"Yes, I thought you would recollect!" said the girl. "Is Madame upstairs? I want so much to see her." "No," replied Boyne. "She isn’t. I’ve just called, but she’s out." "There are lights in her windows," remarked the man Galtier in very good English. "Servants, I suppose," said Boyne carelessly. "I myself went to see her upon some business—about some shares upon which she has asked my advice. She’s gone away for the week-end, it seems." "H’m!" grunted the Anglo-Frenchman. "How are we to know that?" "Well, I tell you so," was Boyne’s blunt response. "Do you know, M’sieur Bennett, that Madame told me that you were dead? That you died of influenza, and here now you are coming from her house!" said the good-looking French girl. "Yes; she believed that I was dead. I was away on business in Italy, and some fool spread the report that I had died in a hotel in Naples," laughed Boyne, yet inwardly full of concern. "But it was a shock to her when one afternoon I called." Céline Ténot was not convinced. She had already received thirty thousand francs to keep a still tongue, but as a matter of fact her lover, Galtier, saw that it would be interesting, in more ways than one, to probe the mystery of the death of old Mr. Martin. The ill-assorted trio walked together as far as Park Lane. At the corner the man Galtier halted, and addressing the girl in French, said: "We’ll go back, Céline, and see if Madame is really absent, as M’sieur Bennett alleges." "She is away!" exclaimed Boyne angrily. "Haven’t I told you so? Don’t I want to see her myself?" The Frenchman laughed in his face. "No, no, my dear m’sieur! Do not tell any more lies. We saw you go in a long time ago. You dined there, and Madame is there. We both want to see her—on—on some important business!" Bernard Boyne held his breath. He was cornered. He had successfully put Gerald Durrant out upon the high seas, but here was Céline, with her lover, watching them enter Ena’s flat in order to await the news of the death of their latest victim! "It’s surely late to do business with a lady," remarked Boyne, for want of something else to say. In his excitement over the successful conclusion of the Morrison affair, he was now met with a very unexpected and serious contretemps. Ena believed that she had successfully settled with the girl, but it was evident that Galtier was a blackmailer who intended to bleed them to the utmost. Indeed, he had not been long in revealing his hand. "I think, Mr. Bennett—or whatever your real name may be—you had better drop this mask," the Frenchman said, with a sardonic grin. "Let us come down to the same plane. The fact is you’re a crook—and so am I, perhaps. Now then! What about it?" "Let’s walk along," the girl suggested in French. The trio walked together, Bernard Boyne between the pair. They strolled down Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner, but their conversation was mostly in monosyllables.