To the waiter who appeared Miss Bewicke gave orders for an immediate lunch for two. Miss Broad kept silence. The truth was, she was not finding Miss Bewicke altogether the sort of person she expected. That little lady went on,-- 'I'm free to confess, my dear Miss Broad; by the way, may I call you Letty?' 'No; you may not.' 'Thank you; you are so sweet. As I was about to remark, my dear--Letty'--the other winced, but was still--'I'm free to confess that I think it not improbable that something has happened to Mr Holland.' 'You know that something has happened?' 'I don't know--I surmise. I put two and two together, thus:--To begin with, I don't think that you were the only person who egged him on to felony.' Miss Broad again was speechless. She remembered Mr Holland's tale of his encounter with Miss Casata. 'There was a preciseness about his proceedings which set me thinking at the time, and has kept me thinking ever since. I'm pretty shrewd, you know. Now, I happen to be aware that a certain person of my acquaintance has been on too good terms with Mr Horace Burton. You have heard of Mr Horace Burton? I thought so. Such a nice young man! Now, however, this certain person is on the worst terms with Mr Horace Burton. For sufficient reasons, I assure you. She has been evolving fantastic schemes of vengeance on the deceitful wretch; she's just a little cracked, you know. To ruin Mr Horace Burton by assisting Guy Holland to deprive him of his fortune would be just the kind of notion which would commend itself to her. I fancy that that's exactly what she did do. Didn't she, my dear?' Miss Broad was breathing a little hard. The other's keen intuition startled her. 'It was I who told him to take what was his own.' 'Yes, I know; but the first suggestion did not come from you. However, so long as we understand each other, that's the point. To proceed--Mr Horace Burton would be cautious that this certain person's sweetness had turned to gall, and also that she was wishful to pay him out in his own coin. He might even have a notion of the form that payment was to take, having learned it from the certain person's own lips. If so, you may be quite sure that he or his friends saw Guy Holland enter my premises, if nobody else did. They saw him come out. They were to the full as anxious to obtain possession of that ruby as ever he could be. So they took it from him.' 'Took it from him--with violence?' 'Do you think they could take it from him without violence--that he would hand it over practically upon request? That's not like Guy; not the Guy I knew. He'd fight for it tooth and nail himself against a regiment.' 'Do you think then they hurt him?' 'It looks as if they did something to him. He never went home. There must have been some reason why he didn't. There is at least a possibility that it was because he couldn't.' 'Do you think they--killed him?'