Her words pierced the armor of his own self-deceit. The bare room seemed suddenly full of glowing images of Fenella. His face was transfigured. "I haven't told you very much about Mrs. Weatherley," he said, simply. "She is very wonderful and very beautiful. She was very kind to me, too." Ruth leaned forward in her chair; her eyes read what she strove yet hated to see. She threw herself suddenly back, covering her face with her hands. The strain was over. She began to weep. CHAPTER X AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR Mr. Weatherley laid down his newspaper with a grunt. He was alone in his private office with his newly appointed secretary. "Two whole days gone already and they've never caught that fellow!" he exclaimed. "They don't seem to have a clue, even." Arnold looked up from some papers upon which he was engaged. "We can't be absolutely sure of that, sir," he reminded his employer. "They wouldn't give everything away to the Press." Mr. Weatherley threw the newspaper which he had been reading onto the floor, and struck the table with his fist. "The whole affair," he declared, "is scandalous--perfectly scandalous. The police system of this country is ridiculously inadequate. Scotland Yard ought to be thoroughly overhauled. Some one should take the matter up--one of the ha'penny papers on the lookout for a sensation might manage it. Just see here what happens," he went on earnestly. "A man is murdered in cold blood in a fashionable restaurant. The murderer simply walks out of the place into the street and no one hears of him again. He can't have been swallowed up, can he? You were there, Chetwode. What do you think of it?" Arnold, who had been thinking of little else for the last few days, shook his head. "I don't know what to think, sir," he admitted, "except that the murderer up till now has been extraordinarily lucky." "Either that or he was fiendishly clever," Mr. Weatherley agreed, pulling nervously at his little patch of gray sidewhiskers. "I wonder, now--you've read the case, Chetwode?" "Every word of it," Arnold admitted. "Have you formed any idea yourself as to the motive?" Mr. Weatherley asked nervously. Arnold shook his head. "At present there seems nothing to go on, sir," he remarked. "I did hear it said that some one was trying to blackmail him and Mr. Rosario wasn't having any." Mr. Weatherley pushed his scant hair back with his hand. He appeared to feel the heat of the office. "You've heard that, too, eh?" he muttered. "It occurred to me from the first, Chetwode. It certainly did occur to me. You will remember that I mentioned it." "What did your brother-in-law think of it, sir?" Arnold asked. "He and Mr. Rosario seemed to be very great friends. They were talking together for a long time that night at your house."