Laura opened her mouth, but no words came. Perhaps because there were none to come. “But I see through you by this time,” Mr. Priestley went on, lashing himself as he went. “You took me in at first with your pathetic story about stolen letters, but you don’t take me in again, young woman! You’re a hypocrite, and that’s the long and the short of it. At one moment butter won’t melt in your mouth, at the next you’re tricking me into shooting a perfectly innocent man. It’s my belief that you knew the whole time that that revolver was loaded. And if you think,” concluded Mr. Priestley with incredible ferocity, “that I’m going to let your hypocritical pretences of morality and reputation jeopardise my safety, you’re making a very large mistake, young woman!” It has been said that only once in her life had Dora Howard met her match, and the consequences were drastic. The same important event had now happened to Laura, and the consequences were designed to be, in their own way, no less drastic. For the moment, with every light-hearted word of her own recoiling heavily against her and completely bereft of all argument or reasonable basis of expostulation, she could do nothing but stand, very white-faced now instead of crimson, and gasp in silence. Into this pause floated again the voice of the landlady. “I’ve taken the hot water along, sir. Are you coming up now?” “Yes,” said Mr. Priestley grimly, flung open the door once more and began to mount the stairs. Willy-nilly, Laura went with him. Chapter VII. Inspector Cottingham Smells Blood If anybody had told Guy Nesbitt, a few hours earlier, that at twelve o’clock the same night he would be engaged in a whole-hearted attempt to hoodwink the official police force, the proprietor of an important newspaper and the entire British public, as if they had all been provided with one enormous joint leg for hauling purposes, he would have repudiated the suggestion with grief and amazement. And rightly, notwithstanding the subsequent event, because these things cannot be concocted in cold blood.