re waiting for me to fall
into the trap. But the rat, once encaged, is shy! And I am very shy just
now," he added with a light laugh.

"You'll stay and have dinner, won't you?" urged his hostess.

Benton hesitated.

"If I do Louise may return, and just now I don't want to meet her. It is
better not."

"But she won't be back till the last train to Guildford. Mead is meeting
her. Yes--stay."

"I must get a car to take me back to town. I have to go to Glasgow by
the early train in the morning."

"Well, we're order one from one of the garages in Guildford. You really
must stay, Charles. There's lots we have to talk over--a lot of things
that are of vital consequence to us both."

At that moment there came a rap at the door and the young manservant
entered, saying:

"You're wanted on the telephone, ma'am."

Mrs. Bond rose from the settee and went to the telephone in the library,
where she heard the voice of a female telephone operator.

"Is that Shapley Manor?" she asked. "I have a telegram for Mrs.
Bond. Handed in at Nice at two twenty-five, received here at four
twenty-eight. 'To Bond, Shapley Manor, near Guildford. Yvonne shot by
some unknown person while with Hugh. In grave danger.--S.' That is the
message. Have you got it please?"

Mrs. Bond held her breath.

"Yes," she gasped. "Anything else?"

"No, madam," replied the telephone operator at the Guildford Post
Office. "Nothing else. I will forward the duplicate by post."

And she switched off.

SIXTH CHAPTER

FACING THE UNKNOWN

That the police were convinced that Hugh Henfrey had shot Mademoiselle
was plain.

Wherever he went an agent of detective police followed him. At the Cafe
de Paris as he took his aperitif on the _terrasse_ the man sat at a
table near, idly smoking a cigarette and glancing at an illustrated
paper on a wooden holder. In the gardens, in the Rooms, in the Galerie,
everywhere the same insignificant little man haunted him.

Soon after luncheon he met Dorise and her mother in the Rooms. With them
were the Comte d'Autun, an elegant young Frenchman, well known at the
tables, and Madame Tavera, a very chic person who was one of the most
admired visitors of that season. They were only idling and watching the
players at the end table, where a stout, bearded Russian was making some
sensational coups _en plein_.

Presently Hugh succeeded in getting Dorise alone.

"It's awfully stuffy here," he said. "Let's go outside--eh?"