s morning signed
the lease."

He waved an impatient hand.

"This morning! So I am told. Edwards has behaved very badly. I warned
him that things should not be hurried through."

"They have not been hurried. It is several months since Mrs Fane first
saw the house, and three weeks since negotiations were opened a second
time."

"I only heard this week that the house was vacant."

"And should Mr Edwards"--(the innocent inquiry of my voice was growing
more and more marked)--"was it his duty to have told you?"

His eyes sent out a flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench
against his knee. I had scored a point, and his anger was
correspondingly increased.

"Perhaps I had better explain," he began in a tone of elaborate
forbearance. "I live at Wembly. Most of the land between here and
there belongs to me. Pastimes happens to be outside the limit, and so
it escaped my memory. I have not been over it before. I did not know
the last tenants. For the last few weeks I have been looking for a
house for my friend--a member of the family who is returning from
abroad. Invalided!"

He pronounced the last word with emphasis, staring fixedly at me the
while. I adapted my features to express polite commiseration.

"It is natural that he should wish to live within driving distance of
his friends."

"Oh, quite!"

"The moment that I saw Pastimes I knew for a sure thing that it would be
just his house--"

"I am sorry, but as he has not seen it, he can't be disappointed. There
must be other houses--"

"I have already said I have been searching round for--the--last--three--
weeks," Mr Maplestone repeated, in the carefully deliberate tone which
disguises irritation. "Nothing else will suit anything like so well."

I murmured indefinitely, and glanced at the screen. Mentally I could
see Charmion leaning back in her chair, smiling her slow fine smile,
inquisitively waiting to see just how firm or how weak I could be. I
was not inclined to be weak. There was something in the personality of
this big domineering man which roused an imp of contradiction. We sat
silent, eyeing one another across the room.

"I believe you and--er--Mrs Fane are strangers to this neighbourhood?"

"Yes! That is so."

"You have no--er--special link or attraction?"

I saw the trap, and protested blandly.

"Oh, yes! We are delighted with Pastimes. It exactly suits our
requirements."

Mr Maplestone frowned, and fidgete