h were clenched. She looked like a
woman struggling hard to control some overwhelming passion. Without the
smile her lips seemed hard, even cruel. There were evil things shining
out of her eyes. Tavernake felt chilled, almost afraid.

"We will see the rest of the house," she declared coldly.

They went on from room to room. Tavernake, recovering himself rapidly,
master of his subject, was fluent and practical. The woman listened,
with only a terse remark here and there. Once more they stood in the
hall.

"Is there anything else you would like to see?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied, "but there is one thing more I have to say."

He waited in stolid silence.

"Only a week ago," she went on, looking him in the face, "I told a man
who is what you call, I think, an inquiry agent, that I would give
a hundred pounds if he could discover that young woman for me within
twenty-four hours."

Tavernake started, and the smile came back to the lips of Mrs. Wenham
Gardner. After all, perhaps she had found the way!

"A hundred pounds is a great deal of money," he said thoughtfully.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Not so very much," she replied. "About a fortnight's rent of this
house, Mr. Tavernake."

"Is the offer still open?" he asked.

She looked into his eyes, and her face had once more the beautiful
ingenuousness of a child.

"Mr. Tavernake," she said, "the offer is still open. Get into the car
with me and drive back to my rooms at the Milan Court, and I will give
you a cheque for a hundred pounds at once. It will be very easily earned
and you may just as well take it, for now I know where you are employed,
I could have you followed day by day until I discover for myself what
you are so foolishly concealing. Be reasonable, Mr. Tavernake."

Tavernake stood quite still. His arms were folded, he was looking out of
the hall window at the smoky vista of roofs and chimneys. From the soles
of his ready-made boots to his ill-brushed hair, he was a commonplace
young man. A hundred pounds was to him a vast sum of money. It
represented a year's strenuous savings, perhaps more. The woman who
watched him imagined that he was hesitating. Tavernake, however, had no
such thought in his mind. He stood there instead, wondering what strange
thing had come to him that the mention of a hundred pounds, delightful
sum though it was, never tempted him for a single second. What this
woman had said might be true. She would probably be ab