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Maybe I'll do no good and maybe I'll be able to put a spoke in his wheel. To do that once right I'd be willing to die as poor as I've lived till this blessed night!" He paused an instant on the threshold of his cousin's bedroom; turned back a sombre visage. "I've little love for Brian Shaynon, myself, or none. You know what he did to me and mine."
A most superficial inspection ought to convince anybody, even one prone to precipitate conclusions, that Bayard Shaynon had never died by his own hand.
What happened when Mr. Shaynon came home?" "W'y, 'e 'adn't more than got inside the 'ouse, sir, w'en a lidy called on 'im a lidy as I 'ad never set eyes on before, sime as in your caise, sir; although I wouldn't 'ave you think I mean she was of your clawss, sir. 'Ardly. Properly speakin', she wasn't a lidy at all but a woman. I mean to s'y, a bit flash." "I understand you. Go on."
Although much sought after on account of the immense property into control of which she is to come on her twenty-fifth birthday, Miss Blessington contrived to escape matrimonial entanglement until last January, when Brian Shaynon, her guardian and executor of the Blessington estate, gave out the announcement of her engagement to his son, Bayard Shaynon.
Was an attempt to ensure that desired consummation through the agency of a drug, being made in the open restaurant? If not, why was Red November neglecting all other affairs to press drink upon a man who knew when he had enough? If so, what might be the nature of the link connecting the boy with the "job," to be on which at half-past two November had just now covenanted with Brian Shaynon?
P. Sybarite interrogated with his eyes alone. "It was a bit odd, come to think of it the 'ole affair, sir. Must 'ave been over an hour ago, Mr. Shaynon 'ere, 'e come 'ome alone from the dance I see you must've been there yourself, sir, if I m'y mike so bold as to tike notice of your costume. Very fawncy it is, too, sir becomes your style 'andsome, it does, sir." "Never mind me.
"Bad?" he mused aloud, examining it closely. "Phony? Perhaps it is. Looks like Article de Paris to me. See what you think." He returned the trinket indifferently. "Nonsense!" Shaynon interposed incisively. "Mrs. Strone's not that kind." "Shut up!" snapped P. Sybarite. "What do you know about it? You've lied yourself out of court already."
Old Brian Shaynon was a known devil of infinite astuteness; it would be quite consistent with his character and past performances if, despairing of gaining control of his ward's money by urging her into unwelcome matrimony with his son, he had contrived to over-reach her in some manner, and so driven her to become self-supporting.
"The last was number which?" he enquired with unruffled impudence. Half angry, half amused, wholly confused, she told him: "Fifteen." "Then one number only remains." His lips hardened as he read the initials pencilled opposite that numeral; they were "B.S." "Bayard Shaynon?" he queried. She assented with a nod, her brows gathering.
"Remember where you are in a lady's presence. Do you want to go sprawling from the sole of my foot into the presence of more than one or over this railing, to the sidewalk, and become food for inch-worms?" Releasing Shaynon, he stepped back warily, anticipating nothing less than an instant and disgraceful brawl. "As for my mask," he said "if it still annoys you " He jerked it off and away.
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