"Is that you, Mr. Steel? Are you quite alone? Under the circumstances you
are not busy to-night?"

Steel started. He had never heard the voice before. It was clear and
soft and commanding, and yet there was just a suspicion of mocking
irony in it.

"I'm not very busy to-night," Steel replied. "Who is speaking to me?"

"That for the present we need not go into," said the mocking voice. "As
certain old-fashioned contemporaries of yours would say, 'We meet as
strangers!' Stranger yet, you are quite alone!"

"I am quite alone. Indeed, I am the only one up in the house."

"Good. I have told the exchange people not to ring off till I have
finished with you. One advantage of telephoning at this hour is that one
is tolerably free from interruption. So your mother is asleep? Have you
told her what is likely to happen to you before many hours have elapsed?"

Steel made no reply for a moment. He was restless and ill at ease
to-night, and it seemed just possible that his imagination was playing
him strange tricks. But, no. The Moorish clock in its frame of
celebrities droned the quarter after twelve; the scent of the Dijon roses
floated in from the conservatory.

"I have told nobody as yet," Steel said, hoarsely. "Who in the name of
Heaven are you?"