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Updated: June 20, 2025
And Kelson, trembling all over, was obliged to reappear. After it was all over, and he had bowed himself out into the wings, Hamar led him aside. "Don't look so damned pleased with yourself," he said, "I don't half like the look of things. This is the third time the Unknown has tried to trap us the fourth time it may be successful! Take care!"
On the floor between the window and an old oak table which had practically hidden it from the doorway, lay the body of a man in evening clothes, one side of his shirt-front stained a dark colour. Although the face lay in the shadow of the high window-sill, there was no mistaking the man's identity. "Henshaw!" Kelson gasped. It was the missing man, Henshaw, sure enough.
She had learned much from Shiel in his "wanderings." He had constantly alluded to Hamar, Curtis, Kelson and Lilian Rosenberg; to the great compact, and to the one possible way of breaking that compact namely through the instigation of a quarrel between the trio.
Seeing a tall, grey phantom with a man's body and wolf's head bounding up to them, Kelson would have run away, had not Hamar, whose presence of mind never quite deserted him, gripped him by the arm. "If you leave us, Matt," he said, "we are lost. I feel our safety depends on our keeping together. If I'm not mistaken this is a cunning dodge on the part of the Unknown to separate us.
"You might fetch your friend, Gifford." Kelson nodded, opened the drawing-room door and called Gifford out, while Morriston waited in the hall. "The brother has turned up," he said as the two men joined him. "No doubt to make inquiries. What are we to say to him?" "There is nothing to be said but the bare, inevitable truth," Gifford answered. "You can't now break it to him by degrees."
No doubt he is up to a dodge or two by way of obviating these little difficulties." In the afternoon the two friends went up to Wynford Place to call after the dance. Kelson had naturally been much more inclined to drive over to the Tredworths, about seven miles away, in order to settle his betrothal, but Gifford suggested that the duty call should be paid first, and so it was arranged.
"I shouldn't stick at much!" Curtis answered. "Occasions like these don't admit of chivalry. Come along! It's the ham I'm after." Curtis shuffled forward as he spoke, and the next moment Kelson and he were standing in front of the counter. The girl eyed Curtis very dubiously and it is more than likely would have refused to serve him had he been alone.
He anticipated no difficulty there; still, as he said, "The thing has got to be done, and the sooner it is over the better." "Why not go to-morrow?" Gifford suggested. "There will be rather a rush to-day." Kelson, a man of action, scoffed at the idea. "Oh, no; Muriel and Charlie are coming over to Wynford to luncheon. I shall simply get the thing settled and drive back with them."
It had been a narrow squeak, and to Kelson the bare idea of continuing his performance was appalling. His nerves were, as he himself put it, anyhow, and he preferred retiring for the rest of the evening. But Hamar would not hear of it. "This is the second bungle we have had," he said, "and the reputation of the firm is seriously at stake. You must go on again and retrieve it."
He shook hands, with a word of thanks and an apology. "We may know more after the inquest to-morrow afternoon," he remarked, "although I doubt it. You will let me consult you again, if necessary? Thanks. Goodnight." As the door closed on Henshaw, Kelson turned quickly to Gifford with a scared face. "Hugh!" he cried hoarsely, in a voice subdued by fear. "The blood stain on my cuff that night.
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