Sir William was not at all pleased at his mishap, and he answered rather shortly that there was nothing much the matter, and that if the small car were to go on, he would soon overtake it. The artless-looking Cecil Jones was smoking a cigarette with the same placid smile on his face which had irritated Arthur Aldington at the card-table. He made weak suggestions as to the cause of the mishap, and was treated by the others as a person who did not count. Gerard, however, who had reason to suspect that he was not quite so simple as he pretended to be, went up to him, and, seizing a moment when the others were all bending down to look into the machinery of the disabled car, said-- “I think I’ve met you before, Mr. Jones, and I’m trying to remember where it was.” The young man turned, with his sheepish smile on his face. “Have you?” he said. “I don’t remember you. Where was it we met?” Gerard felt irritated and angry. He knew that this man was either a swindler who was working with Miss Davison in the dubious paths he suspected, or else that he was a man who was desperately in love with her, and whom she had twisted round her little finger, so that he did what she told him to without question, if not without suspicion. To judge by his silly face, this latter was the more likely supposition of the two. Gerard tried to take him by surprise. “Was it outside Lord Chislehurst’s house, on the night of the great ball he gave a year ago?” he asked sharply. But there was no sign of confusion or intelligence on Cecil Jones’ face. “Lord Chislehurst’s!” he echoed stupidly. “A year ago! I don’t know where Lord Chislehurst’s is. And I don’t think I was in England a year ago.” Frustrated, Gerard decided to make a fresh attempt to take him by surprise. “I daresay I’m wrong,” he said. “I’m not very good at remembering faces. But you do remind me of a man I met a few days ago, coming out of a police-station.” The words could be taken as insulting, but Cecil Jones was impervious to insult. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a police-station,” he said simply. “Not with Miss Davison?” Cecil Jones turned round so that he could stare blankly into his questioner’s face. “Miss Davison!” echoed he. “Do you mean the lady I was introduced to to-night?” “Yes,” said Gerard shortly. A broad stupid smile spread over the young man’s plump face. “Fancy thinking I should meet a smart lady like that in a police-station!” he said buoyantly. “It sounds like the game of consequences. ‘Where they met’--‘In a police-station.’ ‘What they were doing’--‘Picking pockets!’” And he burst into such a long and silly laugh that Gerard, irritated almost beyond endurance, did not dare to go on with his questions, for fear of drawing down upon them the attention of the others, who turned round to see what was the matter.