The Legend of the Crooked Coronet

It is a disagreeable thing to say, and not one to say lightly, but on a day not long ago a lady was accosted by a man in St. James's Street.

It is true there was a slight haze, for it was a warm afternoon in late June, but on the whole the visibility was excellent. Therefore the man could not reasonably excuse himself on the ground that he had mistaken the lady for what used once to be pompously called a "fallen woman" but is now known, maybe too enthusiastically, as a "hot number." On the contrary, only the rudest and most insensitive sort of man could have mistaken the lady in question for other than a person of distinction.

Let us not speak of her dress, for anyone can buy the most exquisite frocks. Her figure was nice, too. But it was her face, carriage and manner that permitted the student of the illustrated journals no doubt whatsoever as to the lady's breeding. Even as she strolled up St. James's Street past Lock's hat shop he could, as it were, see at her heels a traditional retinue of dogs, horses and servants.

The student of the illustrated journals, would, in point of fact, have had no hesitation in recognizing the Countess of Quorn and Beaumanoir.

Now though Lady Quorn was not more than thirty-five years old, she had added to the advantages of birth, beauty and one of the most distinguished marriages in England, the reputation of being the most irreproachable of gentlewomen, the most brilliant of platform speakers in the Conservative interest, and the most exclusive of hostesses. And she wore these superlatives with an air that was at once cool and charming.

So that when, as happened several times during the season, she and her husband stood at the head of the great staircase at Quorn House in Charles Street to receive their guests at a political or diplomatic reception, it was willingly conceded even by those the most critical of privilege that here at last, in a society of casual origins and careless manners, was a pillar of tradition in all but her fair beauty, a Roman matron in all but her youth--in short, a classical ornament of the Tory party and a lady in the grand manner.

Imagine therefore the audacity of the man who, without any introduction whatsoever, would thrust his vulgar presence upon this lady. Nor did he seem in the least ashamed of himself. On the contrary, he was as offhand as dammit. He neither took his hands out of his pockets, nor his hat off his head. He was, in a word, extremely rude.

"I want," said he, "to talk to you."

Lady Quorn, who was wondering whether it would be judicious to ask Terry Bruce down to Eves Park for the week-end with or without his charming wife, who bored her to death, was at that moment abreast of Brigg's cane and umbrella shop. And as, even when plunged into the deepest abstraction, her steady blue eyes always looked directly in front of her, she could not fail to note at once that a tall, lean, hawklike man had planted himself immediately in front of her. Therefore, since it was unthinkable that she should move aside, she stopped.

"What did you say?"

"I said," said the man, "that I wanted a few words with you. Now you say something."

Now Lady Quorn had a very steady eye with animals and Ambassadors. And behold, they quailed before her. But this person showed no sings whatsoever of quailing. She saw before her a man of maybe thirty years of age, a tall athletic figure in a shabby blue suit of a good cut and wearing the honorable tie of her husband's old school. His brown felt hat, which showed all the marks of continuous exposure to the elements over a period of years, was worn so that its turned-down brim obscured his left eyebrow. His face was long, narrow and tanned and his nose--which had originally been of the same generic order as her own patrician but decorative affair--had obviously been broken at some time, for it now showed a pronounced twist to one side. He looked, in fact, a reckless sort of fellow with some pretensions to gentility. And his trousers, she noted with distaste as he stood planted in front of her with his jacket open and his hands in his pockets, were held up by a belt, a transatlantic practice she strongly disapproved of in urban surroundings.

"I think," she said, "you must be mad." And, her eyes flickering him to one side as she took a step forward to continue her walk, she was arrested again by a really astounding happening. For the man had actually dared to prod her arm sharply. With his thumb.

Her anger was such that for a moment she felt quite dizzy. But she did not want to make a scene in St. James's Street--in the very heart, as they say in thrillers, of Clubland.

"Go," she said, "before I have to call a constable."

"Better hadn't, before you've heard what I have to say."

There was something so infuriating to one of her authority about his contemptous assurance of manner that, almost forgetting her lifelong habit of restraint with her inferiors, she thought for an instant of slapping his face.

"Do you know," she said icily, "who I am?"

"I couldn't care less," said the hawklike man, "if you were Queen of the May. Now be a good girl, Lady Quorn, and try to be sensible for a change. I am not picking you up--"

"Picking me up?" gasped Lady Quorn. "Me?"

"You remind me of my aunt," said the man coldly. "I am not picking you up because I think you are a nice looking piece but because I want to talk business with you. To make myself a little clearer I shall add two names: Harry and Diana."

