Really it was difficult to know what to think. They passed slowly along till the lights here and there from the castle shone on their faces. At the same time a carriage had driven up to the hall door and a visitor was getting out. With a strange sense of eagerness and pleasure Chris recognised the handsome features and misshapen shape of Hatherly Bell. "The expected guest has arrived," Henson said. There was such a queer mixture of snarling anger and exulting triumph in his voice that Chris looked up. Just for an instant Henson had dropped the mask. A ray of light from the open door streamed fully across his face. The malignant pleasure of it startled Chris. Like a flash she began to see how she had been used by those miscreants. "He is very handsome," she contrived to say, steadily. "Handsome is that handsome does," Henson quoted. "Let us hope that Dr. Bell will succeed in his mission. He has my best wishes." Chris turned away and walked slowly as possible up the stairs. Another minute with that slimy hypocrite and she felt she must betray herself. Once out of sight she flew along the corridor and snapped up the electric light. She fell back with a stifled cry of dismay, but she was more sorrowful than surprised. "I expected it," she said. "I knew that this was the thing they were after." The precious copy of Rembrandt was no longer there! CHAPTER XXXI BELL ARRIVES There were more sides to the mystery than David Steel imagined. It had seemed to him that he had pretty well all the threads in his hands, but he would have been astonished to know how much more Hatherly Bell and Enid Henson could have told him. But it seemed to Bell that there was one very important thing to be done before he proceeded any farther. He was interested in the mystery as he was interested in anything where crime and cunning played a part. But he was still more intent upon clearing his good name; besides, this would give him a wider field of action. In the light of recent discoveries it had become imperative that he should once more be on good terms with Lord Littimer. Once this was accomplished, Bell saw his way to the clearing up of the whole complication. It was a great advantage to know who his enemy was; it was a still greater advantage to discover the hero of the cigar-case and the victim of the outrage in Steel's conservatory was the graceless scamp Van Sneck, the picture dealer, who had originally sold "The Crimson Blind" to Lord Littimer. It was all falling out beautifully. Not only had Van Sneck turned up in the nick of time, but he was not in a position to do any further mischief. It suited Bell exactly that Van Sneck should be _hors de combat_ for the moment.