e is a little blue mark on the spot where the injection
was made.'

I looked at him steadily as I spoke, trying to see whether he manifested
any uneasiness or emotion. But he baffled me. I thought I saw his lips
twitch, and his eyes contract, but I might easily have been mistaken. If
he were a guilty man, then he was the greatest actor, and had the most
supreme command over himself, of any one I had ever seen.

'And did you find such a mark on your friend?' he asked, after a few
seconds' silence.

'Yes,' I replied, 'close to the elbow.'

He showed no emotion whatever, and yet I could not help feeling that he
was conscious of what was in my mind. Of course this might be pure
imagination on my part, and I do not think any detective of fiction fame
would have gained the slightest inkling from his face that he was in any
way connected with it.

Springfield took his cigarette case-from his tunic, and extracted another
cigarette. 'It seems a bit funny, doesn't it? but I don't pretend to
offer an explanation. By the way, will he be well enough to go back to
duty when his leave is up?'

'I don't know,' I replied. 'McClure will have to decide that.'

'I should think you will be glad to get rid of him, Luscombe.'

'Why?' I asked.

'The fellow seems such an impossible bounder. Excuse me, but that is how
he struck me.'

'You didn't seem to think so when you thanked him for saving your life,'
was my reply.

'No, of course that was different'; and his voice was somewhat strained
as he spoke. 'I--I ought not to have said that, Luscombe. When one man
owes another his life, he--he should be careful. If I can do the fellow
a good turn, I will; and since in these days anybody can become an
officer in the British Army, I--I----' He stammered uneasily, and then
went on: 'Of course it is different when you have to meet a man as an
equal in a friend's house. But there,--I must be going. I have to get
back to town to-night.'

In spite of what I had said to Edgecumbe, I was angry at seeing that
Springfield spent two hours that afternoon with Lorna Bolivick. There
could be no doubt about it, the fellow had broken down all her antagonism
towards him, and was bent on making a good impression on her. I found,
too, that Sir Thomas Bolivick regarded him with great favour. By some
means or another, the news had come to him that Springfield was a
possible heir to a peerage, and that while he was at present poor, he
woul