ke you and me. But it's no business of mine. He don't go down in my
pocket-book, I can tell you. I keep out of his way--and with reason.
He never did no harm to me, nor shan't if I can help it. Quidnunc!
Mister Quidnunc! He might be a herald angel for all I know."

I went my way home and to bed, but was not done with Quidnunc.

The next day, which was the first day of the Eton and Harrow Match, I
read a short paragraph in the _Echo_, headed "Painful Scene at
Lord's," to the effect that a lady lunching on Lord Richborough's drag
had fainted upon the receipt of a telegram, and would have fallen had
she not been caught by the messenger--"a strongly built youth," it
said, "who thus saved what might have been a serious accident." That
was all, but it gave me food for thought, and a suspicion which
Saturday confirmed in a sufficiently startling way. On that Saturday I
was at luncheon in the First Avenue Hotel in Holborn, when a man came
in--Tendring by name--whom I knew quite well. We exchanged greetings
and sat at our luncheon, talking desultorily. A clerk from his office
brought in a telegram for Tendring. He opened it and seemed
thunder-struck. "Good Lord!" I heard him say. "Good Lord, here's
trouble." I murmured sympathetically, and then he turned to me, quite
beyond the range where reticence avails. "Look here," he said, "this
is a shocking business. A man I know wires to me--from Bow Street.
He's been taken for forgery--that's the charge--and wants me to bail
him out." He got up as we finished and went to write his reply: I
turned immediately to the clerk. "Is the boy waiting?" I asked. He
was. I said "Excuse me, Tendring," and ran out of the restaurant to
the street door. There in the street, as I had suspected, stood my
inscrutable, steady-eyed, smiling Oracle of the night. I stood,
meeting his look as best I might. He showed no recognition of me
whatsoever. Then, as I stood there, Tendring came out. "Call me a
cab," he told the hall-porter; and to Quidnunc he said, "There's no
answer. I'm going at once." Quidnunc went away.

Now Tendring's friend, I learned by the evening paper, was one Captain
Maxfield of the Royal Engineers. He was committed for trial, bail
refused. I may add that he got seven years.

So much for Captain Maxfield! But much more for Lady Emily Rich, of
whose fate I have now to tell. My friend, Mrs. Shrewton Stanhope, was
very reserved, would tell me nothing, even when I roundly said that I
had f