hiding Marion from Osterley," he cried, and smiled with pleasure at the
sight of her beautiful face.

The Duke and Duchess of Osterley had been at daggers drawn for nearly
two years; and since both of them had sought to bring their feud
forcibly to an end in the Law Courts, the Anglo-Saxon peoples had had
no cause to complain of any lack of effort on their part to be
entertaining. The upshot of the law proceedings had been that the
Court, with a futility almost fatuous, had ordered the duchess to
return to her husband, and, what was far more important, had given the
custody of their little daughter of twelve, Lady Marion Ricksborough,
to the duke.

The Anglo-Saxon peoples felt that the duke had scored heavily; and the
duchess agreed with them. She was not one to sit submissive under
defeat; and presently those peoples read with the liveliest interest
and pleasure that she had carried off her daughter and hidden her with
such skill that the detectives, official and unofficial, had failed
utterly to find her.

In this carrying off and hiding Pollyooly had played the important
part. It had been a freak of nature to make her and Lady Marion
Ricksborough so closely alike, that even when they were together it was
hard to tell which was which. The duchess had taken advantage of this
likeness to substitute Pollyooly for Lady Marion at Ricksborough Court,
the duke's chief country seat, for a fortnight.

The duke, Lady Marion's nurse, and her governess had believed Lady
Marion Ricksborough to be still with them, and had given the duchess
all the time she needed to hide her.

For a whole fortnight Pollyooly had played her part with such skill
that only the duke's nephew and heir, Lord Ronald Ricksborough, had
discovered that she was not Lady Marion. A most discreet boy of
fourteen, and already Pollyooly's warm friend, he was the last person
to spoil the sport; and at the end of the fortnight she had slipped
away and returned by motor car to her post of housekeeper to the
Honourable John Ruffin and Mr. Gedge-Tomkins in the King's Bench Walk.

Ignorant of the fact that Lady Marion Ricksborough had fled a fortnight
previously, the detectives, both official and private, had taken up the
search for her from the moment of Pollyooly's disappearance from the
Court. It is hardly a matter for wonder that they did not go far along
a trail which had been cold for a fortnight.

As he said, the Honourable John Ruffin had believed