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Updated: June 14, 2025
He had chosen his moment for rising so as to pass down the room almost at the same time as Mr. Bentham and his strange companion. Prolific of smiles and somewhat elephantine graces, the lady's darkened eyes met Wrayson's boldly, and finding there some encouragement, she even favoured him with a backward glance. In the vestibule he slipped a half-crown into the attendant's hand.
He was found lying on his face, stabbed through the heart. That is all anybody knows." The thoughts went rushing through Wrayson's brain. He remembered the man as he had seemed only a few hours ago, cold, stonily indifferent to young Barnes' passionate questions, inflexibly silent, a man who might easily kindle hatreds, to all appearance without a soft spot or any human feeling.
At one particular luncheon party the day after the inquest, nothing else was spoken of. For the first time, in Wrayson's hearing, a new and somewhat ominous light was thrown upon the affair. There were four men at the luncheon party, which was really not a luncheon party at all, but a promiscuous coming together of four of the men who usually sat at what was called the Colonel's table.
Wrayson mechanically stepped backwards and took the receiver into his hand. "Who is it?" he asked. The voice which answered him was faint but clear. It seemed to Wrayson to come from a long way off. "Is that Mr. Wrayson's flat in Cavendish Mansions?" it asked. "Yes!" Wrayson answered. "Who are you?" "I am a friend of Mr. Morris Barnes," the voice answered.
"I want to telephone to the office before I go out with you again." The young man followed him heavily. He seemed a little dazed. In Wrayson's sitting-room, he stood looking about him as though appraising the value of the curios, pictures, and engravings with which the apartment was crowded. Wrayson, while waiting for his call, watched him curiously.
At the entrance, Wrayson whistled for a cab and handed Agnes in. Sydney Barnes attempted to follow her. "I will see my sister-in-law home," he declared; but Wrayson's hand fell upon his arm. "No!" he said. "Mrs. Barnes can take care of herself. She is not to be interfered with." She nodded back at him from the cab. "I don't want him," she said. "I don't want any one.
The man on the ground was dumb, because he was afraid. But the same thought presented itself to all of them. The Baron, who was least of all affected, expressed it. "Perhaps, sir," he said, "you will not object to telling me the Baron de Courcelles whom we have to thank for the discovery of this intruder!" Wrayson's friend edged a little away.
The Baroness whispered in Wrayson's ear, but he shook his head. "It is impossible," he said firmly. "We cannot take them from her by force." The Baroness shrugged her shoulders. She caught the girl up upon the stairs and they descended together. Wrayson and Sydney Barnes followed, the latter biting his nails nervously and maintaining a gloomy silence.
His sallow cheeks were paler than ever. His narrow eyes, furtively raised to Wrayson's, were full of inquisitive fear. "No! I don't know her," Wrayson answered, "but I rather fancy, all the same, that she is the young person whom I came here to meet to-night." Barnes waited breathlessly for an explanation. He did not say a word, but his whole attitude was an insistent interrogation point.
It was too good to last, of course, but I didn't think it would end like this!" Quietly but very persistently Sydney Barnes insisted on being heard. "It's my turn now," he said, standing by Wrayson's side. "Look here, Miss, I'm his brother. You can see that, can't you?" "You are something like him," she admitted, "only he was much, much nicer to look at than you."
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