Then she fled into the house, and Hank, looking through the back drawing-room window, saw the duke turning somersaults on the lawn—and drew his own conclusions. IX The postponement of a concert is a very serious matter. There are pretty certain to be amongst the audience, those who could come on Tuesday but find Wednesday impossible, or Wednesday agreeable and Thursday obnoxious. Similarly with artistes, some of whom cannot fix in the altered date, and some, the more amateurish, who have screwed their courage up for Tuesday’s ordeal and find it a physical and mental impossibility to sustain the tension for another twenty-four hours. In this latter case we find Mr. Roderick Nape, who, with the added mental burden of his tremendous discovery, found no pleasure in the fictitious trials of the hero of "The Murder at Fairleigh Grange." It was written in the book of fate that he should be relieved of one half of his care. On the day eventually fixed for the concert the duke was "at home." I pass over the propriety of a bachelor being "at home." There was no precedent for the function, but then there was no precedent for a duke living in Kymott Crescent. What the response would have been in ordinary circumstances, need not be discussed. As it happened, the grave man-servant was kept busy the whole of the afternoon announcing new arrivals, and the two waiters, hired for the day from Whiteley’s, distributed tea, thin bread and butter, and ladylike sandwiches from 4 till 6.30. The neighbourhood accepted the invitation because it gave the neighbourhood an opportunity of meeting and abusing the vicar for postponing the soirée—and then of course there was the Duke. "Come?" said Hank answering that gentleman’s doubts, "of course they’ll come: you’re a two headed donkey, an ancient ruin, a _cause célèbre_ and the scene of a tragedy." "I take you, sir," said the Duke gratefully; "in other words——" "They will come out of morbid curiosity," said Hank. "They’ll come to the concert to-night, but that’s different. You’ll be removed from most of ’em. Here they can get near you, prod you and guess what your weight is, look at your teeth an’ tell your age; they’ll come all right!" Amongst those present, as the junior reporter hath it, was Mr. Roderick Nape in his private clothes, in other words without disguise. Yet in a sense he was there on business. He wanted to see how these men behaved in public. He pushed his way through the crowded little room, little knowing that he stalked to his professional doom. "How do you do?" asked the Duke in his most engaging manner, then he gave a dramatic start and stepped back. He looked at Hank, then again at Mr. Nape. "Why, Mr. Nape," stammered the Duke, "you quite startled me." All eyes were riveted on Mr. Nape, and he enjoyed it.