as found stabbed to the heart in a cafe in Petrograd, three
weeks ago," Lord Dorminster announced. "An official report of the
enquiry into his death informs his relatives that his death was due to a
quarrel with some Russian sailors over one of the women of the quarter
where he was found."

"Horrible!" Nigel muttered.

"Sidwell was one of those unnatural people, as you know," Lord
Dorminster went on, "who never touched wine or spirits and who hated
women. To continue. Atcheson was a friend of yours, wasn't he?"

"Of course! He was at Eton with me. It was I who first brought him here
to dine. Don't tell me that anything has happened to Jim Atcheson!"

"This dispatch is from him," Lord Dorminster replied, indicating the
pile of manuscript upon the table,--"a dispatch which came into my hands
in a most marvellous fashion. He died last week in a nursing home
in--well, let us say a foreign capital. The professor in charge of the
hospital sends a long report as to the unhappy disease from which he
suffered. As a matter of fact, he was poisoned."

Nigel Kingley had been a soldier in his youth and he was a brave man.
Nevertheless, the horror of these things struck a cold chill to his
heart. He seemed suddenly to be looking into the faces of spectres, to
hear the birth of the winds of destruction.

"That is all I have to say to you for the moment," his uncle concluded
gravely. "In an hour I shall have finished decoding this dispatch, and I
propose then to take you into my entire confidence. In the meantime, I
want you to go and talk for a few minutes to the cleverest woman in
England, the woman who, in the face of a whole army of policemen and
detectives, crossed the North Sea yesterday afternoon with this in her
pocket."

"You don't mean Maggie?" Nigel exclaimed eagerly.

His uncle nodded.

"You will find her in the boudoir," he said. "I told her that you were
coming. In an hour's time, return here."

Lord Dorminster rose to his feet as his nephew turned to depart. He laid
his hand upon the latter's shoulder, and Nigel always remembered the
grave kindliness of his tone and expression.

"Nigel," he sighed, "I am afraid I shall be putting upon your shoulders
a terrible burden, but there is no one else to whom I can turn."

"There is no one else to whom you ought to turn, sir," the young man
replied simply. "I shall be back in an hour."

CHAPTER II

Lady Maggie Trent, a stepdaughter of the Earl of Dorminst