We have to respect Lady Quorn. Any other woman might very well have looked frightened, but her eyes expressed only a profound distaste for the company in which she found herself. Thus gentlewomen, they tell us, once went to the guillotine.

"To think," she said, "that a man who was at the same school as my husband could be such a cad."

"This is hardly the time," said the hawklike man, "in which to discuss the faults of the public school system. Would you rather I put my business to you here in St. James Street, Lady Quorn, or shall we take a taxi and have a jolly ride around the Park?"

We have to go on handing it to Lady Quorn. Never in her life had she been talked to in this way. There was something so utterly detestable about this lean and contemptuous stranger that she felt quite giddy with loathing. But there was something more than loathing, too. The man's manner made her--her--almost uncertain of herself. And, for perhaps the first time in her life, she felt a twinge of fear.

"Is this," she said, "blackmail?"

"Without gloves, Lady Quorn."

She measured him with cold eyes.

"You may," she said, "call a taxi."

"Let me congratulate you," said the hawklike man. "You are a brave woman."

"I can see nothing brave," said Sheila Quorn, "in getting into a taxi with a worm."

• • •

In the taxi she sat very upright in her corner. Her heart was beating fast, but you never would have known it. The man, lounging in his corner with his arms crossed on his chest, had the audacity to put up his feet on one of the little seats. Twiddling the toe of one shoe thus prominently displayed--a fidgeting habit which reminded her of her husband in his most irritating moods--he said:

"You will be glad to hear, Lady Quorn, that I have not really had much experience of blackmailing people, for I am by preference a burglar, as my father was before me and my brother is now."

"And was," she asked with distaste, "your charming father caught?"

"No, he went bankrupt, a fate to which all bankers are liable, and one which, I fear, my brother, who is a broker, will not escape for long. Now I daresay, Lady Quorn, you are eager to know why you are being blackmailed. I shall tell you. You are one of the greatest ladies in England. You are admired and respected. To a great name you have added a high reputation as an arbitress of society and a leader of fashion. You are a cherished ornament of the Tory party. You are the idol of the respectable in society and the envy of those who have been found out. Am I right, Lady Quorn?"

She shivered a little, though the afternoon was quite close.

"You are," she said, "the most horrible man I have ever met."

"On the contrary, madam, I am an idealist as you will see. In seeking to improve the structure of society, it is my mission in life to look behind the surface of things. I seek, probe and pierce. I penetrate. And then, Lady Quorn, I unveil.

"Now this process has led to some startling and unbecoming results in your case. For what did I see when I unveiled you? Lady Quorn, I was shocked.

"For I saw that you were Dame Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde. Marble without, you were clay within. Behind your unassailable reputation, you live another life. Upheld by your high position, Lady Quorn, my researches led me to the conclusion that on your real character you wore all the earmarks of a pretty hot number. Madam, we English are snobs, but we are also Puritans. We revere out traditions, we fawn upon our betters--but God help them, madam, if they wear their coronets crooked in public places.

"You permit men to fall in love with you. That is not a crime, of course. But you invariably pick on other women's men, and that is a dirty trick. Have I your attention You are a very secret and a very discreet woman, Lady Quorn, so no one knows of your amorous adventures. Though no doubt some of your friends suspect something of the kind and admire you for getting away with it.

"Now it would be easy for me to share this admiration, for I am as partial as the next man to a beautiful woman, if you were not at heart cold, selfish, greedy and cruel. Correct me if I am wrong, Lady Quorn, as I may well be, for I am very sentimental. For you a man is an amusement for a few weeks, or a few months. To you it doesn't matter that these wretched young men have broken off with their fiancées or wives because you have become the great passion of their lives.

"Let us face the facts. You are beautiful. You are passionate. You are famous. Thus you obsess men, for they are snobs and idiots. And since each one thinks he is the first and only man for love of whom you have been unfaithful to your husband, each has kept your name secret from his wife or his sweetheart. Besides, your reputation stands so very high as a pillar of the conventions and a president of committees that a young man who spoke of you with any familiarity would be put down as a cad and a boaster.

"At a ball recently you took quite a fancy to a presentable young man called Harry Something. He is engaged to be married to a very pretty but not very wise young girl called Diana Something. Harry knows quite a bit about horses, so you asked him down to Eves Park to have a look at your hunters--not on a crowded week-end but on a weekday. He approved of your horses so thoroughly that he has not been able to give a thought to Diana since. In fact, I fancy he has already broken off the engagement.

