t
prompted you to ask the question?"

Gifford shrugged. "Some idea of the sort was in my own mind," he replied,
with a reserve which could scarcely be satisfying to Henshaw.

"Perhaps," he said keenly, "you have also an idea who the lady was."

Gifford shook his head. "Not at all," he returned promptly.

"Then why should the idea have suggested itself to you," came the
cross-examining rejoinder.

"Your brother was not a member of the Hunt, and it seemed to
us--curious."

Henshaw took him up quickly. "That he should come to the ball? No doubt.
I will be perfectly frank with you, as I expect you to be with me. It is
perhaps not quite seemly to discuss my brother's failings at this time,
but we want to get at the truth about his death. He had, I fear, rather
irregular methods in his treatment of women. One can hardly blame him,
poor fellow. His was a fascinating personality, at any rate so far as
women were concerned. They ran after him, and one can scarcely blame him
if he acquired a derogatory opinion of them. After all, he held them no
cheaper than they made themselves in his eyes. That note I looked at
which came from his pocket was written by him to make an assignation."

"Was it addressed?" Gifford put the question quickly, almost eagerly.

"No," Henshaw answered. "I wish it had been. In that case we should be
near the end of the mystery."

Kelson was staring at the glib speaker with astounded eyes. "Do you
suppose a woman killed your brother?" he almost gasped.

"Such things have been known," Henshaw returned with the flicker of an
enigmatical smile. "But no, I don't suggest that--yet. At present I have
got no farther than the conviction that Clement did not kill himself. I
mean to find out for whom that note of his was intended."

"Not an easy task," Gifford remarked, with his eye furtively on Kelson,
who had become strangely interested.

"It may or may not be easy," Henshaw returned. "But it is to be done. The
woman who, intentionally or otherwise, drew my brother down here has to
be found, and I mean to find her."

Kelson was now staring almost stupidly at Gifford.

"Neither of you gentlemen saw my brother dancing?" Henshaw demanded
sharply.

"I saw nothing of him at all in the ballroom," Gifford answered,
"as I did not arrive till about midnight. Did you see him, Harry?" he
asked, as though with the design of rousing Kelson from his rather
suspicious attitude.

Kelson seemed to pull himself t