growled Lord Loudwater.

Mr. Manley let the suggestion pass without comment. His face was blank.

"And what's she going to do about it?" said Lord Loudwater in a tone of
challenge.

"She's going to see you about it."

"I'm damned if she is!" cried Lord Loudwater hastily, in a much less
assured tone.

Mr. Manley permitted a faint, sceptical smile to wreathe his lips.

"What are you grinning at? If you think she'll gain anything by doing
that, she won't," said Lord Loudwater, with a blustering truculence.

Mr. Manley wondered. Helena Truslove was a lady of considerable force of
character. He suspected that if Lord Loudwater had ever been afraid of a
fellow-creature, he must at times have been afraid of Helena Truslove.
He fancied that now he was not nearly as fearless as he sounded. He did
not say so.

His employer was silent, buried in scowling reflection. Mr. Manley gazed
at him without any great intentness, and came to the conclusion that he
did not merely detest him, he loathed him.

Presently he said: "There's a cheque from Hanbury and Johnson for twelve
thousand and forty-six pounds for the rubber shares your lordship sold.
It wants endorsing."

He handed the cheque across the table to Lord Loudwater. Lord
Loudwater dipped his pen in the ink, transfixed a struggling
bluebottle, and drew it out.

"Why the devil don't you see that the ink is fresh?" he roared.

"It is fresh. The bluebottle must have just fallen into it," said Mr.
Manley in an unruffled tone.

Lord Loudwater cursed the bluebottle, restored it to the ink-pot,
endorsed the cheque, and tossed it across the table to Mr. Manley.

"By the way," said Mr. Manley, with some hesitation, "there's another
anonymous letter."

"Why didn't you burn it? I told you to burn 'em all," snapped his
employer.

"This one is not about you. It's about Hutchings," said Mr. Manley in an
explanatory tone.

"Hutchings? What about Hutchings?"

"You'd better read it," said Mr. Manley, handing him the letter. "It
seems to be from some spiteful woman."

The letter was indeed written in female handwriting, and it accused the
butler, wordily enough, of having received a commission from Lord
Loudwater's wine merchants on a purchase of fifty dozen of champagne
which he had bought from them a month before. It further stated that he
had received a like commission on many other such purchases.

Lord Loudwater read it, scowling, sprang up from his chair with his eye