Then, after a few half-hearted arguments and protests, Mrs. Morrison accepted the invitation and the Davidsons did likewise. And so the quiet little dinner was fixed, Ena promising to get a box at some theatre. "Then we will go to Murray’s or Giro’s afterwards," she added. Later, when Boyne and his wife were together in a taxi on their way to Pont Street, Lilla turned to him, and said: "It all seems to go well if you can be ready by Saturday. If you can’t, then we shall be in the cart!" "Leave it all to me," he said in a hard, changed voice. "We shall be at Upper Brook Street on Saturday, and I hope we shall be successful. It won’t be my fault if we fail." *CHAPTER XII* *THE PERSON FROM UPSTAIRS* Marigold Ramsay, still pretending her sudden and unaccountable illness, lay upon a narrow iron bedstead in the spare room of Bernard Boyne’s house, listening, and unable to sleep. She was there as a watch-dog. Time after time she heard the bells of St. Paul’s, Hammersmith, chiming the hours, but there was no sound below. Mr. Boyne had not returned. The night was sultry and her window was slightly open. As she lay awake, she wondered what strange secret could be hidden in that house of mystery. Her aunt suspected nothing. That was evident, or she would have mentioned it to her. To old Mrs. Felmore, Bernard Boyne was a good and patient master, the persevering honest man which all Hammersmith judged him to be. None dreamed that he led such a curious double life of dusty tramping by day, and enjoying himself in the gay haunts of the West End by night. It was nearly half-past two when a taxi set him down at the end of Hammersmith Bridge, and he walked to that house covered with virginia creeper. Not recollecting the fact that Marigold might still be there, and knowing that old Mrs. Felmore would not hear him enter, he placed his key in the latch and entered, closing the door heavily, as was his wont. Marigold, on the alert, heard him. He went along the narrow, stuffy passage into his sitting-room. The girl sprang from her bed, put on the dressing-gown her aunt had lent her, and opened the door noiselessly. She heard the click of a lock in the room below, and knew that Boyne was giving Nibby his food, as he did every night without fail. Mrs. Felmore always left him something, meat or biscuit, to give the tame rat each night before he retired. "Nibby" was Mr. Boyne’s weird obsession; Mrs. Felmore hated it, but it was in its cage living in the cupboard by day, and allowed to run about the room at night, nibbling the evening newspaper or the old-fashioned furniture, for it was as destructive as all its race. One day Mrs. Felmore found that it had gnawed the corner of the carpet, while on the next she discovered that it had made a hole into the door of the cupboard opposite that in which it lived. And rat-holes are unsightly, to say the least.