Percy-Hogge was, and is, exactly what you would think from her
name; which is why I don't care to dwell at length on the few months I
spent brightening her at Bath. It was bad enough _living_ them!

Now, if I were a Hogge instead of a Courtenaye, plus Miramare, I would
_be_ one, plain, unadulterated, and unadorned. _She_ adulterated her
Hogg with an "e," and adorned it with a "Percy," her late husband's
Christian name. He being in heaven or somewhere, the hyphen couldn't
hurt him; and with it, and his money, _and_ Me, she began at Bath the
attempt to live down the past of a mere margarine-making Hogg. Whole
bunches of Grandmother's friends were in the Bath zone just then, which
is why I chose it, and they were so touched by my widow's weeds that
they were charming to Mrs. P.-H. in order to please me. As most of
them--though stuffy--were titled, and there were two Marchionesses and
one Duchess, the result for Mrs. Percy-Hogge was brilliant. She, who had
never before known any one above a knight-ess, was in Paradise. She had
taken a fine old Georgian house, furnished from basement to attic by
Mallet, and had launched invitations for a dinner-party "to meet the
Dowager-Duchess of Stoke," when--bang fell Thunderbolt Six!

Naturally it fell on me, not her, as thunderbolts have no affinity for
Hoggs. It fell in the shape of a telegram from Mrs. Carstairs.

She wired:

Come London immediately, for consultation. Terrible theft at Abbey.
Barlows drugged and bound by burglars. Both prostrated. Affair
serious. Let me know train. Will meet. Love.

CAROLINE CARSTAIRS.

I wired in return that I would catch the first train, and caught it. The
old lady kept her word also, and met me. Before her car had whirled us
to Berkeley Square I had got the whole story out of her; which was well,
as an ordeal awaited me, and I needed time to camouflage my feelings.

I had been sent for in haste because the news of the burglary was not to
leak into the papers until, as Mrs. Carstairs expressed it, "those most
concerned had come to some sort of understanding." "You see," she added,
"this isn't an ordinary theft. There are wheels within wheels, and the
insurance people will kick up a row rather than pay. That's why we must
talk everything over; you, and Sir James, and Henry--and Henry is never
_quite_ complete without me, so I intend to be in the offing."

I knew she wouldn't stay there; but that was a detail!

The robbe