A hand stole from behind her and struck her wrist a sharp blow. The pistol dropped from her grip. The soft voice of Larry Hughes was in her ears as she saw him stoop to recover the weapon. "Don't you think we've had enough of this nonsense, Penelope?" he asked. CHAPTER XI To one approaching casually Adèle Gertstein might have seemed asleep. She reclined with a sort of feline luxuriousness in a deck chair on one of the wide terraces of "Maid's Retreat," and beneath her the green sweep of the park, and the rolling woodlands and cornfields of Hampshire, smiled lazily back at the sun. But her eyes were wide open, fixed unseeingly on the splendours of the country. She was trying to think, a process somewhat difficult to one whose actions were habitually guided by impulse. The effort always exasperated her, and only the most formidable and immediate necessity drove her to it. She roused herself and crumpled the sheet of paper that had lain in her lap with a venomous hand. "Five thousand pounds," she murmured. "How the devil am I to find five thousand pounds?" To the wife of a millionaire such a sum perhaps ought not to seem impossible. But there were reasons why Adèle Gertstein dare not appeal to her husband. There were limits to his devotion, and he might well inquire why £12,000 a year was not sufficient for her needs. Yet five thousand pounds she had to have. Of course she could get it on Bonnie Chevalier for the Stewards Cup, if those idiot bookmakers had not restricted her credit. Just as if she didn't mean to pay. Anyway, there were other bookmakers. She tapped a gold pencil between her teeth as she strolled back to the house and seated herself at her desk. There was only one thing for it. Why should the woman always suffer? She drew a sheet of notepaper towards her and began to write: "MY DEAR LARRY,--Things are driving me to distraction. This man--you know whom--now wants me to find five thousand for him within the next week, or he will go to Solly. He has drained me dry and I simply do not know where to turn. For the sake of old times you might let me have this money. It means very little to you, and I will most certainly pay it back very soon. I simply must have it, or I am ruined. Perhaps I have been a fool, but I am sure this man means business, and it would be awkward for you, too, if things became public. So please do, like a dear man, lend me this money. Bring it if you can--'Maid's Retreat' is only three hours out of London by road. "I am practically all alone here. You, of course, have seen by the newspapers what has happened at Streetly House. I have not been back because there is nothing I can do. Solly calls me up twice a day and wails, and, although I am very fond of Solly, I don't believe my nerves at present could stand being all day in the same house with him.