He
picked up an evening paper and threw it aside. Then he strolled up into
the cardroom and tried to interest himself in watching a game of bridge.
But the play only bored him. Time hung heavily on his hands. A servant
spoke to him. Instantly he rose and made his way to the telephone. A
call had been made for Grell.

"Hello! Is that you, dear? This is Eileen speaking.... I can't hear.
What do you say?"

It was the clear, musical voice of the girl Robert Grell was to marry.
Fairfield wondered if his friend had expected this.

"This is not Mr. Grell," he said. "This is Fairfield--Sir Ralph
Fairfield--speaking."

"Oh!" He could detect the disappointment in her voice. "Is he there? I
am Lady Eileen Meredith."

Fairfield mentally cursed the false position in which he found himself.
He was usually a ready-witted man, but now he found himself stammering
almost incoherently.

"Yes--no--yes. He is here, Lady Eileen, but he has a guest whom it is
impossible for him to leave. It's a matter of settling up an important
diplomatic question, I believe. Can I give him any message?"

"No, thank you, Sir Ralph." The voice had become cold and dignified. He
could picture her chagrin, and again anathematised Grell in his
thoughts. "Has he been there long? When do you think he will be free?"

"I can't say, I'm sure. He met me here for dinner at seven and has been
here since."

He hung up the receiver viciously. He had not expected to have to lie to
Grell's _fiancee_ when he had promised not to disclose his friend's
absence from the club. It was too bad of Grell. His eye met the clock,
and with a start he realised that it was a few minutes to eleven
o'clock. Grell had been gone an hour and a half.

"Queer chap," he murmured to himself, as he lit a fresh cigar and
selected a comfortable chair in the deserted smoking-room. "He's
certainly in love with her all right, but it's strange that he should
have used me to put her off to-night like that. Wonder what it means."

* * * * *

Two hours later a wild-eyed, breathless servant bareheaded in the
pouring rain, was stammering incoherently to a police-constable in
Grosvenor Gardens that Mr. Robert Grell had been found murdered in his
study.

CHAPTER II

The shattering ring of the telephone awoke Heldon Foyle with a start.
There was only one place from which he was likely to be rung up at one
o'clock in the morning, and he was reaching for hi