“ Then, much as I regret it, I quite understand that you cannot return to me, Céline," exclaimed Ena. "Does Monsieur Galtier speak English?"
"Yes; very well, Madame. He was born in London, and lived there until he was eighteen."
"Oh, well, of course he would speak our language excellently. But though you will no doubt both be happy in the near future, I myself am not at all satisfied with my own conduct towards you. I've treated you badly; I feel that in some way or other I ought to put myself right with you. I never like a servant to speak badly of me." ”

“ Morrison, of Carsphairn, was an annual visitor to Loch Lomond, staying a fortnight each year at the little hotel at Ardlui, a spot which her late husband had loved so well.
Though an extremely wealthy man, the summer attractions of Harrogate, Dinard, Aix, or Ostend, had never appealed to him. Bluff and hearty, he loved Loch Lomond in the days of his prosperity just as when, in his youth, he used to save his coppers to enable him to have a one-day trip from Glasgow each summer—red-letter days in his otherwise grey workaday life. ”

“ At first glance Bernard Boyne, as he stood there in his shirt-sleeves, was an excellent type of the steady, reliable insurance agent, with no soul above "proposals" and "premiums." They constituted his sole aim in life, now that his "dear wife" was dead.
Nobody suspected the man who so piously passed round the bag in St. George the Martyr on Sundays to be a man of mystery. Nobody, indeed, would ever have dreamed that the active man in question would be placing cheques to his account of such value as seven thousand odd pounds. ”

“ I cannot live without movement. I love crowds. That's why I love cities—Manchester, London, Paris, and Rome. Where I live, up in Kirkcudbrightshire, it is one of the wildest and least explored districts of Great Britain. Between Loch Ken and Loch Doon, over the Cairnsmuir, the people are the most rural in all our island, quiet, honest folk, with no soul above their sheep and their cows. You and your wife must come north one day to Carsphairn and stay with me. ”

“ They say there is no genius without lunacy. So I suppose you think me a lunatic—eh?"
"I don't think, Lionel—I know you are," Boyne responded. "You've acted as a silly fool, and you made a serious slip in killing the girl, but I'm trying to save you from the police. They are still hunting over all Europe for you."
"But did I kill her, Wisden? Did I? I don't remember it!"
"Remember it. Why, you've got no memory. You only remember all your science and your wonderful knowledge—a knowledge unequalled. Yes! you killed her, and by an ace I rescued you from arrest. You recollect little Maggie?" ”

“ When we were in Avignon we were all happy together. Alice with me, and you with Lilla."
"My dear boy, your memory is at fault. Did you not stay in Avignon while Lilla and I motored to Paris? Now think! Did you not take an apartment in the Rue Cardinale, and remain after our departure? Alice, your wife, died there! Why, only a few minutes ago you deplored her loss!"
"Yes. But how can I be certain that she is dead?" asked the other dubiously.
"Because I tell you she is. I'm not a liar!" cried Boyne fiercely, again assuming an overbearing attitude. ”

“ In Marigold's eyes he was the type of a perfect modern gentleman—as indeed he was.
City life, with its morning rush to business from the suburbs and its evening scramble for a seat in 'bus, train or tram, is to the business girl a wearing existence. The tubes, with their queux, the trains with their packed compartments, the 'buses with their boorish attendants, and the trams crowded to suffocation with either rain-wet or perspiring humanity, are part of the life of a London business girl. ”

“ In Italy, where solitary confinement for life takes the place of capital punishment for murder, the criminal always ends his days as a lunatic—driven mad by that terrible loneliness which even a dog could not suffer."
"That's certainly quite another point of view," she remarked. "I hadn't thought of that!"
"Well, it is one to bear in mind," he said. "Your aunt, a most worthy lady, is devoted to Mr. Boyne and serves him well. For the present let her hold him in high esteem. In the meantime we will watch, and endeavour to solve this mystery, Marigold." ”

“ Pleasant, humorous, and careless in his relaxation from money-making in grim and grimy Glasgow, John Greig was an excellent fellow on holiday. His estimate of women—for he was a bachelor—coincided entirely with that of Ena Pollen.
To be frank, he had, in the course of conversation, gauged her views regarding her own sex, and he at once sought to cultivate her acquaintance upon her line of thought.
"Of course," she said next morning, as he found himself gossiping with her after breakfast, "woman ought not to work at all. No man really likes a woman who works for him. ”

“ Gerald Durrant was both shrewd and determined. When he set his mind upon a thing, he carried it through at all costs. He intended to penetrate the veil of mystery which enveloped this good go-to-meeting collector of insurance premiums.
"Well," he said at last. "Be watchful, and be careful, dear, that you don't arouse his suspicion. He's a mystery, and all men of his calibre are ultra-suspicious, and masters in the art of concealing their own feelings." ”

“ A fire in any crowded district of London at whatever hour always attracts a large number of onlookers. That night was no exception, for a big crowd had assembled at either end of the street, and in the centre of the crowd towards Hammersmith Bridge, wedged between several women of the lower class, stood a shabbily-dressed man in a golf cap watching intently the progress of the fire. ”

“ Pollen!" echoed Boyne. "Whom do you mean?"
"Why, Ena Pollen, the friend of Lilla. You know the woman—tall, handsome, red-haired. She worked a dirty trick upon some man she met. They had supper at the Ritz. He died, and nobody suspected. Ugh! Isn't it funny how one can lead a crooked life and everyone think one perfectly honest?"
"Well, you're not honest, my dear Lionel," laughed Bernard Boyne. ”

