Lord Moron played with his watch-guard, and moved his feet uncomfortably. He was, she judged, between thirty and forty years of age, and she guessed he was not married, and had more than a suspicion that he was mentally deficient. She was to learn later that he was a weakling, entirely under the domination of his mother, a quiet and harmless man with simple, almost childish, tastes. “Not for you, my boy,” said Mr. Chesney Praye, as he slapped the other on the shoulder, and Lord Moron winced at the vigour of this form of encouragement. “There is plenty of occupation for you, eh, countess?” She did not answer him. She was standing by the long French windows looking down into the square, and now she turned and, fixing a pair of horn-rimmed lorgnettes, lifted them to her eyes. “Who is that man?” she asked. Chesney Praye looked past her, and Lois, who was watching at the time, saw his mouth twitch and the geniality fade from his face. “Damn him!” he said under his breath, and the countess turned slowly and surveyed him with a stare. “Who is he?” she asked. “He’s the cleverest ‘busy’ in London--that’s who he is. Detective, I mean. I’d give a thousand for the privilege of going to his funeral. He’s got a grudge against me----” He stopped, as though he realised he was saying too much. Lois looked over his shoulder at the man in the street. He was walking slowly on the opposite pavement. It was Michael Dorn! Chapter Nine Lady Moron was talking. “A detective? Really, I don’t see why you should be worried about detectives, Chesney. You are not, I hope, a member of the criminal classes?” “Of course I’m not,” he said brusquely, almost rudely, “but I loathe this fellow. His name’s Dorn--Michael Dorn. He is the only private detective in England who is worth twopence. They call him into Scotland Yard for consultations; they think so much of him. He was the fellow that organised the raid on the Limbo Club, and he tried to get a conviction against me for being one of the proprietors, which of course I wasn’t.” Michael Dorn had passed out of sight now, and the girl was thankful that their interest had been so concentrated upon his hateful presence that they had not noticed her; otherwise she must have betrayed her knowledge of the man. A detective! At this moment Mr. Chesney Praye was amplifying his description. “That fellow’s got the nerve of the devil,” he said, unconsciously echoing Elizabetta Smith. “He is utterly unscrupulous, and would ‘shop’ his own maiden aunt to get a conviction. He used to be a Deputy Commissioner of Police in India, but resigned to take up the case of an African millionaire who lost some documents and paid him a fortune for recovering them--at least, that’s the yarn I’ve heard.”