Frank Doughton strode across the tiny hall, waited until the Count had closed the door, and opened another, ushering the visitor into his study. "To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?" asked Poltavo, as he pushed forward a chair. "I wanted to see you on a matter which deeply affects you and me," said the young man briskly, even rudely. Count Poltavo inclined his head. He recognized all the disagreeable portents, but he was not in any way abashed or afraid. He had had experience of many situations less pleasant than this threatened to be and had played his part worthily. "I can give you exactly a quarter of an hour," he said, looking at his watch; "at the end of that period I must leave for Brakely Square. You understand there is to be a reading of the will of our departed friend, and----" "I know all about that," interrupted Frank, roughly; "you are not the only person who has been invited to that pleasant function." "You also?" The Count was a little surprised. He himself went as friend and adviser to the bereaved girl, a position which a certain letter had secured for him. That letter in three brief lines had told the girl to trust Poltavo. It was about this letter that Frank had come, and he came straight to the point. "Count Poltavo," he said, "the day after Mr. Farrington's disappearance a messenger brought a letter for Miss Gray." Poltavo nodded. "So I understand," he said, smoothly. "So you know," challenged the other, "because it concerned you. It was a letter in which Doris was told to trust you absolutely; it was a letter also which gave her hope that the man whose body was found in the Thames was not that of Farrington." Poltavo frowned. "That is not a view that has been accepted by the authorities," he said quickly. "The jury had no doubt that this was the body of Mr. Farrington, and brought in a verdict accordingly." Frank nodded. "What a jury thinks and what Scotland Yard thinks," he said, drily, "are not always in agreement. As a result of that letter," he went on, "Miss Gray has reposed a great deal of trust in you, Count, and day by day my efforts to serve her have been made more difficult by her attitude. I am a plain-speaking Englishman, and I am coming to the point, right now,"--he thumped the table: "Doris Gray's mind is becoming poisoned against one who has no other object in life than to serve her faithfully." Count Poltavo shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "My dear young man," he said, smoothly, "you do not come to me, I trust, to act as your agent in order to induce Miss Gray to take any other view of you than she does. Because if you do," he went on suavely, "I am afraid that I cannot help you very much. There is an axiom in the English language to which I subscribe most thoroughly, and it is that 'all is fair in love and war.'" "In love?" repeated Frank, looking the other straight in the eyes.