"Now my expenses in making these momentous enquiries into your private life have been very considerable, Lady Quorn. But I am not a greedy man. So I am going to ask you to promise me to win my approval in the future by being a good girl.

"Let me give you a few pointers as to how to go about it. If in the future you have to have affairs at all, Lady Quorn, you will choose only unattached men whose passion for you will bring no unhappiness to anyone but themselves. But if you continue to have secret meetings with young men like Harry, if you continue to ask young Bruce down to Eves Park without his wife, if in short, you continue indulging in monkey business--it will cost you, Lady Quorn, one hundred pounds a crack.

"Let me make myself clear. For each and every time that I suspect you on good grounds of having given away to your lower nature with a married or engaged man, I shall charge you the sum of one hundred pounds. It is on record, after all, that married men have paid much more than that for what is, I believe, known as 'fun' or a 'nice change'--so why, in these days of equality for women, shouldn't you pay too?

"I need hardly say that if you don't I shall make it my business to see that the offended party, that is the wife or fiancée, is given a good hint or series of good hints as to the identity of the intervener.

"In short, Lady Quorn, you continue indulging in monkey business with other people's property and I shall consider it my duty to throw a monkey-wrench into your reputation."

The taxi was now on the bridge over the Serpentine for the second time. Glancing at Lady Quorn's cold, severe and very lovely profile, the hawklike man might have thought she had not heard a word he had said if he had not also noted--rudely leaning forward to do so--the steely brightness of her blue eyes.

She said: "Please stop the taxi."

He did so.

She said: "And get out."

He did so. It was as though she had no knowledge whatsoever of his existence. He stood with one foot on the curb and the other on the running board of the taxi, looking in at her. She never once glanced in his direction. And when she spoke, her lips scarcely moved.

"What is your name?"

"I am sometimes known as the Cavalier of the Streets." The man looked more than ever hawklike when he smiled. "And sometimes by much shorter names than that. I hope," he added, "that you will give the most careful consideration to what I have said."

She smiled very faintly, never glancing at him.

"I shall not forget you," said Lady Quorn.

• • •

The man who was sometimes called by much shorter names than the Cavalier of the Streets was not surprised that night to find himself tapped on the shoulder. He had dined in a small restaurant in Greek Street and was walking down Shaftesbury Avenue. He had not gone far when he realized that he was being followed by a beefy-looking man in a bowler hat. He therefore stopped on the curb at Piccadilly Circus to let the beefy man catch up with him. He stood as though bemused by the tender silhouette of Eros against the bright winking lights of the advertisements.

"I want," said the shoulder-tapper in his ear, "to talk to you, Wagstaffe."

"Mister Wagstaffe," said the hawklike man absently. "Look at that."

"Look at what?"

"The quiet and tender figure of Eros. He is the smallest and the quietest figure in sight, but he is more powerful than us all. Even the worst of us, from a plain-looking chap like me to a really handsome bloke like you, Inspector, have at one time or another been winged by him."

"That'll do," said the Inspector.

"Then you don't want me to tell you about my love life?"

"No, I don't. I want to talk to you."

"If you clear your throat," said the hawklike man, "and take a deep breath, there's no reason why you shouldn't."

"I've got a message for you, my lad," said the Inspector.

"So this isn't a nab?"

"Expecting one, are you?"

"When I begin expecting intelligence from a detective, Bulrose, I'll take to solving cross-words for a living."

"You'll be in prison first, my lad. Want me to spill my message here or shall we go to some quiet place?"

"I have never," said the Cavalier of the Streets, "refused a drink in my life."

They went into a big crowded place nearby where many artists and journalists sat around tables drinking steins of beer in between talking about themselves and thinking about each other. Detective-Inspector Bulrose took a deep draught from his glass before addressing his companion.

"Now look here. Wagstaffe, you're in trouble. And you look like being in more trouble."

"Take a look at my figure, Bulrose."

"What's your figure got to do with it?"

"Only that it's trouble that keeps me thin. What about some more beer?"

"You just listen to me first," said Bulrose. "This is straight to you from Superintendent Crust. And he had it from someone higher up, maybe from the Commissioner himself, so you can see what trouble you are in. Superintendent says he's sick to death of you, and if he hears any more complaints about a bloke calling himself the Cavalier of the Streets, he's going to jug you. And he means it, Wagstaffe. If he can't pull you in for something you've done, he's going to frame you for something you haven't. So behave yourself. Superintendent told me to say that in spite of knowing you're an incorrigible crook he's got quite a warm spot for you because of the help you've given us in some cases. But you've got to drop irritating and molesting people with this Cavalier of the Streets stuff. Why, only two weeks ago you had the cheek to black that chap Tyre-Temple's eye."

