came the apologetic reply. "Mr. Paul, she no here.
When she come, Yamuro tell. Thanks."

It was late when the financier left his car at his own door and demanded
of Harrow, "Where is my brother?"

"In the music-room, I think, sir." Hamilton thought he detected in the
butler's voice a note of anxiety and for a moment he glanced with a keen
scrutiny into the servitor's eyes, and the eyes dropped under his gaze.

"Very well, I sha'n't need you again tonight." The Titan turned and
climbed the stairs.

The lights of the music-room were burning brilliantly and on a table
stood siphons and bottles and glasses. At the door Hamilton paused and
glanced uneasily about, then he saw Paul, and smiled. Weary with his
vigil Paul, the affectionate and faithful, had evidently fallen asleep
in his chair. Hamilton crossed and laid a hand on his brother's
shoulder. Then as quickly he withdrew it. Something unaccustomed in the
younger man's appearance arrested him and he stood gazing down.

The musician sprawled in an attitude of demoralized inertia and over his
cameo face the dark hair hung disordered. His hands fell grotesquely and
his closed eyes were puffed. Hamilton bent down and with a low oath
studied his brother. His sleep was no natural napping. It was a drunken
stupor proclaiming itself in a stertorous and uneasy breathing.

Angrily Hamilton shook the sagging shoulders until the sleeper's lids
opened heavily and the lips voiced some incoherent thing. Then Paul
attempted to turn his face away and go to sleep again.

"So," exclaimed the elder as he dragged his brother to his feet and
restored him to a semblance of consciousness, "so this is the way you
waited for me?"

Paul blinked owlishly through the stupidity of his condition, and upon
his delicate features the unaccustomed and swollen flush dwelt in a
disfiguring blot. He shook his head and informed thickly, "Jefferson
Edwardes's dead."

"I know that--and you're drunk."

The musician stupidly nodded his assent to so incontrovertible a
statement and as he gradually awoke to a fuller realization, he rose and
made his way unsteadily to the piano. But his fingers were stiff and
unresponsive, and after a brief effort he gave that up.

Once more he looked up and an expression of deep terror spread over his
face. Tears welled into his eyes and he wept for awhile in silence as
Hamilton looked on.

"Jeff'son Edwardes's dead," he reiterated with parrot-like singleness of
id