ards. Come!"

She would have followed him towards the door, but Rochester, leaning
over, touched the bell, and almost at once two men stepped into the
hall. One, Saton remembered in an instant. It was the man whom he had
found with Violet--the man who was there to have his fortune told. The
other was a stranger, but there was something in his demeanor, in the
very cut of his clothes, which seemed to denote his profession.

Saton was suddenly pale. He realized in a moment that it was not
intended that he should leave the room. He looked toward Rochester as
though for an explanation.

"My young friend," Rochester said, "when you leave this place, you
will leave it, unless I change my mind, in the company of those
friends of mine whom you see there. I don't want to terrify you
unnecessarily. These gentlemen are detectives, but they are in my
employ. They have nothing to do with Scotland Yard. I can assure you,
however, that there need not be ten minutes' delay in the issuing of a
warrant for your arrest."

"My arrest?" Saton gasped. "What do you mean?"

Rochester sighed.

"Ah!" he said. "Why should you force me for explanations? Ask
yourself. Once before you have stood in the dock, on the charge of
being connected with certain enterprises designed to wheedle their
pocket-money from over-credulous ladies. You got off by a fluke, but
you did not learn your lesson. This time, getting off will not be
quite so easy, for you seem to have added to your former profession
one which an English jury seldom lets pass unpunished. I am in a
position to prove, Bertrand Saton, that the offices in Charing Cross
Road, conducted under the name of Jacobson & Company, and which are
nothing more nor less than the headquarters of an iniquitous
blackmailing system, are inspired and conducted by you, and that the
profits are the means by which you live. A more despicable profession
the world has never known. There are a sheaf of cases against you. I
will remind you of one. My wife--Lady Mary here--left a private letter
in the rooms of a Madame Helga. The letter was passed on at once to
the blackmailing branch of your extremely interesting business, and
the sum of, I think, five hundred pounds, was paid for its recovery.
You yourself were personally responsible for this little arrangement.
And there are many others. If all the poor women whom you have
robbed," Rochester continued, "had had the common sense of my wife,
and brought the matter