He put his headphones on again and connected his contract key with another little nickel dial on which the single ting of a bell had just sounded. For many seconds he listened with straining intentness, his left hand fiddling about abstractedly among the mass of cross-connecting wires by his shoulder.

 Then he muttered, "Bah!-----nothing but a sheaf of drunk and disorderly is!"

 He pulled off his phones, tossed them on to a baize-covered table, and went out. patent locks clicked into place as the door closed behind him.

 He hurried downstairs and let himself out into the fresh windy sweep of kingsway.

 "Taxi," he called, as a driver looked inquiringly at him from the kerb.

 "Where to sir?" The driver reached behind to open the door.

 "Greydene---Mr. Willard Lyall's house, Highgate," He said as he climbed in. "it's just off the main road. I'll stop you when you get there." 

 For some minutes, Dain sat back in a brooding silence while the taxi chugged it's way out to the Northern suburbs.

 He knew what what the trouble was. there were too many cross currents of speculative introspection going on in his mind for him to be able to proceed with his accustomed sureness from point to point to ultimate logical conclusions.

  There was Mercia, whose full name was Mercia Frances Lyall. there was Mercia's father, to him an entirely worthy though rather vague gentleman, whom he had only met twice in his life. And Mercia's father's name was Willard Lyall. And that was the most disturbing feature of all. for there was that unexpected new arrival in the field of international criminality, whose name was Willard Lyall also and who also lived in Highgate. He appeared to have presented his card at a most disastrous moment. There was intimation no. 34 which had just proceeded inexorably and without delay to its appointed destination. The Scotland Yard chiefs had already received it. His whispering wires told him that much. Then there was that other case, that amazing adventure of the French syndicate, threatening to break into reality at any moment and embarrass him with its harassing network of complications. There was that jewel robbery timed for two thirty on Tuesday morning, a robbery which might or might not have been planned by Mercia's own father. Dain was going there to find out, and first and last there was Mercia again.

 It was a situation that demanded the most delicate handling the very lightest of touches.

 He mentally assessed his own his own end of it. He had only known Mercia for such a very little while that he knew scarcely anything about her and infinitely less about her relations. She was sweet and charming and wholly adorable. of course she was;. Mercia couldn't be anything else. And her mother was a paragon of matronly rectitude, old enough to have sorted out the flowers from the rock along the roadway of life, yet still young enough to find infinite delight in the company of her daughter, and to be the perfect chum to her that the real mother should be.

 obviously there was nothing wrong there. He had admired them both intensely the first moment he became acquainted with them. In a few weeks his admiration for the younger one developed into something very far beyond ordinary friendship. And Mercia had shown an increasing interest in him from the very first.

 And yet there was the exasperating incidence of that cultured interloper in the Duchess of Renburgh's affair. Dain had been hounding along the byways of international crookdom so long that he thought he had hot the names and specialities of ninety percent of the master crooks off at his finger tips until that startling name, Willard Lyall came whispering along over his wires. And all too obviously Willard Lyall was no mean apprentice in the workshops of crime. He was a leader, a highly skilled and knowledgeable craftsman who knew his own weight to an ounce and who knew how to apply it to perfection.

 And an ostensible lover couldn't very well go up to the girl of his choice and say: "oh, I say, Mercia, about that father of yours-----he isn't an international crookdom, is he? I was just wondering, because I happen to know a Willard Lyall who is living in this neighborhood too; specialises in jewels."

 No. A man couldn't very well do that even though he could sign his name to seven figures and had a name that was famous in all five continents.

 Dain frowned worriedly, if it hadn't been for the posting of that wretched intimation just before launch, his course would have been all plain sailing. As it was the Yard was already informed and the net was crawling out.

 The taxi pulled up with a grunt at Greydene, a beautiful old grey stone house set back among a circling ring of trees off the main road.

 Dain got out, told the taxi-man to wait and went up to drive on foot.

 I'm a few minutes, in answer to his ring, he was shown into a beautifully furnished living room.

 Mrs. Lyall met him as he entered, smiled sweetly and murmured: "A most unexpected but very welcome surprise, Mr Dain. we don't usually see you so late in the evening."

 "No," said Dain half apologetically. " I've been working late tonight, very much late than I intended and I"m afraid I rather lost track of the hour hand. might i see Mercia for a moment?"

 "Of course. she won't be long. she's upstairs taking off her wraps. we've been to the Royal tonight."

 Dain almost answered, "Yes, I know," but pulled himself up with a thunder of warning dinning in his ears.

 Mrs. Lyall withdrew delicately as Mercia entered and Dain began struggling for an airy lie. it was an oddity of the man and perhaps an indication to him if his own true feelings that he experienced a highly disconcerting inability to come to Mercia with anything short of a bald-faced truth. Mercia was the type which regards anything less than honesty with something approaching disgust.

 But he keyed himself up to play the part of investigator on his own behalf. Mercia herself gave him his cue.

 "And why this pleasure so late at night?" she asked mischievously. "one doesn't usually have visits from famous men of mark after midnight."

 "You're quite sure it is a pleasure?" Dain parried.

 "Oh, quite. I don't know what mother told you, but to be perfectly candid I was half undressed when the maid brought your card up. I got dressed again and came down and in the billiard room as I passed I distinctly heard that disgraceful father of mine humming 'special for you!' "

 Dain smiled, and when Valmon Dain really did condescend to smile genuinely there flashed into his eyes a rich warmth of humor that for a fleeting Moment seemed to transfigure his whole face. All the pitiless coldness went out of it at a single stroke.

 "That was awfully sweet of you both," he said quietly.