"I am glad you have come, Mr. Halliday," said Penn in a would-be dignified tone, "as I wish to clear my character from the grave doubts you cast upon it when we last met." "Your admissions favored the grave doubts," retorted Dan lightly. "I spoke foolishly, Mr. Halliday, as I was quite upset by your threats." "H'm! I wonder to see you trust yourself again to such a bloodthirsty being as I am, Mr. Penn." "Oh, I knew you were only bluffing in the aeroplane," said the secretary in a meek voice and with a shrug. "The means you took to escape further questioning showed me that!" The dry tone of Dan stirred the man's chilly blood to greater heat. "You have no right to interfere with my private affairs," he said furiously. "But when those affairs have to do with a crime----" "They have not. I know nothing about the matter," Penn's breath was short, and he tried to keep his voice from quavering. "When you see my cousin he will prove that he gave me the scent." "Oh! then your Sumatra cousin is now in England?" "Yes! Otherwise, I should not have asked you to come." "Are we to meet him here?" questioned Dan, glancing round curiously. "No. We can go to him in a taxi. I thought of the tube first, but we can get to our destination quicker in a motor. Come!" and Penn, leading the way, ascended the stairs, down which Halliday had lately come. "Where are we going to?" asked Dan, but the secretary, being some distance ahead, either did not hear the question, or did not desire to reply to the same. "I suppose," added Halliday, as the two stood once more in the foggy upper-world, "that your cousin wishes to see Mrs. Jarsell?" "My cousin doesn't know Mrs. Jarsell, neither do I," retorted Penn sharply. "Curious that she should possess the perfume," murmured Dan sceptically, "and one which you say is unique." "In England that is," said the secretary, as they stepped into a taxi-cab which evidently was waiting for them, near the Trafalgar Square lions, "but, this lady whose name you mention may know someone in Sumatra also, and in that way the perfume may have come into her possession." "Ah!" Dan made himself comfortable, while Penn pulled up the windows of the taxi, so as to keep out the damp air, "the long arm of coincidence?" "The improbable usually occurs in real life and not in novels, Mr. Halliday." Dan laughed and watched the street lights flash past the blurred windows as the taxi turned up the Haymarket. He wondered where they were going, and as he believed that Penn would not give him any information he carefully watched to see the route. His companion adjusted his silk muffler well over his mouth, with a murmured explanation about his weak lungs, and then held out a silver cigarette case to Dan, clicking it open as he did so. "Will you smoke, Mr. Halliday?"