LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

       Table of Contents

      THE conversation, judging by what he heard of it as he sauntered up to the east lounge, did not threaten any great demands on his brains.

      "All I know is that cricket's jolly good for the liver," Arthur Bond was saying earnestly.

      "It is really," echoed Cockburn.

      "Isn't it!" agreed Rose absent-mindedly, as, with an apology, she cut open a letter that had just come for her.

      "And it doesn't have to be first-rate cricket, either," Bond ruminated. He was a pretty boy, with a girlish face that amused his friends, and misled his acquaintances.

      "Not a bit," chimed in Cockburn, the elder of the friends by ten years. The Honourable John Cockburn could not by any stretch of affection be called handsome, but he had a pleasant, freckled face, lit by a pair of eyes which were very steady and observant, though their colour might be indeterminate.

      Sibella gave her throaty laugh.

      "Hush—h! If you say such brilliant things, Mr. Thornton'll crib them for his book."

      "I wasn't saying anything brilliant," protested Bond ingenuously. Then, after he had shaken hands with Thornton, he turned to their host.

      "I really ought to've phoned you before blowing in like this, but the Chief was so sure the professor would still be here—"

      "My brother-in-law's a will of the wisp. Quite a respectable variety, of course, but as uncertain."

      "He's dancing around Genoa just now," Sibella announced idly, "to keep to your simile, dad."

      "Milan, my dear, Milan!" corrected her father shortly.

      "In this note father speaks of having been in Genoa." Rose replaced a half-sheet in a long envelope, drew out a sealed enclosure, glanced at the address, doubled it up in her little handbag, and turned again to the table.

      Cockburn thought that the colonel looked vexed. An old scar on his forehead blazed a bar of crimson. A sign of anger. Yet he could hardly be annoyed with the girls for knowing where the professor was. But already the colonel had puzzled him on the courts. Generally a fine player—to-day! Cockburn eyed him as he cut a cigar unevenly, and decided that something was up. It was not Colonel Scarlett's habit to chip a Corona like that. Nor to hold it so tightly that it leaked. Nor to smoke it at a pace which would turn it into an overheated cabbage stalk.

      "Of course you'll stay the night," Rose said hospitably. She was pouring out tea. "Oh, I insist." Professor Charteris had one wing of Stillwater House, and Rose had a free hand in it. The two young men, however, glanced at the colonel. His eyes were on his cigar.

      "Sorry," Cockburn said at once, "next time we'll be delighted."

      "Well, you must stay for dinner," she insisted, "and for bridge afterwards."

      They thought they might venture thus far, uncle or no uncle.

      Again the bar of red showed in the colonel's face. He, who was supposed to be one of the most hospitable of men! He said with seeming, heartiness, however, "Your bridge'll be a perfect godsend. I never can understand how a clever chap like Thornton can call a hand as he does. He'd go three no-trumps on one guarded knave."

      "Not I!" Thornton protested "I don't say what I might not do, if, like most people, I weren't restrained by the fear of what comes after. You, Colonel, are the 'what comes after' at cards."

      "Do you think fear is a deterrent?" di Monti asked suddenly.

      Thornton maintained that in many cases it was the only one.

      "Well, perhaps with you here in England. With us in Italy—no! If a man wants to commit a crime, does he care that he endangers his own life? Not a bit. What he wants is revenge. Revenge!" The word rang out. "And he takes it!"

      "With our poachers it's only fear of us J.P.'s that keeps them under." The colonel spoke as though trying to turn a distasteful subject.

      "Especially as in their case there's no difficulty about the disposal of the—what shall we call it—body or booty?" Thornton put in idly. The colonel got up suddenly.

      "Mind if I open the window a little?" he asked, and stepped on through it, stepped so hastily that Rose looked after him wonderingly.

      Thornton found no chance of speaking to di Monti till tea was over. He solved the problem by drawing a chair up close to the gate that opened into the drive. Presently the purr of a large car caught his ear. It was the count driving away in his Alfa Romeo. He was due at a meeting of the London Facista.

      Thornton stepped out down the drive and opened the gates. Mrs. Bennet could be heard in the lodge trying to hand out impartial, but hasty, justice to a couple of squabbling children.

      Di Monti got out for a light, and they stood discussing the car's points. Then the conversation drifted around to the professor.

      "His departure so unexpected is annoying," di Monti said crossly; "it delays the announcement of my engagement to Miss Charteris."

      "My most hearty congratulations. Has it got so far as that?"

      Di Monti stared at him. "Well, I suppose!"

      "I'd no idea. With us, girls have so much freedom nowadays," Thornton replied easily.

      "It is not a question of freedom," the Italian said haughtily, and Thornton thought how cold his eyes were, in spite of the slumbering fires deep within them. "It is merely a question of

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