"Why not? I don't like him."

"And who stole Lady Fitzoda's ruby earrings from her bedroom while she was having a bath?"

"She will need more than an ordinary bath to wash away her sins."

"You'd better think of your own, Mister Wagstaffe. We've never caught you with the stuff yet, but you can't get away with it every time. Now you listen, my lad. Superintendent says that if you know what's good for you, you'll take a nice long rest at the seaside. I don't know what you've been up to today, but Superintendent said that the Commissioner was as mad as hell --"

The hawklike man grinned.

"I'll bet he was. I wonder what she told him."

"What's that?" said the Inspector eagerly. "Who's she?"

"You mind your own business, Bulrose. The Commissioner and I have got some of the same friends in the very highest society, and we naturally couldn't reveal social secrets to mere beer-drinkers like you."

"You'd talk the hind leg off a donkey," sighed the Inspector.

"Now you listen to me, Bulrose. Tell Superintendent Crust this from me and he can pass it on to the Commissioner if he wants to. I'll mind my own business, and they can mind theirs. Talking to me about ruby earrings as though I were a common thief!"

"We don't think you're a thief. We darn well know you're the only clever burglar in London."

"Is that so? Then if I'm foolish enough to do something you can jail me for, I'm ready for jail. But I don't like being ordered about, when all I'm doing is behaving like a decent citizen."

"Who?" gasped the Inspector. "You?"

"That's me," said the Cavalier of the Streets. "A decent citizen. A respectable subject of the King. Upright and incorruptible. An ally of the police. A friend of the poor. Which reminds me," he said, getting up from the table and taking something out of his pocket, "that here's your pocket-book, which you'll need to pay for the beer. You must have dropped it on the floor. Good night to you, Bulrose. Give my love to the Commissioner, and tell him to keep an eye on his pretty daughter. The aunt she went to dine with last Thursday night wore a silk hat and socks."

• • •

Now it can be seen that in Lady Quorn and Beaumanoir, beauty and resource were mingled in excellent measure. It was not to the Commissioner that she had made a complaint about the Cavalier of the Streets but to one of her several friends in the Cabinet, who had telephoned to the Home Secretary, who had telephoned to the Commissioner, who had talked to the Assistant-Commissioner, who had said a few sharp words to Superintendent Crust, who had passed them on to Inspector Bulrose.

Lady Quorn had not, of course, brought herself into the matter in any way, but had said that an American friend of hers, a young lady for whom she had the highest respect, had recently been troubled a great deal by a rascal calling himself the Cavalier of the Streets.

She had added that this young American lady, who belonged to one of the first families of Philadelphia, was far too shy to make any charge against the wretch, but that really something ought to be done to prevent distinguished foreigners in London from being molested by gangsters. And Lady Quorn was of the opinion that, since so selfconfident a rascal must in the past have frequently broken the law, the police should make every effort to protect the amenities of London by speedily proving him guilty of some past misdemeanor and putting him into a safe place where he could no longer annoy people like her charming American friend.

Her influential friend in the Cabinet whose thoughts about Lady Quorn would have shocked the Archbishop of Canterbury, was able to assure Lady Quorn that everything possible would be done and that the young lady from Philadelphia would no longer be molested.

But Superintendent Crust did not take the same comforting view. In the course of the next few days the poor man was afflicted with several headaches directly attributable to Mr. Wagstaffe, whom he called by names very much shorter than the Cavalier of the Streets.

But Crust knew his business, and he therefore assured the Commissioner who assured the Home Secretary, who assured the influential member of the Cabinet, who reassured Lady Quorn, who presumably reassured the young lady from Philadelphia, that there was nothing further to worry about.

So about a week later Lady Quorn was disagreeably surprised when one afternoon her butler informed her that a gentleman had called to see her by appointment.

(continued on page 22) Crooked Coronet (continued from page 10)

"I am," said her Ladyship, "not at home."

She was thinking very rapidly as the butler went towards the door. Then a curious smile flickered over the lovely features, and what was curious about this smile was that it was at the same time childish and very attractive.

"I have changed my mind, Jolly. The gentleman has a twisted nose, has he not? Show him into the morning-room."

Quite ten minutes passed before she went downstairs. She used the telephone. She used the looking glass. Now Lady Quorn was wearing a hat when Jolly announced the unwelcome visitor, but when she left her room she was not wearing a hat. Her gold burnished hair, which has been described in the illustrated papers as often as the Quorn pearls, of which her throat was never without a rope, need call for no comment here. We can but praise it in passing, and we do so.

