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Rh "At any rate, you've got to have something to eat right away. Where's the larder?"

Tuppence directed him, and he returned in a few minutes with a cold pie and three plates.

After a hearty meal, the girl felt inclined to pooh-pooh her fancies of half an hour before. The power of the money bribe could not fail.

"And now, Miss Tuppence," said Sir James, "we want to hear your adventures."

"That's so," agreed Julius.

Tuppence narrated her adventures with some complacence. Julius occasionally interjected an admiring "Bully." Sir James said nothing until she had finished, when his quiet "well done, Miss Tuppence," made her flush with pleasure.

"There's one thing I don't get clearly," said Julius. "What put her up to clearing out?"

"I don't know," confessed Tuppence.

Sir James stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"The room was in great disorder. That looks as though her flight was unpremeditated. Almost as though she got a sudden warning to go from some one."

"Mr. Brown, I suppose," said Julius scoffingly.

The lawyer looked at him deliberately for a minute or two.

"Why not?" he said. "Remember, you yourself have once been worsted by him."

Julius flushed with vexation.

"I feel just mad when I think of how I handed out Jane's photograph to him like a lamb. Gee, if I ever