s a merry, easy-going young fellow, a
member of the St. James's, and highly popular among the younger set at
the club, but he held aloof from them all he could. As I told you some
time ago, there was a lady in the case."

His lordship sighed.

"Ah! Darnborough, the best of men go under for the sake of a woman!"

"In this case I am not sure that Harborne was really a victim," replied
his visitor. "Only the other day, when in Borkum, I ascertained that
Harborne had been in Germany and met by appointment a young foreign
woman named Fraeulein Montague. She was French, I was told, and very
pretty. It was she who carried on the negotiations for the purchase of
the secret of the new Krupp aerial gun."

"You ought to find her. She might tell you something."

"That's just what I am striving my utmost to do. I have learnt that she
was the daughter of a French restaurant-keeper, living somewhere in
London, and that after Harborne's death she married a Frenchman, whose
name I am unable, as yet, to ascertain."

"You will soon know it, Darnborough," remarked the Earl with a faint
smile. "You always know everything."

"Is it not my profession?" the other asked. "Yes, I shall try to
discover this lady, for I have a theory that she knows something which
we ought to know. In addition, she knows who killed Richard Harborne."

"I sincerely hope that you will be successful," declared the Foreign
Minister. "By Harborne's death Britain has lost a fearless patriot, a
man who served his country as truly and as well as any bedecorated
general, and who had faced death a dozen times unflinchingly in the
performance of his duties to his country and his sovereign."

"Yes," declared Darnborough, "if any man deserved a C.M.G. or a
knighthood, Dick Harborne most certainly did. I am the only person who
is in the position of knowing how devotedly he served his country."

"I know, I know!" exclaimed the Earl. "And if he had lived it was my
intention of including his name in the next Birthday Honours list."

"Poor fellow," remarked his chief. "I wonder who that woman Montague
was, and whether she really had any hand in the crime? That he was fond
of her I have learned on good authority, yet Dick was, after all, not
much of a ladies' man. Therefore I am somewhat surprised at the nature
of the information I have gathered. Nevertheless, I mean to find the
woman--and to know the truth."

"Have you any clue whatever to her identity?" inquired the E