memoranda behind me with some other things, when I departed so
suddenly last September.

"If you can have this notebook found for me, I will ask that it may
be posted to me at The Myrtles, Grove End, near Millsborough, as I
shall only be in Paris for three days longer.

"I heard, quite by chance from a friend, that Professor Caldegard
was staying with Sir Randal Bellamy in Hertfordshire, so I have
ventured to use his address.

"Thanking you gratefully in anticipation,

"I remain,
"My dear Miss Caldegard,
"Yours very sincerely,
"ALBAN MELCHARD."

"H'm, in Paris, is he? No more in Paris than I am. Wrote this in case he
should be suspected, but didn't count on having to cart the girl along.
False addresses wouldn't help him. These two are straight goods. Clever
move, if it hadn't been for the girl. Your alibi'll hang you, Alban
Melchard. That fixes Millsborough."

Savagely he cranked up his engine and jumped into the driving-seat. The
car rushed forward.

When St. Albans was behind him the confusion of excitement began to
settle, and his thoughts presented themselves clear as those of a
dispassionate spectator. For him, in all this tangle, there was one
thing, and one thing only, that mattered; to be in time. He did not fear
murder; but the very reason of her security from death was the cause of
a fear so horrible, that he knew inaction would have been torture past
endurance.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SWINE THAT STANK.

When Amaryllis left her bedroom, having laid Melchard's letter on her
table, she had intended returning at once to pleasant and frivolous
conversation with Dick Bellamy. For to-night she was nervous--a little
unstrung, it may be, by the pain she had given to his brother; and Dick,
with his quiescent vitality, his odd phrases and uncompromising
directness of expression, seemed to her at that moment the most restful
companion in the world. If she could only get him started, he might
amuse and interest her as on the long drive the day before. And then, he
seemed to be one of those people who understand even when you don't
talk--and she remembered how he had cut into her father's chatter about
Melchard by upsetting the candles.

But Sir Randal had met her between the door and the stairhead.

"Dick tells me I've got to play billiards all alone," he said; and
though his self-pity was merely playful, it struck the girl painfully.