"Tell her two gentlemen for a consultation," Jack Manners announced at Madame Veno\'s door, Nickson at his heels.

"Madame can see no more clients this afternoon, sir," replied the neat woman in black silk. "She closes for business at six, and——"

"It\'s not six yet," cut in Jack.

"No, sir, but she has a lady with her now. I have orders to receive no one else."

"Can\'t you forget those orders, and persuade her to make an exception for us?" As he spoke, Manners took from his pocket a cigarette-case and extracted from it a twenty-dollar bill.

It would have been simple—physically—to push past the spinster-like person in black, but Jack could more easily have got over a high stone wall. Luckily she liked the look of the bank-note.

"I might try, sir," she hesitated. "If trying\'s worth twenty dollars to you."

"It is," he replied, promptly.

The money changed hands.

The woman in black silk ceased to bar the entrance with her neat person.

Jack walked into the flat, Nickson after him.

Again there was hesitation. Evidently their guide was not sure where she ought to put them. Jack imagined that he could read her thoughts. She feared to lead the forbidden visitors into the ordinary waiting-room. Either there was someone there, or something that ought not to be seen; or the room was next the one where Madame Veno was with her "last client"—Juliet! In that case, words might be overheard through a wall or door.

As he and Nick were invited into a dining room, Manners counted three doors on the opposite side of the hall, all closed. Behind one of those he believed Juliet to be hidden at that moment, probably in process of being blackmailed. He made up his mind quickly as to a plan of action, already half-decided on between Nickson and himself.

"We\'re in no great hurry, so long as we see Madame sooner or later," he told the woman who had let them in. "We wouldn\'t think of having you interrupt her."

"Oh! I shouldn\'t dare do that, sir!" she broke in, pocketing the twenty dollars. As she spoke, Jack caught a glance of awed respect which she cast across the corridor.

"The middle door," he said to himself.

"Of course not," he said, aloud. "We\'ll wait. How\'ll you know when the client goes?"

"I expect Madame will ring for me to open the front door, and let the lady out. That\'s what she usually does."

"Very well, when the lady\'s gone speak for us."

Perhaps the black-silk woman wondered why the nice young gentleman hadn\'t given her ten dollars to try, and a promise of ten more if she succeeded. But that was his affair. Personally, she didn\'t expect to succeed. She was not acquainted with Madame\'s private business, but there was certainly something of the first importance "on" this afternoon. No clients had been admitted since four o\'clock except the beautiful blonde young lady who had announced herself the other day as the Duchess of Claremanagh or some name like that. Before she was due two gentlemen had come up and hadn\'t given their names. But Madame had expected them, and they were still with her when the Duchess arrived. The black-silk woman had seen those gentlemen before, though never together. She had not much curiosity about them, for she was not of a curious disposition. That, Madame said, was one reason why she had engaged her. She had been a stewardess on board ship, but had disliked the sea, especially during the war, when she had been torpedoed once. Madame had crossed with her on three occasions, and the last time had offered her this place. Some things she had seen had surprised and even shocked her a little, but she was well paid, and dry land was a good deal better than that nasty grey wet thing, the sea!

She felt that she had done right in putting these two new gentlemen into the dining room. If Madame firmly refused to see them, they might possibly be smuggled away without her knowing they had actually been let into the flat.

"That elderly party isn\'t going to stay on watch," Jack said to Nickson, when they had been shut into the commonplace little room where Madame Veno ate her meals. "There\'s no uneasy curiosity in that meek make-up."

"That\'s wot I was thinkin\' myself, sir," agreed Old Nick.

"We\'re in luck so far," Jack went on. "It\'s time to begin reconnoitring." He went to the door. "If that decent body is in the hall, I shall ask her what time it is, and say my watch has gone slow—which is more than my heart has!"

Nickson grinned.

Jack peered out into the white-and-red corridor. Nobody was there. The red glass lamp suspended from the ceiling looked to him like a mass of clotted blood.

He took two steps across to the middle door, and listened. Then he returned hastily to Nick. "They\'re in there! I heard the Duchess\'s voice. Sounds as if she were angry or frightened, or both. And there are two or more men. You and I have got to open the door, locked or unlocked."

"That\'s it, sir!" said Nickson. "But it won\'t be locked. Why should it? They don\'t suspect nothin\', and if there\'s two men, \'er Grice couldn\'t get past \'em. You let me make a dash and see wot \'appens, sir!"

"No," Jack decided, "the dash is my job. You stand by, and if there\'s any dashing from the wrong side of the door, you\'ll know how to stop it, male or female."

"Yes, sir!"

Manners went again to the middle door. As he moved, Nickson closed in behind him, a substantial bulk, and in his eyes the light which made "Old Nick" his right name. He stood in such a position that if any one rushed for the front door or even some back exit, escape could be made only over his body. He saw that Captain Manners took hold of the doorknob with his left hand. The right hand was in the outer pocket of his coat, and Nickson knew what else was there. A similar thing was in a similar pocket of his own coat. It had been given to him by the Captain, whom he now liked and respected next to the Duke.

Suddenly Manners turned the handle and flung the door wide open with such violence that it struck the wall. He strode into the room. Nickson blocked the doorway, but seeing with one glance that there was a door leading to another room, he took a step back to guard both.

It was a very green room—green as arsenic, he thought—lighted by one lamp, like a big emerald, on a centre table. Looking in from across the threshold, however, Nick could see four figures besides Manners\'. There was the Duchess, tall and strangely white in a black dress and wide hat. There was another woman without a hat, also in black; a big, common hussy she looked to Nickson, with an eye like a fierce snake\'s. And there were two men.

About the pair an odd thing was that they had some thin black stuff tied over their faces. Captain Manners went for one man—the one who seemed to show fight, and when the other (who hadn\'t spied Nick yet) made for the door, Nick received him in open arms.

The big woman squealed, and the Duchess shrank back against the wall, then started forward again.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried, "they mustn\'t be killed! They know where Pat is. They say if they aren\'t back there soon, someone will put an end to him!"

Nick saw the woman, Madame Veno, he didn\'t doubt, spring for the electric-light button, but dragging his man with him, he was upon her like a tiger. One hand was enough for the man, who must have been a coward for he splashed about like a jelly with Nick\'s fist in his collar. The other hand seized Madame\'s arm as it was stretched out, and twisted it sharply. She gave a shriek, and sat............