Bell offered him his hand heartily. It cost him a huge effort, but the slimy scoundrel had to be fought with his own weapons. Henson shook his head with the air of a man extending a large and generous meed of forgiveness. He sought in vain to read Bell's eyes, but there was a steady, almost boyish, smile in them. "I indeed rejoice," he said, unctuously. "I indeed rejoice--rejoice--rejoice!" He repeated the last word helplessly; he seemed to have lost all his backbone, and lapsed into a flabby, jellified mass of quivering white humanity. His vacant, fishy eyes were fixed upon the Rembrandt in a kind of dull, sleepy terror. "I'm not well," he gasped. "Not so strong as I imagined. I'll--I'll go and lie down again. Later on I shall want a dogcart to drive me to Moreton Wells. I--" He paused again, glanced at the picture, and passed heavily to his room. Littimer smiled. "Splendid," he said. "It was worth thousands just to see his face." "All the same," Chris said, quietly; "all the same, that man is not to leave for Moreton Wells till I've had a clear hour's start of him. Dr. Bell will you accompany me?" CHAPTER XXXV CHRIS HAS AN IDEA Lord Littimer polished his rarely used eye-glass carefully and favoured Chris with a long, admiring stare. At the same time he was wondering why the girl should have taken such a vivid interest in Reginald Henson and his doings. For some years past it had been Littimer's whim to hold up Henson before everybody as his successor, so far as the castle went. He liked to see Henson's modest smirk and beautiful self-abasement, for in sooth his lordship had a pretty contempt for the man who hoped to succeed him. But the will made some time ago by Littimer would have come as a painful shock to the philanthropist. "It is a very pretty tangle as it stands," he said. "Miss Lee, let me compliment you upon your astuteness in this matter. Only don't tell me you schemed your way here, and that you are a lady detective. I read a good many novels, and I don't like them." "You may be easy on that score," Chris laughed. "I am not a lady detective. All the same, I have defeated Mr. Reginald Henson." "You think he is at the bottom of the mystery of the other Rembrandt." "I am certain of it; unless you like to believe in the truth of his charming scheme to give you a lesson, as he called it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Henson discovered the existence of the other print; he discovered that Dr. Bell possessed it--the rest I leave to your own astuteness. You saw his face just now?" "Oh, yes. It was a fine study in emotions. If you could find the other picture--" "I hope to restore it to you before the day has passed."