fficer."

"Why?" asked Vera inquisitively.

"They took against him, miss."

"I think I like the ladies best," said Bertie. "Who is this really
terrible-looking woman?"

The showman hurried towards him, still repeating like a parrot what he
wished to tell them about Manning.

"Yes, Manning was a railway guard, and 'is wife was highly connected
with the best families--as lady's-maid. Ah, sir, you're looking at
Cathering Webster. She was executed for the murder of another lady at
Richmond. Jealousy was the reason of 'er motive for the crime."

"I say," said Felicity suddenly, to the guide, "don't you find all this
terribly depressing? Do you hate all these creatures?"

"No, miss," said the showman smilingly, "I'm so used to them. I regard
them almost like relations. 'Ere we 'ave a couple of French criminals.
_Their_ little game, if you please, was to decoy to their 'ome young
ladies, and take away all their belongings, and everything else they
possessed."

"Oh, how horrid of them!" said Vera indignantly.

The chasseur grinned. "Yes, they weren't nice people, miss."

"I think you would like Burke and Hare, sir," he said persuasively to
Wilton. "Let me tell you a bit about them."

"He talks as if they were Marshall and Snelgrove," murmured Wilton.

"What was the reason of their motive?" asked Felicity.

"Strychnine, miss," readily answered the well-informed guide.

"I suppose people get awfully hardened, eventually, to this sort of
thing? _I'm_ not. I'm terribly nervous. I'm frightened out of my life.
If it weren't for you, Lady Chetwode, I should faint, and be carried out
by the emergency exit."

While the chasseur went into atrocious details, Bertie was so frightened
that he had to hold Felicity's hand.... Vera felt quite out of it, and
in the cold. When once they got into the Chamber of Horrors, nobody had
taken any notice of her, nor even heard her remarks. Felicity and Bertie
were evidently at once excited and amused. As she was standing alone
pretending to look at some relics, the gallant chasseur came up and
said, "There's an emergency exit 'ere, if you like to go out 'ere,
madam."

"There seems to be nothing else," said Bertie. "As soon as you get into
Madame Tussaud's the main object seems to be to drive you out. They
keep on telling you _how_ you can get out, and _where_ you can get out,
and when. How wonderful a fire would be here!"

"Do you think Sylvia got out by one of the emergency exits?