borrowed, Abigail was very vague. All that she knew was
that my lady had paid back two thousand pounds and that she was still
very distressed ("in a fit" was the phrase the girl used), because
apparently Kara refused to restore the box.

There had evidently been terrible scenes in the Bartholomew menage,
hysterics and what not, the principal breakdown having occurred when
Belinda Mary came home from school in France.

"Miss Bartholomew is home then. Where is she?" asked T. X.

Here the girl was more vague than ever. She thought the young lady had
gone back again, anyway Miss Belinda had been very much upset. Miss
Belinda had seen Dr. Williams and advised that her mother should go away
for a change.

"Miss Belinda seems to be a precocious young person," said T. X. "Did
she by any chance see Mr. Kara?"

"Oh, no," explained the girl. "Miss Belinda was above that sort of
person. Miss Belinda was a lady, if ever there was one."

"And how old is this interesting young woman?" asked T. X. curiously.

"She is nineteen," said the girl, and the Commissioner, who had pictured
Belinda in short plaid frocks and long pigtails, and had moreover
visualised her as a freckled little girl with thin legs and snub nose,
was abashed.

He delivered a short lecture on the sacred rights of property, paid the
girl the three months' wages which were due to her--he had no doubt as
to the legality of her claim--and dismissed her with instructions to go
back to the house, pack her box and clear out.

After the girl had gone, T. X. sat down to consider the position. He
might see Kara and since Kara had expressed his contrition and was
probably in a more humble state of mind, he might make reparation. Then
again he might not. Mansus was waiting and T. X. walked back with him to
his little office.

"I hardly know what to make of it," he said in despair.

"If you can give me Kara's motive, sir, I can give you a solution," said
Mansus.

T. X. shook his head.

"That is exactly what I am unable to give you," he said.

He perched himself on Mansus's desk and lit a cigar.

"I have a good mind to go round and see him," he said after a while.

"Why not telephone to him?" asked Mansus. "There is his 'phone straight
into his boudoir."

He pointed to a small telephone in a corner of the room.

"Oh, he persuaded the Commissioner to run the wire, did he?" said T. X.
interested, and walked over to the telephone.

He fingered the receiver for