Page:The Duke Decides (1904).djvu/35

 flesh resembled none of them. A snowy beard covered the lower half of his face, drooping over his chest, but the puffy cheeks were visible, and their full purple hue betokened some cutaneous affection. The eyes were shaded by blue glasses.

“You are the person sent by Jevons from New York?” he began in his parrot-like tones. “Good! What is your name? For the moment I have forgotten it, and I cannot lay my hand on the cablegram relating to you.”

Encouraged by the feeble senility of one whom he had expected to find a tower of strength—a grim, inscrutable being with an inscrutable manner—the Duke was confirmed in his intention to preserve the secret of his rank.

“My name is Charles Hanbury,” he answered, boldly.

But an awakening, instant and complete, was in store for him. The words were hardly out of his mouth when Mr. Ziegler coughed a signal, and three masked men rushed upon him from the adjoining bedroom, pinioning his arms and stifling his sudden cry of alarm.

“What shall we do with him, sir?” asked one of the men.