nd until
the maid returned and asked if the gentleman would be good enough to
step this way. Richford followed down a passage leading to the back of
the house into a room that gave on to a great conservatory. It was a
fine room, most exquisitely furnished; flowers were everywhere, the big
dome-roofed conservatory was a vast blaze of them. The room was so warm,
too, that Richford felt the moisture coming out on his face. By the fire
a figure sat huddled up in a great invalid chair.

"So you have come," a thin voice said. "Most excellent Richford, you are
here. I was loath to send for you on this auspicious occasion, but it
could not be helped."

There was the faintest suggestion of a sneer in the thin voice. Richford
crossed the room and took another chair by the side of the invalid. The
face of the man who called himself Carl Sartoris was as pale as marble
and as drawn as parchment, the forehead was hard and tangled with a mass
of fair hair upon it, the lips were a little suggestive of cruelty. It
was the dark eyes that gave an expression of life and vitality,
surprising in so weak a frame. Those eyes held the spectator, they
fascinated people by their marvellous vitality.

"What devil's work are you upon now?" Richford growled.

"My dear sir, you must not speak to an invalid like that," Sartoris
said. "Do you not know that I am sensitive as to my own beloved flowers?
It was my flowers that I asked you to come and see. Since you were here
last, the room has been entirely redecorated. It seemed to me to be good
that I should share my artistic joy with so congenial a companion."

"Damn your flowers!" Richford burst out passionately. "What a cruel,
unfeeling fellow you are! Always the same, and will be the same till the
devil comes for you."

"Which sad event you would regard with philosophic equanimity," Sartoris
laughed. "So, we will get to business as soon as possible. I see that
Sir Charles Darryll is dead. I want to know all about that affair
without delay. What did he die of?"

"How should I know? Old age and too much pleasure. And that's all I can
tell you. I found him first."

"Oh, indeed. The evening paper says nothing about that."

"For the simple reason that the evening papers don't know everything,"
Richford growled. "Quite early to-day I found Sir Charles dead in his
bed. I dared not say a word about it, because, as you know, I was going
to marry his daughter. But, of course, you all knew about _that