aid to
his charge."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Lady Gridborough, delightedly.
"But"--suddenly--"your son? You are his father? I didn't know--I thought
his father was dead."

"So I was, madam; to the world; but I have returned from the grave to
find my son," said Mr. Clendon.

"Well, I am glad!" cried Lady Gridborough. "You must both come and stay
with me. Now, you won't refuse, Mr. Dene, will you?" She looked at Mr.
Clendon pleadingly, and then with confusion and embarrassment, as they
both remained silent.

"My father's name is not 'Dene,'" said Derrick, who felt that the
explanation would have to come sooner or later. "He is Lord Sutcombe."

Reggie did not start; but, for the first time in his life, the young man
looked nonplussed and discomfited; he regarded the father and son with a
puzzled stare, then, with an exclamation, he cried,

"Of course, the _elder_ brother! Then--then _you_, Green, are Lord
Heyton?" He smiled as if he himself had conferred the title of nobility
on Derrick. "Well, this knocks me out. No more detective novels for me!
Realism is my line for the future. And yet, what a novel it would make!"

"You shall write it some day, Reggie," said Derrick, with a smile.

"Some day?" retorted Reggie. "I'm going to write it at once! Come away,
Lady Gridborough! This is no place for us," he added tactfully, and,
taking her hand, he led the bewildered old lady out of the room,
nodding, with a smile of intense gratification, over his shoulder at
Derrick.

CHAPTER XXXI

The following afternoon, as the London evening papers were publishing
what they were pleased to call "A Romance in High Life," Derrick and his
father made their way through an excited crowd, which had gathered about
the Court House. Affairs there had proceeded as Mr. Jacobs had
prophesied; the magistrates had listened with amazement, not only to Mr.
Jacobs' statement, but to the announcement which Mr. Clendon had made of
his identity and his relationship to Derrick; and the worthy chairman,
Sir Courtenay Comber, using almost the identical words Mr. Jacobs had
attributed to him, had congratulated Derrick and informed him that he
left the Court "without a stain on his character." Notwithstanding its
satisfactory conclusion, the ordeal had been a trying one for father and
son, and Derrick looked pale and somewhat worn as he grasped the hand of
Reggie, who had been in Court, and had hurried after him to congratulate
him.

"I've