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"Stick to your resolution to have no more to do with the family; retain a good lawyer to watch your interests under old Brian's charge; and look out for yourself." "I'll surely do all that, Mr. Sybarite; but I don't understand " "Well, if I'm not mistaken, it'll help a lot. Public disavowal of your engagement to Bayard will be likely to bring Shaynon's affairs to a crisis.

Shaynon's having caused me to be spirited away so that he might gain control of my estate " "Wonder what put that into his head!" P. Sybarite broke in with quickening curiosity. "He insisted that these stories could only be refuted if I'd come home for a few days and show myself at this dance to-night. And when I still hesitated, he threatened " "What?" growled the little man.

Indeed, the speculations this circumstance set awhirl in P. Sybarite's weary head were so many and absorbing that he forgot altogether to be surprised or gratified by the favour of Kismet which had caused their paths to cross at precisely that instant, as if solely that he might be informed of Bayard Shaynon's abode....

Mute in this limpid comprehension of the circumstances, he sobered thoroughly from sickening consternation; remained in his heart a foul sediment of deadly hatred for Shaynon; to whom he nodded with a significance that wiped the grimace from the man's face as with a sponge. Something clearly akin to fear informed Shaynon's eyes. He sat forward with an uneasy glance at the door.

"What door?" demanded Western Union as he left the cage at the eleventh floor. "Right across the hall." The gate clanged, the cage mounted to the next floor, and P. Sybarite got out, requiring no direction: for Peter Kenny's door was immediately above Bayard Shaynon's.

A transitory expression of bewilderment clouded Shaynon's eyes. "I'm no judge," the detective announced doubtfully. "It makes no difference," Shaynon insisted. "Theft's theft!" "It makes a deal of difference whether it's grand or petit larceny," P. Sybarite flashed "a difference almost as wide and deep as that which yawns between attempted and successful wife-murder, Mr. Shaynon!"

He came abruptly to his senses; saw clearly how this thing had come to pass: the temptation of the loose brooch to Shaynon's fingers itching for revenge, while they stood so near together in the elevator, the opportunity grasped with the avidity of low cunning, the brooch transferred, under cover of the crush, to the coat-tail pocket.

The door slammed tempestuously, and the little man chuckled with an affectation of ease to which he was entirely a stranger: ceaselessly his mind was engaged with the problem of this trumped-up charge of Shaynon's. Was simple jealousy and resentment, a desire to "get even," the whole explanation? Or was there something of an uglier complexion at the bottom of the affair?

The little man accepted the card with no discernible sign of jubilation over Shaynon's discomfiture. "Thank you," he said mildly; but waited close by her side. For a moment Shaynon's face reminded him of one of the masks of crimson lacquer and black that grinned from the walls of Mrs. Inche's "den." But his accents, when he spoke, were even, if menacing in their tonelessness.

"Nothing, as far as I know; unless it was Brian Shaynon's doing " "A-ah!" "You know that old blighter?" "Slightly very slightly." "Friend of yours?" "Not exactly." The accent of P. Sybarite's laugh rendered the disclaimer conclusive. "Glad to hear that," said the boy gravely: "I'd despise to be beholden to any friend of his ..." "Well.... But what's the trouble between you and old man Shaynon?"