Surely he would be equally meticulous in other and more important matters. And yet, he had gone away leaving that drawer unlocked, its contents open to the prying eyes of Simmons. The detective himself would never have done such a thing, and he was quite sure he had less to conceal than this mysterious baronet who passed himself off as a wealthy man, while all the evidence that had been gathered pointed to the contrary. Perhaps Sir George, like many other persons of considerable mentality—for there was little doubt that he had brains of a certain order—entertained a great contempt for the intelligence of his inferiors, and thought that if Simmons did pry about in his absence he would not be much the wiser for his researches.