At first Stapleton hesitated, alleging that he had an appointment, but finally he decided to do as his friend suggested. Two telegrams lay awaiting La Planta in his sitting-room, and after reading them he handed them to Stapleton. As Stapleton read the second, he raised his eyebrows. “Curious, isn’t it?” he asked. “I think not. I expected as much.” “Won’t it upset your calculations?” “Not necessarily.” A tantalus and syphons stood on the table. Without saying more, Stapleton mixed himself a brandy and soda. Then he took a cigar from La Planta’s box. “One or two things have happened lately,” he said at last, “which rather puzzle me. And the last is why those women should have asked you to dine alone with them.” “No puzzle about that,” Archie answered, then went on to explain how Mrs. Hartsilver and Yootha Hagerston had obviously tried to pick his brain regarding Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson and her past life. “Strange,” Stapleton said thoughtfully. “That fits in with something that was said to me within the last hour. You know that little Jew who lends money to his friends--Levi Schomberg?” “By name.” “I know him only slightly, but we walked along Jermyn Street together just now--he was bound for the Turkish baths--and he warned me to be on my guard against ‘Hartsilver’s widow’--said she was a ‘designing woman,’ as I might presently find out, and added that she was trying, for a reason which he stated, to get a case up against--well, you can guess whom.” “What sort of case?” “A scandalous case. So, putting two and two together, I can only suppose that Cora Hartsilver is either jealous of our friend, or that for some reason she bears her a grudge.” For a little while they continued talking. And, while they talked, interesting events were in progress not far away. “The house with the bronze face,” as it was called by people living in the neighborhood, was situated in a quiet street just off Russell Square. It had acquired that curious appellation owing to its front door being made conspicuous by a huge old Florentine bronze knocker representing a woman’s laughing face. The face was really that of a bacchante, and a very wicked-looking bacchante at that, and many were the stories told about the house in consequence. Some said the woman’s face possessed a lurid significance, and that within those portals.... Another rumor often credited was that the face could cast a spell over those who sought to probe its history, and that on more than one occasion persons who had entered the house had never come out again. Those were, of course, foolish legends, yet the fact remained that an atmosphere of mystery surrounded the house with the bronze face. Obviously at some period it had been a private residence. Now it was ostensibly the headquarters of a private inquiry agency which had sprung into existence shortly before the war, and was known to be patronized by many fashionable and rich people.