“ In her case the doctor himself was agreeably surprised. She was recovering, he had said! She would yet live to cheat her enemies!
Gerald, realising this, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He was, of course, in ignorance of what had transpired at Pont Street, or of the suspicion of Charles Emery, the man who had made the actual assignment of Mrs. Morrison's insurance.
On the following morning, after hearing the doctor's good news, he sat beside Marigold's bed, and by slow degrees the girl recognised her lover as he bent over her and tenderly kissed her upon the brow. ”

“ Boyne only smiled grimly. He was not the kindly man of other days.
"It probably is so," he replied, turning away from the door. "But it's our insurance business; and business is business, after all!
"Yes!" retorted the poor woman. "You people are robbing the poor—that's what it is! And after fifteen years! Why, I've paid your company more in that time than what they would have paid to bury my Bertha!"
At a small house in the Loftus Road he knocked three times, and a dwarfed, red-eyed girl at last opened the door.
"Poor mother's dead, Mr. Boyne! Didn't you see the blinds?" she asked. ”

“ Hence the Red Widow and her two associates, having successfully defied the French ex-maid and her lover, were now awaiting payment by the insurance company. Boyne, on his part, had cleverly destroyed all traces of the secret of that upstairs room in which had lived for some time the half-demented, eccentric Lionel Gosden, who was so blindly obedient to every order of the criminal who held him in control.
"There only remains that girl!" remarked Boyne as he sat with his wife one night.
"Yes. The sooner she's out of the way the better, my dear Bernie. She knows far too much." ”

“ Why Boyne, the humble collector of insurance premiums, should possess a latchkey to a house in Pont Street, and emerge from there dressed in evening clothes as a gentleman of means, sorely puzzled Gerald Durrant.
He felt instinctively that he was on the track of some very remarkable sequence of events. This man who disguised himself every night before he took food and drink up to his imprisoned friend, evidently lived a double life. In Pont Street he was a rich man, while in Hammersmith he was poor. ”

“ Your solicitor returns to London to-morrow, and I will have a consultation, with a view to a settlement—in some way or other," he added in a meaning tone.
Then he bowed coldly and took his departure.
The instant he had left, the trio of dealers in secret death held a hurried and excited council.
"The game is up!" declared Ena, her countenance blanched to the lips. "The Fates are against us. How dare we press our claim further, and if we do not, then our failure to do so is self-condemnation."
"He's a shrewd young chap. He certainly recognised you—curse it!" cried Boyne. ”

“ Lilla laughed at the grimace her husband made.
Boyne left her at once, and ascending to his bedroom, shaved, exchanged his clothes for a smart evening suit, and carefully brushed his hair, until, when he descended, he presented the ideal man-about-town whose evening clothes were well worn and who wore his soft-fronted shirt as one accustomed to it every night. The man unused to the claw-hammer coat is always to be noticed in a crowd, just as is the woman who, putting on an evening frock occasionally, hitches it up on the shoulder and is palpably uncomfortable in it. ”

“ If the place is watched every night, this man Boyne must, in the end, be defeated."
"But I thought you liked Boyne?"
"Yes; he has been always very good to me. Remember that he is the owner of the place, and my aunt is his housekeeper," replied the girl.
"I quite appreciate your point," said Durrant. "But if we are to fully delve into the affair we must not be influenced by the fellow's open heart. The greatest criminals of the world have always been those who have been popular on account of their bonhomie and generosity." ”

“ You are not fit to mix with us, you know. And you exist upon my charity. I am always good to you! Understand that!"
"I—I know," squeaked the figure, whose white cloak was soiled and stained, while those two long slits for the eyes under the pointed hood gave it a most weird and forbidding appearance.
"I hope you appreciate all I've done for you," Boyne went on. "If I had not risked all this, where would you have been—tried and executed in the hangman's noose. But I have done my best—though often you don't appreciate it."
"I—I do!" cried the voice from behind that strange disguise. ”

“ Durrant said. Then, catching sight of the coat he was wearing, he was surprised to see that it was unfamiliar—a heavy blue-serge suit, such as he had never before possessed. The mystery increased as each moment passed.
"No. I don't know any man named Boyne. Who and what is he?"
"He's an insurance agent at Hammersmith."
"That's somewhere in London, ain't it?"
"Yes. I'm a Londoner."
"Oh, are you? Yes, I thought so."
"Why did you think so?" asked Durrant.
"Because I know you come from Liverpool."
"You're trying to be funny!"
"Oh, no, I'm not! It's you who always tries to be funny, young fellow. ”

“ Boyne saw himself at a dead end.
He had never dreamed that the smart French girl of Melun, who had been paid so handsomely by Ena, would again resume her claims. But, of course, the man Galtier was behind her and had, no doubt, prompted her. Fortunately, they could know nothing of the Morrison affair—or, indeed, of the clever plots which they were conducting against other perfectly innocent victims. Life assurance is always a gamble, but when one can guarantee death within dates then one holds a winning hand every time. ”

“ Boyne has, no doubt, done so with some ulterior motive."
"And that motive we mean to find out," said the girl decisively.
"We will," he said, in a hard voice. "I feel confident that we are on the track of some very sensational affair."
"Who can be the person who is hiding?"
"Ah! that remains to be seen. It is evidently someone who dare not show his face—not only in the light of day, but even at night."
"But why does Mr. Boyne wear that hideous robe with slits for the eyes?" asked Marigold, bewildered, as they walked to the stairs. ”

“ The fact that the store of food in Boyne's bedroom was still there negatived the idea that it was intended for any person concealed in the locked room above. On thinking it all over, she began to doubt whether that curious cry was really human, or did it only exist in her imagination?
Next day she went to the bank as usual, but life was very dreary without Gerald's smiling face. He was her ideal of the fine courteous man, strong, and devoid of that effeminacy which, alas! too often characterises the temporary officers who so gallantly assisted in winning the war. ”