The man who called himself the Cavalier of the Streets was standing by the window looking out into Berkeley Square. His head uncovered, his face looked leaner and more hawklike than ever. His black hair was quite decidedly grey at the temples. She was surprised to notice how little out of place he looked in her house in spite of his casual clothes. She stood very still just within the doorway, a tall, slender, gracious woman. They stared at one another across the room for several seconds, and then his mouth twisted into a smile.

"You seem to be a very dangerous woman, Lady Quorn."

"And aren't you," she asked, "a very reckless man to come here?"

"After you put Scotland Yard on to me?"

"Oh, I don't like being defenceless."

They were standing in front of the empty fireplace. Her wide eyes were bright with laughter. He studied her thoughtfully, and the laughter in her eyes twitched at her mouth.

"With half an eye," he said pleasantly, "I can see that you are up to something, or you wouldn't be so amused."

"And can't you guess, Mr. Cavalier, what it is that is amusing me?"

"The only reason I can imagine for your added radiance--"

"Dear me, are you flattering me?"

"I am deploring you, Lady Quorn. The more desirable you appear, the more urgent I must be in preventing you from turning married men into giddy goats. Maybe what's amusing you is that you have a detective hidden somewhere in this room to catch me in the act of blackmailing you."

She laughed outright. And a dog outside in the hall, hearing her cool and pleasant laugh, barked frantically.

"And are you going to blackmail me?"

"Of course, Lady Quorn. And of course you know why."

She frowned. Fingering her pearls, she continued to frown.

"I don't seem to remember anything of quite that nature since I last saw you."

"Try to think," he suggested.

"Dear me," she said, "it would be so impolite not to remember, wouldn't it?"

"What about," he asked, "the afternoon before last?"

"Oh," she said, "I remember! Terry?"

"Exactly."

"Dear me, of course. Yes, I had tea with him."

"Did you now?" said the Cavalier.

"Terry is such a nice boy, and he was all alone."

"Yes, I gathered that."

"I'm not sure," she said, "that I like the way you said that. He was lonely, you see, and he wanted to be cheered up."

"A cup of tea," he said, "can of course be very cheering."

"I have," she said severely, "the highest respect for Terry's wife."

"I am sure you have, Lady Quorn. It must be a great consolation for her."

"Now you are being sarcastic, and quite unjustifiably. If I can't," she said, "have an innocent cup of tea with a friend what can I have?"

"Of course," he said, "I can't be quite positive about my facts."

"Well, I should hope not."

"But there is such a thing, Lady Quorn, as circumstantial evidence. I am more or less in the same position as a divorce judge who has to decide whether a lovebesotted man and an ardent woman alone together in surroundings that permit them a certain freedom of movement have taken advantage of those surroundings to do no more than have a cup of tea together."

"It is wrong," she said, "to think the worst of people."

"I am afraid, Lady Quorn, that it is no good appealing to the better instincts of a blackmailer."

"I wouldn't dream," she said seriously, "of appealing to your better instincts. It's only that I want fair play and how can it be fair for me to give you a hundred pounds when my conscience is quite clear?"

"Your conscience?" he said. "A most unreliable witness, Lady Quorn."

"Well, all I know is," she said, "that I am an innocent woman."

"You mean, since I last saw you a week ago?"

"Of course," she said gravely, "only for the last week."

He looked thoughtful. Then, with no effort to conceal his disappointment, he sighed.

"I suppose," he said, "you are quite sure?"

"Oh, quite. Of course, one forgets things sometimes. But about this last week I am quite sure."

"Still," he said, "you will agree that your actions were decidedly misleading."

She sighed. "You are a very suspicious man, aren't you?"

"A blackmailer has to be, Lady Quorn. And besides," he said severely, "it is written that the intention is as bad as the crime."

"That's exactly what I always tell my children. But," she said, "I'm bothered if I am going to pay a hundred pounds for nothing more than an intention. Dear me, if men had to do that, they'd be penniless in no time."

"Well," he said grudgingly, "I suppose that's only fair. Now will you tell me something, Lady Quorn, before I go?"

"But what in the world can I tell a man who already seems to know so much about me?"

"You were very far from amused the last time I saw you. But this time you seem to have had great difficulty in not breaking out into girlish giggles throughout our interview. I wonder why?"

Her level blue eyes were so limpid with laughter that he could not help but smile in return. He took a step back as the very faint perfume from her burnished hair just brushed his nostrils.

