d. My Uncle Ferdinand there came
as a stranger. I knew nothing of him except that he was taken ill. How
he met with his illness no one told me. Then my Uncle Maurice came to
me one night and said that his brother had come to Europe on a
wonderful secret mission, and that now he was too ill to go on with
it, it must be carried through for the honor of the family. He meant
to call himself Ferdinand Delora, and to come to England and do his
best, and I was to come with him and hold my peace, and help him where
it was possible. I begin to understand now that, somehow or other,
this poor Ferdinand was ill-treated, and that my Uncle Maurice took
his place, meaning to steal the money he received. But I did not know
that. Indeed, I did not know it!" she said, sobbing.

I passed my arm around her waist.

"Felicia, dear," I said, "who would doubt it? Let them fight this
matter out between them. It is nothing to do with us. You are here,
and you remain!"

She came a little closer into my arms with a sigh of content. My lady
of the turquoises laughed outright.

"You are _infidele_, monsieur!" she exclaimed. "But there, the
poor child is young, and she needs some one to look after her. Listen!
What is that?"

We all heard it,--the sound of a shot in the corridor. I kept Felicia
back for the moment, but the others were already outside. The waiter
and the valet had rushed out of the service room. A chambermaid, with
her apron over her head, ran screaming along the corridor. There in
the middle Delora lay, flat on his back, with his hands thrown out and
a smoking revolver by his side!...

I did then what might seem to be a callous thing. I left them all
crowding around the body of the dead man. I let even Felicia be led
back to her room by her companion. I took the lift downstairs, and I
made my way into the cafe.

"Where is Louis?" I asked the first waiter I saw.

"He is away for a minute or two, sir," the man answered.

Almost as he spoke Louis entered from the further end of the
restaurant. He did not see me, and I noticed that his fingers were
arranging his tie, and that as he passed a mirror he glanced at his
shirt-front. When I came face to face with him he was breathing fast
as though he had been running.

"Louis," I said, "five flights of stairs are trying at our time of
life!"

He looked at me blankly, and as one who does not comprehend.

"Five flights of stairs, monsieur!" he repeated.

I nodded.

"I mysel