“How do we know what her income is? Plenty of people with no money at all spend recklessly. She may be up to her ears in debt, and her friend Stapleton, too. The slim man talking to Stapleton is, I suppose, La Planta.” They looked in the direction where two men, masked like the rest, were engaged in earnest conversation. “I have not yet overcome my aversion from that young man,” Preston said as he watched them. “Every time I speak to him I feel he rings untrue. Ah, here come Yootha and Harry.” Yootha, flushed with the night’s excitement, had probably never looked better. Her eyes shone with pleasure, for Hopford was an excellent dancer. It was nearly two in the morning now, and the revels were at their height. Presently the band struck up the newest Jazz, a wild combination of almost every sound capable of being produced by musical and unmusical instruments, a sort of savage discord in many keys which clashed and blared to the accompaniment of human cries and trombone laughter. Carried away by what passed for music, the dancers who now thronged the floor performed the strangest evolutions. Some, locked in a close embrace, seemed oblivious of all but their own emotions as they gyrated in never-ending circles; others, barely touching, went through contortions which in any other place and under any other circumstances would have shocked some beholders, filled some with disgust, and convulsed the remainder with amusement. It was in the middle of this performance that a strange thing occurred. Happening to look in the direction of Jessica’s box, now temporarily deserted, Preston noticed two men in it. One he quickly recognized by his costume to be Levi Schomberg; the other.... “George,” he said, turning to Blenkiron, “that thin man bending over Levi Schomberg--the fellow dressed as a troubadour we decided must be Schomberg, didn’t we?--is that La Planta, do you think?” Blenkiron looked in the direction indicated. “Hopford declared him to be La Planta,” he said. “Well, what is he doing--I mean Schomberg, the man sitting down?” Blenkiron watched him for some moments. “He’s drunk, I should say,” he answered. “Drunk! Not a bit of it. Look at his attitude.” “It certainly is queer. Ah, La Planta has left him now. He is going out of the box. I can see Jessica outside waiting for him.” As Blenkiron stopped speaking, the man whom they believed to be La Planta, accompanied now by the mottled snake, walked quickly into the corridor behind the boxes, and were lost to sight. Levi Schomberg, meanwhile, remained seated in the box. Bent forward, and resting against the velvet balustrade, he appeared to be gazing at the crowded floor. None noticed him, apparently, but Preston and George Blenkiron, whose complete attention he now held. “Strange,” Blenkiron said at last, “how motionless he is. He has not stirred for fully five minutes.”