said.

"Indeed!" he answered dryly. "I should have thought that the bravery
had lain in another direction!"

I shook my head.

"I," I said, "am, I fear, a coward. Even when to-night I started out
to keep my appointment with you I had fears. I was so afraid," I
continued, "that I even went so far as to insure my safety."

"To insure your safety!" he repeated softly, like a man who repeats
words of whose significance he is not assured.

"I admit it," I answered. "It was cowardly, and, I am sure,
unnecessary. But I did it."

His face darkened with anger.

"You have brought an escort with you, perhaps?" he said. "You have the
police outside?"

I shook my head.

"Nothing so clumsy," I answered. "There is just my taxicab, which
won't go away unless it is I who says to go, and a little note I left
with the hall-porter of the Milan, to be opened in case I was not back
in an hour and a half. You see," I continued, apologetically, "my
nerve has been a little shaken lately, and I did not know the
neighborhood."

"You are discretion itself," Delora said. "Some day I will remember
this as a joke against you. Have you been reading Gaboriau, my young
friend, or his English disciples? This is your own city--London--the
most law-abiding place on God's earth."

"I know it," I answered, "and yet a place is so much what the people
who live in it may make it. I must confess that your five exits, two
on to the river, would have given me a little shiver if I had not
known for certain that I had made my visit to you safe."

Delora tried to smile. As a matter of fact, I could see that the man
was shaking with fury.

"You are a strange person, Captain Rotherby," he said. "If I had not
seen you bear yourself as a man of courage I should have been tempted
to congratulate your army upon its freedom from your active
services. You have no more to say to me?"

"Nothing more," I answered.

"To-morrow morning at eleven o'clock," Delora said, "you will be
arrested for the attempted murder of Stephen Tapilow."

"It is exceedingly kind of you," I answered, "to give me this
warning. I will make my arrangements accordingly."

"One thing," Delora said, "would change the course of Fate."

"That one thing," I remarked, "being that I should not send this
cablegram."

"Exactly!" Delora answered, "in which case you will find your banking
account the richer by ten thousand pounds."

I looked at him steadfastly.

"What manner of a swin