"It's quite easy," she said, "to explain. Do you know, I am thirty-five years old, and you are the only person I have ever met in my life who knows me as I am. That is odd, you must agree, and funny too. I never dreamt there would be any man or woman in this world who would ever know the worst of me. You are the only person before whom I do not have to act. You have seen behind the cool façade, but you have seen nothing at all cool there, have you? And so you are the only man in the world who knows that I enjoy the body of love, just as a man does, and not its gentle tender spirit, as nice women are supposed to. That is why this interview has amused me so much. Dear me, how shocked I was at first that anyone had discovered my secret weaknesses. But now all I feel is relieved that I do at last know one person with whom I shall never have to act."

"I can see," he said, "that we are going to be great friends."

"Yes? It's so nice to be natural sometimes. You must come and see me again, Mr. Cavalier."

"But," he said, "it is not easy to believe that you can be acting quite all the time. Would these men become so obsessed with the passion for having a cup of tea with you alone if acting was all you had to offer them?"

"Oh, you are being stupid. If I really let myself go as much as I should sometimes like--why, how shocked they would be! Didn't you know that an English lady must never enjoy herself too much--it wouldn't look nice. With foreigners, of course, who aren't really human, a little more latitude may be allowed. But, dear me, those boring Latin experts and their tricks! If I could write," she said, "I would write such a book about the conceit, stupidity, and sterling unattractiveness of men as would fill the convents of the world with girls and women clamoring to take the vow of chastity."

"Why, Lady Quorn, anyone would think you disliked men."

"It is the tragedy of women who love men, my friend, that they usually do dislike them. But how can one get around (continued on page 34) Crooked Coronet (Continued from page 22) the impasse?"

"I am growing really quite sorry for you."

"Rightly, Mr. Cavalier. We must all be sorry for those who try to put a shape into dreams. We dream of lovers equal to the gaieties and the ardors of love--and all we get is a man in search of a mother to protect him, a repentant fool, a jealous bully, or a pathetic child. I wish someone would tell me what flaw there is in men that makes them unworthy of straightforward gifts, of which love should be the first. But no, we cannot give them love and passion with both hands, frankly, we must corrupt our surrender with evasions and retreats, we must act or pretend to tease--else they will not cherish the gift. To think we have been lords of creation these millions of years and have evolved nothing more mature than man as an equal to a woman's love!" The door opened, and she continued in a pleasantly sociable voice: "So you must come and see me again, won't you? I so enjoy your visits."

The butler said: "My lady, the Committee is waiting in the drawing-room."

"I shall be there in one moment."

Alone again, she said, coolly smiling: "Well, there is my real life. Sitting or presiding on committees. The rest--all we've been talking about--is nonsense. The leisured classes, they call us. Dear me, what fun life would be if we did not have to work harder at our pleasures than we do at our work." She half extended her hand. "Good-bye, Mr. Cavalier."

She was unsmiling, conventional.

"You have made it impossible for me," he said, "to blackmail you again--almost."

She regarded him so steadily that he blinked. But he did not look away.

"Almost?" she said. "And what does that mean?"

"It means," he said, taking her cold hand, "that it is only my concern for the structure of society, which women like you menace, that will compel me to keep an eye on you."

Her bright wide eyes were unfathomable. Withdrawing her hand, she walked towards the door. He stood watching her, a faint smile on his dark face.

"Good-bye, Lady Quorn."

"I know," she said from the door, "that you are a man of courage. But don't force me to send you to prison. The butler will show you out. Goodbye."

• • •

He had no sooner left the house than he was joined by Detective-Inspector Bulrose. That excellent man made no secret of the facts that he had been waiting for him and that he was in an exceedingly bad temper.

"You're a prize juggins, my lad," he said testily. "Now you come along with me."

The hawklike man, balancing himself on his heels, as though ready to waste time with the first person who offered him amusement, stared thoughtfully at the Inspector.

"What for, Bulrose?"

"Little innocent, aren't you?" Then suddenly, with a vehemence that flushed his face with crimson, he bawled: "Taxi!"

"What on earth is all this about, Bulrose?"

A taxi-driver, who had evidently just finished putting on a spare wheel at the corner of Hill Street, jumped enthusiastically into his cab and drove up beside them. Bulrose testily flung open the door.

"This is a darned serious business, Mister Wagstaffe, so don't ask silly questions. Or ask the Superintendent. Jump in."

