I met the millionaire at dinner two hours later, a tall, loose-built, sallow-faced man of rather brusque manners and decidedly cosmopolitan, both in gesture and in speech. With him was his wife, a pleasant woman of about fifty-five who seemed extremely affable to Lola. Mr. Blumenfeld's sister, a Mrs. Perceval, was also present. It appeared that a year before Rayne had met old Mr. Blumenfeld and his wife in an hotel at Varenna, on the Lake of Como, and a casual acquaintance had ripened into friendship and culminated in the invitation to spend a few days at Bradbourne. Hence our journey. As we sat gossiping over our port after the ladies had left the table, I began to wonder why the grey-eyed master-crook, whom not a soul suspected, was so eager to ingratiate himself with Edward Blumenfeld. The motive was, however, not far to seek. Most men who are personal friends of millionaires manage to extract some little point of knowledge which, if used in the right way and with discretion, will often result in considerable financial gain. Indeed, I have often thought that around a millionaire there is spread a halo of prosperity which invests all those who enter it and brings to them good fortune. It was evident that the great financier regarded Rudolph Rayne as his friend, for he promised to pay us a visit at Overstow in return. "Remember what Mr. Blumenfeld has promised us, George!" said Rayne as he turned to me merrily. "Make a note of it!" And the breezy, easy-going man who at the moment was directing all sorts of crooked business in many cities on the Continent sipped his glass of port with the air of a connoisseur, as indeed he was. That night, after I had gone to my room, Rayne suddenly entered and began to speak to me in a loud tone concerning some letters he wished to write early in the morning. Then, lowering his voice suddenly to a whisper, he added: "I want you to be very nice to Mrs. Blumenfeld, Hargreave. Unfortunately Lola seems to have taken a violent dislike to her. Why, I don't know. So do your best to remedy what may result in a _contretemps_." Then again he spoke in his usual voice, and wishing me good night left the room. After he had gone I, full of wonder and apprehension, paced up and down the fine old paneled chamber--for I had been placed in a wing in the older part of the house which was evidently Jacobean. As an unwilling assistant of that super-crook whose agents were at work in the various cities of Europe carrying out the amazingly ingenious plans which, with Vincent Duperre, he so carefully formulated in that great old-world library of his at Overstow, I was constantly in peril, for I felt by some inexplicable intuition that the police must, one day or other, obtain sufficient evidence to arrest all of us, Lola included. I recollect that Superintendent Arthur Benton of Scotland Yard was ever active in his inquiries concerning the great gang which Rayne controlled.