had restored her to good humour, and when she
had eaten a few mouthfuls of delicate food and drunk her first glass of
champagne she began to laugh almost light-heartedly.

"Well, I suppose you've been doing your best, Fullaway," she said, with
easy familiarity. "I declare you turned up at the very moment, for that
fat Weiss would have been no good. But I'm still wondering how you came
to be here, and what this gentleman--Mr. Allerdyke, is it?--is doing here
with you. Allerdyke, now--well, that's the same name as that of a man I
came across from Christiania with, and left at Hull."

Fullaway kicked Allerdyke under the table.

"You haven't heard of that Mr. Allerdyke since you left him at Hull,
then?" he asked, gazing intently at their hostess.

"Heard? How should I hear?" asked the prima donna. "He was just a
travelling acquaintance. All the same, I had certainly fixed up to see
him in London on a business matter."

"You don't read the newspapers, then?" suggested Fullaway.

"Not unless there's something about myself in them," she answered, with
an arch smile at Allerdyke.

"If you'd read this morning's papers, you'd have seen that the Mr.
Allerdyke with whom you travelled--this gentleman's cousin, by the
by--was found dead in his room at the hotel in Hull not so long after you
quitted it," said Fullaway coolly. "In fact, he must have been dead when
you passed his door on your way out."

The prima donna was genuinely shocked. She set down the glass which she
was just lifting to her lips; her large, handsome eyes dilated, her lips
quivered a little. She turned a look of sympathy on Allerdyke, who, at
that moment, realized that she was a very beautiful woman.

"You don't say so!" she exclaimed. "Well, I'm really grieved to hear
that--I am! Dead?--and when I left! Why, I was in his room that very
night we reached Hull, having a talk on the business matter I mentioned
just now--he was well enough and lively enough then, I'll swear.
Dead!--why, what did he die of?"

The two men looked at each other. There was a brief pause; then
Allerdyke slowly produced a small packet, wrapped in tissue-paper, from
his waistcoat pocket. He laid it on the table at his side and looked at
his hostess.

"I knew you had been in my cousin's room," he said. "You left or dropped
your shoe-buckle there. I found it when I searched his room. Then the
hotel manager showed me your wire. Here's the buckle."

He was watching her narrowly as h