They were no farther than about eight yards from the door of Lady Quorn's house. Both men turned their backs to the taxi-driver as the door was flung open and the slim, elegant figure of a young lady came tripping down the stone steps.

"Now maybe," snapped Bulrose, "you'll know what we want you for."

"Will I indeed?" the other murmured, staring at the approaching figure.

"I suppose," snapped the Inspector, "you're going to say you've never seen her before?"

"But you must introduce me, Bulrose. She looks a nice piece."

"Where's your manners?" said the Inspector indignantly. "Calling a friend of Lady Quorn's a 'nice piece,' even though she is American."

The young lady, whose prettiness was of quite an uncommon order, as also was her slim elegance, came tripping towards them. She appeared, like many pretty young ladies, to be more interested in the contents of her vanity-bag, in which she was fumbling with her hand, than in her immediate surroundings. And she would no doubt have collided into the two men if, when she was still a yard or two away from them, Bulrose had not taken a step forward and said:

"Beg pardon, miss, is this the man?"

"Sure," said the pretty young lady, looking coldly into the Cavalier's face. Her voice, which was at once soft and racy, would have made the United States Ambassador homesick. "And if," she said "you will examine his pockets, you'll certainly find the check I gave him a few minutes ago."

The Inspector looked with disgust at his prisoner.

"And to think," he said, "I once thought you were almost an intelligent crook. Taking a check! Hand it over."

The Cavalier, a bewildered expression on his face, slowly extracted from the right side pocket of his jacket a folded check.

"Hand it over," the Inspector repeated. "I suppose you're going to say you've never seen that before."

"Oh no," said the Cavalier. "But I'd like to look at it just once again."

Unfolding the check, he saw that it was made out to Michael Wagstaffe, Esq., for the sum of one hundred pounds and was signed by Monica Gubbins. Then he handed it to the Inspector, who was about to put it in his pocket, when the pretty young lady cried:

"I'd certainly like it back."

"This is important evidence, miss. You'll get it back all right in due course."

The Cavalier was looking thoughtfully into the girl's face. He noticed she would not meet his eyes.

"You are quite sure, Miss Gubbins," he said, "that you gave me this check in Lady Quorn's house?"

"Why, of course!" said the pretty young lady. "What was I to do when you were blackmailing me? And besides, Lady Quorn told me it was the best way out."

"I see," said the Cavalier.

"Miss Gubbins," said the Inspector, "I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you to come along with us and fill in the charge against this man."

"But," said the young lady, "I don't think I'm going to make any charge against him."

Bulrose, pushing back his bowler hat, mopped his flushed brow.

"Ho!" he said bitterly.

The young lady's eyes now met the Cavalier's for the first time. Her lips, he fancied, were twitching faintly.

"Is the Inspector," she asked, "annoyed with me?"

"Oh, not annoyed," said the Cavalier. "Just give him time and he will bust nicely."

"Course I'm annoyed," said Bulrose indignantly. "I'm sitting down in my office to a cup of tea when along comes an urgent message from Lady Quorn that this crook here has had the impudence to call at her house to see an American lady visiting her ladyship and is no doubt going to try to blackmail her. And when I nab him with the check on him--she ain't going to make no charge."

"And what would happen to him," asked the pretty young lady, "if I did make it?"

"Two to three years," said Bulrose persuasively, "hard."

"Then," said Miss Gubbins, turning to the silent Cavalier, "you certainly have to thank Lady Quorn for being given another chance. I owe her so much for her kindness and hospitality that I just couldn't bring myself to refuse her anything at all. And when she asked me to let you off, as you were no doubt just a silly young man driven to crime from reading detective stories or seeing too many gangster pictures, I just had to say I would. Lady Quorn said maybe all you needed to come to your right senses again was a good square meal, and she gave me this ten-shilling note to give you, though of course you musn't spend it all on going to the movies. But mind, now, this must be a lesson to you never to try blackmailing people again. Do you think, Inspector, that he will go straight after this?"

Bulrose, who appeared to be having some difficulty in controlling his facial muscles, managed to do no more than nod. And the pretty young lady, pressing the ten-shilling note into the Cavalier's numbed hand, walked swiftly away.

Then Detective-Inspector Bulrose really got down to business, so that butlers passing by in charge of lapdogs envied him.

"Strike me pink!" he gasped.

Laughing with that profound relish which comes but too rarely in this vale of sorrow, he very nearly choked.

