to keep her appointment with the solicitors. The next twenty minutes were
spent in cross-examining the hotel porter as to the time it would take to
drive to her destination, and, having decided to start at ten minutes to
twelve, in wondering whether the quarter of an hour which had still to
elapse would ever come to an end.

At three minutes to twelve she rang the bell of the office of Messrs.
Findlay & Ince.




CHAPTER III


A gloomy little clerk climbed down from a high stool where he sat
writing, and opened the door.

"Oh yes, Miss Juliet Byrne," he said when Juliet had told him her name.
"Mr. Findlay is expecting you. Will you walk upstairs, Miss Byrne,
please. I think you have an appointment for twelve o'clock? This way, if
you please."

He led the way up a steep and narrow flight of stairs, which rose out of
the black shadows at the end of the passage.

"Ladies find these stairs rather dark, I'm afraid," he remarked
pleasantly, as he held open a door and ushered Juliet and her maid into
an empty room. "Will you kindly wait here," he continued. "Mr. Findlay is
engaged for the moment. You are a leetle before your time, I believe." He