Lytton Avenue was quiet for once, and Leona Lalage was glad of it. She said truthfully that she had a splitting headache, so that she was thankful to be alone and lie down on a couch in the drawing-room with the lights lowered and eau de Cologne on her temples. Hetty sat a little way off engaged on some fancywork. It seemed hard to imagine that all this refinement and enviable luxury covered crime and mystery.

It was a little before eleven that Balmayne came in. He was very quiet and subdued; he sat and unfolded an evening paper. He shot a sign across to the Countess from a pair of eyes that gleamed like flames.

"I should like a fresh handkerchief, Hetty," she said. "Would you mind?"

Hetty was off at once. Balmayne jumped to his feet.

"You must try and pull yourself together," he said. "There has been an amazing piece of luck. Isidore was dining at the Lotus with Lawrence. We came down the steps together. There was a fire close by, and a hansom backed on to the pavement. To make a long story short, Isidore fainted with the pain of a broken collarbone, and they took him to Charing Cross Hospital."

"You took him. In that case I need not ask----"

"You need not. I didn\'t take him personally. I took his keys."

Leona Lalage was off the sofa directly. She motioned to the door. As Hetty came back the sufferer crossed the room languidly, saying she was going to lie down on her bed. She required no attention, she only wanted to be absolutely quiet.

Once upstairs Balmayne followed. There was nobody on the landing.

"Now is your chance," he said. "It is a pretty neat turn of fortune for us. I\'ve got the motor round and will meet you at the corner of the street. You had better be disguised."

"But I have only one disguise in the house--the old one."

"All the better. You are used to that, and carry it off naturally. I have the key not only of the safe but of the street door as well. All you have to do is to proceed to the sitting-room where you have been before and help yourself. Then you can slip into Isidore\'s bedroom and lay the keys on the dressing-table. He will imagine that he left them behind when he changed his evening clothes. Are you up to it or not? Really, you look fearfully ill tonight."

The dark eyes were gleaming in the white face. Despite her racking head and her tired limbs, Leona was gradually summoning back her latent forces. Her hand no longer trembled, the wild beating of her heart was stilled.

"You can rely upon me," she whispered. "I shall not fail you. Too much depends upon my success or failure tonight. Go round and get the motor whilst I slip into my old disguise. The thing can be done swiftly; I can be back here again before anybody knows that I have gone."

"Lock your door as a precaution," Balmayne whispered. "I\'m going now."

In the shadows Hetty listened to as much of the talk as she could hear. But nobody was going to leave the house without her knowledge. Behind the hangings in the hall she wait............