"I wouldn't have missed that," he gasped, "for all the beer in the world. Good as a play, to hear the Cavalier of the Streets being told off for being a bad boy from seeing too many gangster pictures. Which do you like best, Percy, the ones where the villain repents and goes straight for love of a nice pure girl? (concluded on page 52) Crooked Coronet (continued from page 35) Superintendent Crust may almost forgive Lady Quorn getting you off when he hears that the biggest crook in London was tipped ten bob to get himself a decent meal."

The hawklike man, staring down at the ten-shilling note in his hand with a queer smile, said not a word. The taxi which Bulrose had hailed, was still with them.

"Jerwantme?" said the taxi-driver.

"What's that?" said Bulrose, wiping away his tears.

"Jerwantme," said the taxi-driver, "or not?"

The Inspector gave him a shilling with a friendly wave of the hand, told the Cavalier to be a good boy in future and see as few gangster films as possible, and, grinning broadly, strode away towards Vine Street to tell his friend, Inspector Mussel, the joke.

The taxi-driver, who had been fumbling energetically with his gears while the Inspector was departing, now desisted and looked sympathetically at the silent figure on the curb.

"Poor old Waggers," he said. "But the main point is that we've got the stuff. It was pretty neat, the way you handed it to me just after I drove up."

The Cavalier, coming suddenly to life, twitched an eyebrow.

"And to think," he said, "I've lived to be called Percy by a flatfooted dick."

But there was a gleam in his dark eyes which might have given Inspector Bulrose food for thought rather than matter for laughter. Approaching so near the taxi-driver in his seat that there was no space between their arms, he whispered quickly:

"Hand it back, Pullman."

His obedient subordinate, doing his best to hide his curiosity by whistling, slipped a somewhat bulky handkerchief into the other's hand. The Cavalier, his back to the house behind him, slipped it into his breast pocket.

"Put the car away," he said, "and come to the flat about six. And for pity's sake get yourself a decent shave."

As the taxi-driver indignantly changed gears he saw, to his astonishment, his chief mounting the broad steps to Lady Quorn's house.

• • •

"I wondered," said Lady Quorn, "if you would come back."

"I can only hope you have missed me. I have," he said, "a bone to pick with you, Lady Quorn."

"Oh, what ingratitude! And after the trouble I went to persuading Miss Gubbins to make no charge against you for the horrible crime of blackmail."

"I don't know how," he said, "to thank you--or forgive you. For entirely owing to you, I have been called Percy by a policeman."

"If you wish," she said. "I will write to the Commissioner and complain on your behalf."

"Are you positive," he said, "that you haven't any complaints to make on your own? Better look in the mirror, Lady Quorn."

Her level eyes rested on him for a long second before she turned to the looking-glass over the fireplace.

"I see," she murmured; her reflection in the mirror looking gravely at him.

He was thoughtfully fingering the rope of pearls he had extracted from the handkerchief the taxi-driver had returned to him. He held them out to her. She made no movement, her shoulder to him, still gazing at him in the mirror.

"So all that blackmail business," she said, "was just so much nonsense--an excuse to get into my house?"

"Let us call it a background. It was quite sincere. I disapproved of you, Lady Quorn, and I told you why. I only steal from people I disapprove of."

"And give the proceeds to charity?"

"Well, not quite. But I do, I fancy, give as much as any other Christian. You see how modest I am?"

"And why are you returning my pearls?"

"I told you," he said, "that I only stole from people I disapproved of."

"And you have ceased to disapprove?"

"Oh no. But I disapprove of your husband even more for being, as he must be, such an unattractive, useless and silly man as not to be able to keep the affections of a woman like Sheila Quorn."

"I should like to think, then, that you are returning the pearls because you like me?"

"Yes. And also," he said, "because they are false."

"It was clever of you," he added, absently fingering the pearls, "to slip that check into the pocket of an accomplished thief. My vanity is quite concerned, Lady Quorn. How did you do it?"

"Dear me, Cavalier, at one moment you were so near to me that I feared you were about to kiss me."

"And then you would have slapped my face?"

"Oh, it is only frightened women who make small points."

He let the pearls drop with a small crash on to the table, and walked towards the door.

"Cavalier," she said, "would you have returned the pearls if they had been real?"

"I am afraid so," he said from the door. "Is it necessary for me to tell you why? Good-bye, Lady Quorn. But should your husband ever miss his pearl studs, you will know that my disapproval of a complaisant husband has reached its limit."

His hand was on the door-knob.

"My friend," she said, "I have just realized that I know so little about you. Are you, by any chance, engaged or married?"

As he turned from the door he saw she was pressing the bell.

"I am ringing," she said, "for tea."

"For each and every time," he said, "I shall charge you one hundred pounds."