"Just thought of something--that's all. Got to make a run; be with you again before bedtime," he answered evasively. But once on the other side of the door: "'Write me down an ass,'" he quoted, turning to his host. "No, don't ask any questions. Lend me your auto and your chauffeur. Call up both as quickly as possible. Wait up for me and keep your wife and Lady Essington and her son waiting up, too. I said to-morrow I would answer the riddle, did I not? Well, then, if I'm not the blindest bat that ever flew, I'll give you that answer to-night." Then he turned round and raced upstairs for his hat and coat, and ten minutes later was pelting off London-ward as fast as a £1,000 Panhard could carry him. * * * * * It was close to one o'clock when he came back and walked into the drawing-room of the Priory, accompanied by a sedate and bespectacled gentleman of undoubted Celtic origin whom he introduced as "Doctor James O'Malley, ladies and gentlemen, M.D., Dublin." Lady Essington and her son acknowledged the introduction by an inclination of the head, the Honourable Felix and Mrs. Carruthers, ditto; then her ladyship's son spoke up in his usual blunt, outspoken way. "I say, Deland, what's in the wind?" he asked. "What lark are you up to now? Felix says you've got a clinking big surprise for us all, and here we are, dear boy, all primed and ready for it. Let's have it, there's a good chap." "Very well, so you shall," he replied. "But first of all let me lay aside a useless mask and acknowledge that I am not an Indian army officer--I am a simple police detective sometimes called George Headland, your ladyship, and sometimes----" "George Headland!" she broke in sharply, getting up and then sitting down again, pale and shaken. "And you came--you came after all! Oh, thank you, thank you! I know you would not confess this unless you have succeeded. Oh, you may know at last--you may know!" she added, turning upon the Honourable Felix and his wife. "I sent for him--I brought him here. I want to know and I _will_ know whose hand it is that is striking at Strathmere's life--my child's child--the dearest thing to me in all the world. I don't care what I suffer, I don't care what I lose, I don't care if the courts award him to the veriest stranger, so that his dear little life is spared and he is put beyond all danger for good and all." Real love shone in her face and eyes as she said this, and it was the certainty of that which surprised Carruthers and his wife as much as the words she spoke. "Good heavens! is this thing true!" The Honourable Felix turned to Cleek as he spoke. "Were you in her pay, too? Was she also working for the salvation of the boy?"