"Hardly; I can assure you that you are not the sort of person I should choose as a partner if I wanted one; but I was serious when I said to you 'Just think.' For instance, you saw the person who came rushing into the hall last night, and unwillingly left in your charge that leather bag; you have to think of that. You recognised him, didn't you?" "Who told you so?" "He did." The girl started; for the first time something which the other had said had gone home. "When did he tell you?" "I didn't time it, but I should say about a minute afterwards." "Then you saw him again?" The woman raised her eyebrows, as if with a faint surprise. "Of course I did. I went straight to where he was; I knew where to find him. The first thing he said to me was, 'Vi Forster saw me.'" "He said that to you?" "His very words. I said to him, 'You don't mean that she recognised you?' 'She did,' he said. 'Then,' I said, 'we're in the soup.' 'She's got the bag,' he groaned; I could see that that was what worried him more than the recognition. Then something happened which turned his attention in another direction. You know as well as I do that the man who came into the hall with the bag, which he dropped on to the seat of that chair in his surprise at the sight of you, was Sydney Beaton." CHAPTER XX The Leather Bag The girl had known it, but there was something brutal in the way the woman said it which affected her almost as if she had thrown something in her face; she shrank back--shivered. The woman seemed to be enjoying her obvious discomfiture; she smiled, as if the joke had grown still funnier. "You see, that's what made me say that you had better think. Suppose you do give me away; after all, I'm not the person whom you saw in possession of the bag, and you did see someone. That someone was a gentleman friend, whose name, I am sure, you don't want to have shouted from the house-tops. Now do you?" The girl seemed to be reflecting; her cheeks had grown whiter, trouble had come into her eyes; her bearing was in striking contrast to that of the woman in front of her, who could not have seemed to be more completely at her ease. "How long have you known him?" "Oh, some time. We've been in one or two little matters together, out of which we have done very well." "You mean that this is not the first time, that he has done this sort of thing?" "Gracious, no; he has been in the business quite a time; but I'm not going to give him away, never fear." She laughed right out, while the girl winced. "Where is he to be found?" "I beg your pardon." "I asked where is he to be found?" "And you may ask; do you suppose I'd tell you? What, for you to give him away? He'd get--well, he'd get penal servitude for this alone; and then there's that Captain Draycott, or whatever is the name, to whom he owed one."