"Are you Lord Easterton?" the officer at the entrance asked, as Easterton handed him his card. "Ah, then come this way, please, m'lord. This gentleman a friend of yours? Follow the constable, please." We were shown into a room on the ground floor, to the right of the hall. It was large, high-ceilinged, with a billiard table in the middle. Half a dozen men were standing about, two in police uniform; the remainder I guessed to be constables in plain clothes. Suddenly I started, and uttered an exclamation. Seated in a big arm-chair was Dulcie Challoner, looking pale, frightened. Beside her, with her back to me, stood Aunt Hannah! CHAPTER VII OSBORNE'S STORY "Good heavens, Dulcie!" I exclaimed, hurrying across to her, "whatever are you doing here? And you, Aunt Hannah?" At the sound of my voice Dulcie started up in her chair, and Aunt Hannah turned quickly. To my amazement they both looked at me without uttering. Dulcie's eyes were troubled. She seemed inclined to speak, yet afraid to. The expression with which Aunt Hannah peered at me chilled me. "What is the meaning of this, Mr. Berrington?" she asked coldly, after a brief pause. Even in that moment of tense anxiety it struck me that Aunt Hannah looked and spoke as though reproving a naughty schoolboy. "Meaning of what?" I said stupidly, astonishment for the moment deadening my intelligence. "Of your bringing us up to London to find—this." "Bringing you up? What do you mean, Miss Challoner?" I exclaimed, mystified. In spite of my deep anxiety, a feeling of annoyance, of resentment, had come over me. No man likes to be made to look ridiculous, and here was I standing before a lot of constables, all of them staring in inquisitive astonishment at my being thus addressed by the old lady. "Is this Mr. Berrington, madam?" an immensely tall, bull-necked, plain-clothes policeman, of pompous, forbidding mien, suddenly asked. "Yes, officer, it is," she snapped. During all the time I had known her I had never seen her quite like this. "See here," he said, turning to me, "I want your address, and for the present you will stay here." I am considered good-tempered. Usually, too, I can control my feelings. There is a limit, however, to the amount of incivility I can stand, and this fellow was deliberately insulting me. "How dare you speak like that to me!" I burst out. "What has this affair to do with me? Do you know who I am?" "Aren't you Mr. Michael Berrington?" he inquired more guardedly, apparently taken aback at my outburst of indignation. "I am." "Then read that," he said, producing a telegram and holding it out before me. It was addressed to: "Miss Dulcie Challoner, Holt Manor, Holt Stacey," and ran: "The police have recovered property which they believe to have been stolen from Holt Manor. Please come at once to 430 Grafton Street, Bond Street, to identify it. Shall expect you by train due Paddington 12:17. Please don't fail to come as matter very urgent.