"You infernally insolent scoundrel," Henson said, between his teeth. "How dare you come here? You've done your work for the present, and the sooner you go back to your kennel in London the better. If I imagined that you meant any harm I'd crush you altogether." "I didn't come on my own," Merritt whined. "So keep your 'air on. That young lady came and fetched me--regular gone on me, she is. And there's to be high jinks 'ere--a bazaar for the benefit of pore criminals as can't get no work to do. You 'eard what his lordship said. And I'm goin' to make a speech, like as I used to gull the chaplains. Lor', it's funny, ain't it?" Henson failed to see the humour of the situation. He was uneasy and suspicious. Moreover, he was puzzled by this American girl, and he hated to be puzzled. She had social aspirations, of course; she cared nothing for decayed or reformed criminals, and this silly bazaar was only designed so that the ambitious girl could find her way into the county set. Then she would choose a husband, and nothing more would be heard of Merritt and Co. Henson had a vague notion that all American girls are on the look-out for English husbands of the titled order. "Littimer must be mad," he muttered. "I can't understand Littimer; I can't understand anything. Which reminds me that I have a crow to pluck with you. Why didn't you do as I told you last night?" "Did," said Merritt, curtly. "Got the picture and took it home with me." "You liar! The picture is in the corridor at the present time." "Liar yourself! I've got the picture on my mantelshelf in my sitting-room rolled up as you told me to roll it up and tied with a piece of cotton. It was your own idea as the thing was to be left about casual-like as being less calculated to excite suspicion. And there it is at the present moment, and I'll take my oath to it." Henson fairly gasped. He had been inside that said sitting-room not two hours before, and he had not failed to notice a roll of paper on the mantelshelf. And obviously Merritt was telling the truth. And equally obviously the Rembrandt was hanging in the corridor at the present moment. Henson had solved and evolved many ingenious puzzles in his time, but this one was utterly beyond him. "Some trick of Dr. Bell's, perhaps," Merritt suggested. "Bell suspects nothing. He is absolutely friendly to me. He could not disguise his feelings like that. Upon my word I was never so utterly at sea before in all my life. And as for Littimer, why, he has just made a fresh will more in my favour than the old one. But I'll find out. I'll get to the bottom of this business if it costs me a fortune."