ket-book and its contents
anonymously to Scotland Yard, and never hear about them again."

She listened to him with unchanged face. Yet for some moments after
he had finished speaking she was thoughtful.

"You may be speaking the truth," she said. "If so, I have been
deceived. You are not quite the sort of man I did believe you were.
What you tell me is amazing, but it may be true."

"It is the truth," Laverick repeated calmly.

"Listen," she said, after a brief pause. "You were at school, were
you not, with Mr. David Bellamy? You know well who he is?"

"Perfectly well," Laverick admitted.

"You would consider him a person to be trusted?"

"Absolutely."

"Very well, then," she declared. "You shall come to my fiat at five
o'clock this afternoon and bring that document. If it is possible,
David Bellamy shall be there himself. We will try then and prove
to you that you do no harm in parting with that document to us."

"I will come," Laverick promised, "at five o'clock; but you must
tell me where."

"You will put it down, please," she said. "There must not be any
mistake. You must come, and you must come to-day. I am staying at
number 15, Dover Street. I will leave orders that you are shown
in at once."

She rose to her feet and he walked to the door with her. On the way
she hesitated.

"Take care of yourself to-day, Mr. Laverick," she begged. "There
are others beside myself who are interested in that packet you carry
with you. You represent to them things beside which life and death
are trivial happenings."

Laverick laughed shortly. He was a matter-of-fact man, and there
seemed something a little absurd in such a warning.

"I do not think," he declared, "that you need have any fear. London
is, as you doubtless find it, a dull old city, but it is a remarkably
safe one to live in."

"Nevertheless, Mr. Laverick," she repeated earnestly, "be on your
guard to-day, for all our sakes."

He bowed and changed the subject.

"Your investments," he remarked, "you will be content, perhaps, to
leave as they are. It is, no doubt, of some interest to you to
know that they are showing already a profit of considerably over a
thousand pounds."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"It was an excuse--that investment," she declared. "Yet money is
always good. Keep it for me, Mr. Laverick, and do what you will. I
will trust your judgment. Buy or sell as you please. You will let
nothing prevent your com