He linked his arm affectionately in Robin’s. Mart’s! Robin’s brain snatched at the word. Mart’s! most respectable of “family hotels,” wedged in between two quiet streets off Piccadilly with an entrance from both. If ever a man wanted to dodge a sleuth, especially a grimy tatterdemalion like the one sidling up Pall Mall behind them ... “Tony, old son,” said Robin, “I won’t lunch with you even to set the board in a roar at your aunt’s luncheon-party. But I’ll walk up to Mart’s with you, for I’m going there myself ...” They entered Mart’s together and parted in the vestibule, where Tony gravely informed his “dear old scream” that he must fly to his “avuncular luncheon.” Robin walked quickly through the hotel and left by the other entrance. The street was almost deserted. Of the man with the dingy neckerchief there was no sign. Robin hurried into Piccadilly and hopped on a ’bus which put him down at his club facing the Green Park. He had a late lunch there and afterwards took a taxi back to the Temple. The daylight was failing as he crossed the courtyard in front of his chambers. In the centre the smoke-blackened plane-tree throned it in unchallenged solitude. But, as Robin’s footsteps echoed across the flags, something more substantial than a shadow seemed to melt into the gathering dusk in the corner where the narrow passage ran. Robin stopped to listen at the entrance to his chambers. As he stood there he heard a heavy tread on the stone steps within. He turned to face a solidly built swarthy-looking man who emerged from the building. He favoured Robin with a leisurely, searching stare, then strode heavily across the courtyard to the little passage where he disappeared from view. Robin looked after him. The man was a stranger: the occupants of the other chambers were all known to him. With a thoughtful expression on his face Robin entered the house and mounted to his rooms. CHAPTER XVI. THE INTRUDER “D——!” exclaimed Bruce Wright. He stood in the great porch at Harkings, his finger on the electric bell. No sound came in response to the pressure, nor any one to open the door. Thus he had stood for fully ten minutes listening in vain for any sound within the house. All was still as death. He began to think that the bell was out of order. He had forgotten Hartley Parrish’s insistence on quiet. All bells at Harkings rang, discreetly muted, in the servants’ hall. He stepped out of the porch on to the drive. The weather had improved and, under a freshening wind, the country was drying up. As he reached the hard gravel, he heard footsteps, Bude appeared, his collar turned up, his swallow-tails floating in the wind. “Now, be off with you!” he cried as soon as he caught sight of the trim figure in the grey overcoat; “how many more of ye have I to tell there’s nothing for you to get here! Go on, get out before I put the dog on you!” He waved an imperious hand at Bruce.