, was not a part of his reckoning. He thought, no
doubt, that Mrs. Chapman or the servant would discover and rescue him
pretty soon. He meant to appear just a little faint, and endured quietly
the first twenty-four hours of inanition. But the excitement and want of
food told on him more than he expected. After twenty-four hours he
turned very giddy and sick, and, falling from one fainting fit into
another, was unable to give the alarm.

"However, he is all right again now, and concludes his part of a
downright blackguard to perfection. Under the plea that his conscience
does not allow him to live with a lady whose first husband is still
alive, he has taken a bachelor flat in London, and only pays afternoon
calls on his wife in Brighton. But presently he will tire of his
bachelor life, and will return to his wife. And I'll guarantee that the
Comte de la Tremouille will never be heard of again."

And that afternoon the man in the corner left Miss Polly Burton alone
with a couple of photos of two uininteresting, stodgy, quiet-looking
men--Morton and Skinner--who, if the old scarecrow was right in his
theories, wore a pair of the finest blackguards unhung.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE REGENT'S PARK MURDER

By this time Miss Polly Burton had become quite accustomed to her
extraordinary _vis-a-vis_ in the corner.

He was always there, when she arrived, in the selfsame corner, dressed
in one of his remarkable check tweed suits; he seldom said good morning,
and invariably when she appeared he began to fidget with increased
nervousness, with some tattered and knotty piece of string.

"Were you ever interested in the Regent's Park murder?" he asked her one
day.

Polly replied that she had forgotten most of the particulars connected
with that curious murder, but that she fully remembered the stir and
flutter it had caused in a certain section of London Society.

"The racing and gambling set, particularly, you mean," he said. "All the
persons implicated in the murder, directly or indirectly, were of the
type commonly called 'Society men,' or 'men about town,' whilst the
Harewood Club in Hanover Square, round which centred all the scandal in
connection with the murder, was one of the smartest clubs in London.

"Probably the doings of the Harewood Club, which was essentially a
gambling club, would for ever have remained 'officially' absent from the
knowledge of the police authorities but for the murder in the Regent's
Par