In the afternoon Cheyne once more climbed the ten flights of stairs in No. 17 Horne Terrace, but this time he took the ascent slowly enough to avoid having to sit down to recover at the top. Miss Merrill opened to his knock. She was painting and a girl sat on the throne, the original of the picture he had seen the day before. He was told that he might sit down and smoke so long as he kept perfectly quiet and did not interrupt, and for half an hour he lay in the big armchair watching the face on the canvas grow more and more like that of the model. Then a little clock struck four silvery chimes, Miss Merrill threw down her brushes and palette and said “Time!” and the model relaxed her position. Both girls disappeared into the bedroom and emerged presently, the model in outdoor garb and Miss Merrill without her overall. The model let herself out with a “Good-afternoon, Miss Merrill,” while the lady of the house took up the aluminum kettle and began to fill it. “Gas stove,” she said tersely. Cheyne produced the expected plop, then stood with his back to the fire, watching his hostess’s preparations for tea. The removal of the overall had revealed a light green knitted jumper of what he believed was artificial silk, with a skirt of a darker shade of the same color. A simple dress, he thought, but tremendously effective. How splendidly it set off the red gold of her hair, and how charmingly it revealed the graceful lines of her slender figure! With her comely, pleasant face and her clear, direct eyes she looked one who would make a good pal. “Well now, and what’s the program?” she said briskly when tea had been disposed of. Cheyne began to fill his pipe. “I scarcely know,” he said slowly. “I’m afraid I’ve not any cut and dried scheme to put up except that I already mentioned: to get into that house somehow and have a look around.” She moved nervously. “I don’t like it,” she declared. “There are many objections to it.” “I know there are, but what can you suggest?” “First of all there’s the actual danger,” she went on, continuing her own train of thought and ignoring his question. “These people have tried to murder you once already, and if they find you in their house again they’ll not bungle it a second time.” “I’ll take my chance of that.” “But have you thought that they have an easier way out of it than that? All they have to do is to hand you over to the nearest policeman on a charge of burglary. You would get two or three years or maybe more.” “They wouldn’t dare. Remember what I could tell about them.” “Who would believe you? They, the picture of injured innocence, would deny the whole thing. You would say they attempted to murder you. They would ridicule the idea. And—there you are.” “But I could prove it. There was my injured head, and you found me at that house.” “And what did you yourself tell the doctor had happened to you? No, you wouldn’t have the ghost of a case.”