"You are a fast walker," David said, presently.

"That's because I am thinking fast," Bell replied. "Steel, you are in
great trouble?"

"It needs no brilliant effort on your part to see that," David said,
bitterly. "Besides, you heard a great deal just now when you--you--"

"Listened," Bell said, coolly. "Of course I had no intention of playing
eavesdropper; and I had no idea who the Mr. Steel was who wanted to see
Miss Gates. They come day by day, my dear fellow, garbed in the garb of
Pall Mall or Petticoat Lane as the case may be, but they all come for
money. Sometimes it is a shilling, sometimes L100. But I did not gather
from your chat with Miss Gates what your trouble was."

"Perhaps not, but Miss Gates knew perfectly well."

Bell patted his companion, approvingly.

"It is a pleasure to help a lucid-minded man like yourself," he said.
"You go straight to the root of the sore and cut all the superfluous
matter away. I was deeply interested in the conversation which I
overheard just now. You are in great trouble, and that trouble is
connected with 219, Brunswick Square--a house where you have never
been before."

"My dear chap, I was in that dining-room two nights ago. Nothing will
convince me to the--"