wrath. 'Yes, I'll go if you wish it, Bertie,'
she answered, with calm irony. 'I'll leave the house as soon as you
like--for the present--till we come back again with Harold and _his_
policemen to evict you. This house is Harold's. Your game is played,
boy.' She spoke slowly. 'We have found the other will--we have
discovered Higginson's present address in Paris--and we know from White
how he and you arranged this little conspiracy.'

[Illustration: WELL, THIS IS A FAIR KNOCK-OUT, HE EJACULATED.]

She rapped out each clause in this last accusing sentence with
deliberate effect, like so many pistol-shots. Each bullet hit home. The
pea-green young man, drawing back and staring, stroked his shadowy
moustache with feeble fingers in undisguised astonishment. Then he
dropped into a chair and fixed his gaze blankly on Lady Georgina. 'Well,
this is a fair knock-out,' he ejaculated, fatuously disconcerted. 'I
wish Higginson was heah. I really don't quite know what to do without
him. That fellah had squared it all up so neatly, don't yah know, that I
thought there couldn't be any sort of hitch in the proceedings.'

'You reckoned without Lois,' Lady Georgina said, calmly.

'Ah, Miss Cayley--that's true. I mean, Mrs. Tillington. Yaas, yaas, I
know, she's a doosid clevah person--for a woman,--now isn't she?'

It was impossible to take this flabby creature seriously, even as a
criminal. Lady Georgina's lips relaxed. 'Doosid clever,' she admitted,
looking at me almost tenderly.

'But not quite so clevah, don't yah know, as Higginson!'

'There you make your blooming little erraw,' Mr. Hayes burst in,
adopting one of Lord Southminster's favourite witticisms--the sort of
witticism that improves, like poetry, by frequent repetition.
'Policemen, you may go into the next room and wait: this is a family
affair; we have no immediate need of you.'

'Oh, certainly,' Lord Southminster echoed, much relieved. 'Very propah
sentiment! Most undesirable that the constables should mix themselves up
in a family mattah like this. Not the place for inferiahs!'

'Then why introduce them?' Lady Georgina burst out, turning on him.

He smiled his fatuous smile. 'That's just what I say,' he answered. 'Why
the jooce introduce them? But don't snap my head off!'

The policemen withdrew respectfully, glad to be relieved of this
unpleasant business, where they could gain no credit, and might possibly
involve themselves in a charge of assault. Lord Southmi