"Pschutt!" said Lola, snapping her fingers in his dismayed face. "I draw, and you are in no hurry to get rid of me." Kowlaski tried reproaches. "If you were a grateful woman----" "Ah, bah! What of gratitude? You wanted me or would you have seen me die in the gutter." Kowlaski began to whimper. "You will ruin me, my dear!" "It would serve you right if I did. You have ruined others in your time. Don't you think I know you? Come--" she rapped on the table--"I want the week. To-morrow and till next Wednesday I'm out of the bill." "But it cannot be done." "It must be. I want it to be done." Kowlaski tried bribing. "I will raise your salary if you stay!" "Oh, la, la, la, la! I am quite pleased with what I get. If I wished my salary raised I should have it raised. I go for a week." In the face of this obstinacy Kowlaski gave in. But first of all he tried threats, and Lola threatened to throw a chair at him. He finally agreed that she should have her week, and Lola walked out of the office without thanking him. That was the last he saw of her for seven days. He made the most of her absence, declaring that she had been called away to nurse a dying mother and would reappear with a broken heart to keep her engagements with the public. Bawdsey saw this notice. It was the first he had heard of Lola's escapade, and he went at once to her rooms in Bloomsbury to ask where she was going. Lola had already gone, and, according to the landlady, had left no information as to her whereabouts. "Did she take a box?" asked Bawdsey. "A small box. She went away in a cab." "Where did she tell the cabman to drive to?" "To Oxford Street." Bawdsey was disappointed. He saw that Lola had taken every precaution to hide her trail, and that there was not much chance of finding her. However, he went to see Kowlaski. The manager began to talk of the dying mother, and Bawdsey shut him up. "Rubbish! That's for the public. I want to know where she is. "My dear, I do not know," said Kowlaski, and for the first time in his wicked old life he told the truth. Not to be beaten, Bawdsey sought out George Brendon. But George was as ignorant as the manager and the landlady. "I haven't the slightest idea," he said, when Bawdsey asked; "and, to tell you the truth, I don't see why you should try to find out." "I want to know." "That is apparent on the face of it. But you are not engaged to marry her, are you, Mr. Bawdsey?" "No such luck," replied the detective, with a dismal face. "Then I don't see what right you have to control her movements." "Did she write and tell you where she was going?" "No, and if she had done so I should not tell you," replied George, annoyed by the man's persistence. "You may as well be civil to me, Mr. Brendon; you know that I am your friend." "Oh, I've heard all that before! But people who talk much of friendship and gratitude are generally humbugs." "I am not," said Bawdsey, quietly. "See here, Mr. Brendon, Lola is in love with you----"