es get their names from?"

"It happens in this case to be her real name," said Mr. Bryany. "Her
father kept a tobacconist's shop in Cheapside. The sign was kept up
for many years, until Rose paid to have it changed."

"Well, well!" breathed Edward Henry, secretly thrilled by these
extraordinary revelations. "And so you and she have got it between
you?"

Mr. Bryany said:

"I bought half of it from her some time ago. She was badly hard up
for a hundred pounds and I let her have the money." He threw away his
cigarette half-smoked, with a free gesture that seemed to imply that
he was capable of parting with a hundred pounds just as easily.

"How did she _get_ the option?" Edward Henry inquired, putting into
the query all the innuendo of a man accustomed to look at great
worldly affairs from the inside.

"How did she get it? She got it from the late Lord Woldo. She was
always very friendly with the late Lord Woldo, you know." Edward Henry
nodded. "Why, she and the Countess of Chell are as thick as thieves!
You know something about the Countess down here, I reckon?"

The Countess of Chell was the wife of the supreme local magnate.

Edward Henry answered calmly, "We do."

He was tempted to relate a unique adventure of his youth, when he
had driven the Countess to a public meeting in his mule-carriage, but
sheer pride kept him silent.

"I asked you for the figures," he added, in a manner which requested
Mr. Bryany to remember that he was the founder, chairman and
proprietor of the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, one of the most
successful business organizations in the Midlands.

"Here they are!" said Mr. Bryany, passing across the table a sheet of
paper.

And as Edward Henry studied them he could hear Mr. Bryany faintly
cooing into his ear: "Of course Rose got the ground-rent reduced.
And when I tell you that the demand for theatres in the West End far
exceeds the supply, and that theatre rents are always going up ...
When I tell you that a theatre costing L25,000 to build can be let
for L11,000 a year, and often L300 a week on a short term ...!" And he
could hear the gas singing over his head ... And also, unhappily, he
could hear Dr. Stirling talking to his wife and saying to her that
the bite was far more serious than it looked, and Nellie hoping very
audibly that nothing had "happened" to him, her still absent husband
...! And then he could hear Mr. Bryany again:

"When I tell you ..."

"When you tell m