artha to change the plates prevented Desmond
from replying. He used the brief respite to review the situation.
He would tell Mortimer the truth. They were man to man now and he
cared nothing even if the other should discover the fraud that
had been practised upon him. Come what might, Mortimer, dead or
alive, should be delivered up to justice that night.

The housekeeper left the room and Desmond spoke.

"I saw an officer I knew in the courtyard," he said.

"Oh, Strangwise, I suppose!" said Mortimer carelessly. "There's
nothing to fear from him, Bellward. He's of the beef and beer and
no brains stamp of British officer. But how do you know
Strangwise?"

"I met him at the Nineveh Hotel in town one night," replied
Desmond. "I don't care about meeting officers, however, and
that's a fact!"

Mortimer looked at him keenly for a brief instant. "What
prudence!" he cried. "Bellward, you are the very model of what a
secret agent should be! This pheasant is delicious!"

He turned the conversation into a different channel but Desmond
could not forget that brief searching look. His mind was in a
turmoil of half-digested facts, of semi-completed deductions. He
wanted to go away somewhere alone and think out this mystery and
disentangle each separate web of this baffling skein of intrigue.

He must focus his attention on Mortimer and Nur-el-Din. If
Mortimer and Strangwise were both staying at the Dyke Inn, then
they were probably acquainted. Strangwise knew Nur-el-Din, too,
knew her well; for Desmond remembered how familiarly they had
conversed together that night in the dancer's dressing-room at
the Palaceum. Strangwise knew Barbara Mackwayte also. Nur-el-Din
had introduced them, Desmond remembered, on that fateful night
when he had accompanied Strangwise to the Palaceum. Strange, how
he was beginning to encounter the man Strangwise at every turn in
this sinister affair.

And then, with a shock that struck him like a blow in the face,
Desmond recalled Barbara's parting words to him in the taxi. He
remembered how she had told him of seeing Nur-el-Din's face in
the mirror as the dancer was talking to Strangwise that night at
the Palaceum, and of the look of terror in the girl's eyes.
Nur-el-Din was terrified of Mortimer; for so much she had
admitted to Desmond that very afternoon; she was terrified of
Strangwise, too, it seemed, of this Strangwise who, like
Mortimer, kept appearing at every stage of this bewildering
affai