, and she
still in her reflective moments gave vent to that strange ejaculation
of those mysterious words: "Red, green and gold! Red, green and gold!"

I confess that I went about my business in a low-spirited, despairing
mood. More than once I passed by that dark forbidding house in
Stretton Street, the blinds of which were drawn, for ever since the
winter it had been closed with the caretaker in charge. Pass along
Park Lane and the Mayfair neighbourhood in August and you will see the
Holland blinds drawn everywhere. The window-boxes filled with
geraniums and marguerites are drooping, for they have served their
turn and "the families" are out of town, enjoying themselves in
Scotland, in Norway, or at the French Spas. Honest Londoners may sweat
and toil with their begrudged fourteen days at the sea or in the
country, but Society, caring nothing for unhealthy trades or ill-paid
labour, unless a strike perchance affects their pockets or their
comforts, drifts to where it can flirt, dance or gamble amid gay
surroundings denied in London by our sanctimonious kill-joys.

Whenever I passed along Stretton Street there spread over my mind the
strange and inexplicable events of that night when De Gex's
man-servant Horton had dashed out after me, and suddenly implored me
to see his master. Ah! I saw the amazing cleverness of the whole
plot--a plot such as could only be conceived by a master brain.

De Gex's dark, sinister, half-Oriental countenance haunted me in my
dreams. True, he was a man who swayed the finances of Europe, suave,
smiling, and with an extremely polished and refined exterior. But why
Suzor had purposely become acquainted with me, and why I had
afterwards been enticed into that house of tragedy were, in
themselves, two points, the motive of which I failed to grasp.

Late one evening I passed the house, going out of my way purposely to
do so, when, to my amazement, I saw standing upon the doorstep, and
about to enter his car, no other person than Oswald De Gex himself.
Behind him stood a strange man-servant, who at the moment seemed to be
taking some instructions.

In the darkness De Gex could not distinguish me. Therefore I drew back
and watched the world-famous financier enter the car and drive away.

So Oswald De Gex was back in London--and in August! I had passed the
house on the previous afternoon and seen that as usual the faded
Holland blinds were drawn, just as they had been for months, an
indicatio