“And that reminds me,” Hopford went on, “that I have heard queer rumors about Preston lately. A bank clerk I know, who often gives me scraps of exclusive news, and has never yet let me down, assures me that Preston is being blackmailed. It’s a long story and rather complicated.” “What, more blackmail?” “How do you mean ‘more’ blackmail?” Hopford asked quickly, ever on the alert for news. “I was thinking of a case I heard of the other day,” Johnson replied, anxious to cover his slip of the tongue. Hopford looked at him hard. “What the clerk told me,” he said a moment later, “was that Preston would be driven, if not careful, to pay hush money--he mentioned a big sum--to some woman who threatens to reveal something queer about that beautiful Mrs. Hartsilver. I saw Preston not long ago, and thought he looked ill and worried. Have you heard anything by any chance?” “If I had I shouldn’t tell a journalist,” Johnson answered with a smile. “No, not even you, Hopford.” The lad laughed. “And I can’t blame you,” he said, “though personally when I promise not to print news told me in confidence I never do print it. But there are a lot of little mysteries we both know about which have not yet been cleared up, and somehow several seem to me to be directly or indirectly connected with one another. “First, there was the epidemic of unaccountable suicides between a year and eighteen months ago, when Lord Hope-Cooper, Sir Stephen Lethbridge, Viscount Molesley, Lord Froissart and his daughter, that queer woman, Leonora Vandervelt, Henry Hartsilver, and half-a-dozen more put an end to themselves apparently for no reason, and then there was the second epidemic of the same sort only a month or two ago. “In addition there are the queer stories concerning Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson and her two inseparables; Levi Schomberg’s strange death; the rumors to do with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s husband--some say he is alive and some say he isn’t; that affair regarding La Planta’s being obviously drugged, though to this day nobody knows who drugged him, why he was drugged, or even where he was drugged; Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s fainting fit at her own house on the same night, followed by the theft of her jewels; the robbery and recovery at the Albert Hall ball of Mrs. Stringborg’s necklace; Stapleton’s anxiety that the theft of Mrs. Robertson’s jewels should be attributed to Mrs. Hartsilver; oh, and several other things.