goats, and Bell made no mistakes. David Steel had been able to do the
specialist some slight service a year or two before, and Bell had been
pleased to magnify this into a great favour.

"You are a fast walker," David said, presently.

"That's because I am thinking fast," Bell replied. "Steel, you are in
great trouble?"

"It needs no brilliant effort on your part to see that," David said,
bitterly. "Besides, you heard a great deal just now when you--you--"

"Listened," Bell said, coolly. "Of course I had no intention of playing
eavesdropper; and I had no idea who the Mr. Steel was who wanted to see
Miss Gates. They come day by day, my dear fellow, garbed in the garb of
Pall Mall or Petticoat Lane as the case may be, but they all come for
money. Sometimes it is a shilling, sometimes L100. But I did not gather
from your chat with Miss Gates what your trouble was."

"Perhaps not, but Miss Gates knew perfectly well."

Bell patted his companion, approvingly.

"It is a pleasure to help a lucid-minded man like yourself," he said.
"You go straight to the root of the sore and cut all the superfluous
matter away. I was deeply interested in the conversation which I
overheard just now. You are in great trouble, and that trouble is
connected with 219, Brunswick Square--a house where you have never
been before."

"My dear chap, I was in that dining-room two nights ago. Nothing will
convince me to the--"

"There you are wrong, because I am going to convince you to the
contrary. You may smile and shake your head, but before an hour has
passed I am going to convince you beyond all question that you were
never inside No. 219."

"Brave words," David muttered. "Still, an hour is not a long time to
wait."

"No. But you must enlighten me if I am to assist you. I am profoundly
interested. You come to the house of my friend on a desperate errand.
Miss Gates is a perfect stranger to you, and yet the mere discovery of
your identity fills her with the most painful agitation. Therefore,
though you have never been in 219 before, you are pretty certain, and I
am pretty certain, that Ruth Gates knows a deal about the thing that is
touching you. On the contrary, I know nothing on that head. Won't you let
me into the secret?"

"I'll tell you part," Steel replied. "And I'll put it pithily. For mere
argument we assume that I am selected to assist a damsel in distress who
lives at No. 219, Brunswick Square. We will assume that the conversa