eresting vista, racking
my brains how to further proceed with my campaign against the great
intriguer who could, by his immense wealth, juggle with dynasties.

With Mrs. Tennison I had become on very friendly terms. Fearing to
reveal myself as having taken that bundle of Bank of England notes as
a bribe, I held back from her what had actually happened to me on
that fateful night. But I had become a frequent guest at Longridge
Road, and often spent many delightful hours with Gabrielle, who at
times seemed quite in her normal senses.

Yet, at others, she became vague and spoke in awed tones about what
she had seen--"all red, green and gold." And often I sat at home
smoking and wondering what she had seen that had so impressed her.
Often, too, I discussed it with Mrs. Tennison and with Harry
Hambledon, but neither of us could suggest any solution of the
mystery.

Mrs. Tennison, on account of the slump in securities owing to the war,
was, I knew, in rather straitened circumstances. When I again
suggested a visit to the great specialist in Lyons she shook her head,
and told me frankly that she could not afford it. De Gex had, it
seemed, sought his victims among those who had been ruined by the war.

She had, however, told me that her brother, a shipping agent living in
Liverpool, who was Gabrielle's godfather, was deeply interested in
her.

I suggested that she should write to him and urge that, as a last
resort, Gabrielle should consult Professor Gourbeil. The latter had
been successful in restoring to their normal mental condition patients
who had been infected with orosin, that most dangerous and puzzling of
the discoveries of modern toxicologists.

Mrs. Tennison had acted upon my advice. Had I been in a financial
position to pay Gabrielle's expenses to Lyons I would have done so
most willingly. But my journey to Spain had depleted my resources, and
though I had those Bank of England notes still reposing in a drawer at
home, I dared not change one of them lest by such action I should
have accepted and profited upon the bribe which De Gex had so cleverly
pressed upon me.

In the first week of July Mrs. Tennison wrote to me, and that evening
I went over to see her after leaving the office in Westminster.

It was a hot dry night when London lay beneath its haze of
sun-reddened dust after a heat spell, parched and choked.

Gabrielle was out at the house of one of her school friends, hence, we
sat alone together in