"I dare say I can manage it," Lady Anne said doubtfully. "But I am afraid Pirnie will be offended. She is my confidential maid, you understand, and the most faithful, the most honest creature in the world. For me even to say that she is entirely beyond suspicion is absurd."
Bruce Cardyn coughed.
"Nevertheless, even the most confidential of maids must be suspect until we have discovered the guilty person. I must ask you to adhere strictly to this rule, please, Lady Anne."
"Well, well, I leave it in your hands," Lady Anne conceded. "Only make me safe, though I dare say you are thinking it is an unnecessary bother to make about an old woman."
The detective got up.
"I will safeguard your life as I would have done my own mother's, Lady Anne."
He took a few steps up the room looking grave and preoccupied.
"Of course it is my duty to tell you that it is my opinion that the only way to make you absolutely safe is for you to leave this house, letting no one know where you go or how long you will be away, taking no one with you, and of course not returning until we have discovered the identity of the would-be assassin."
"Oh, I couldn't do that," Lady Anne said in her most positive tone. "My good man, I have long since given up going away for change of air, as they call it. I can get all the change of air that I want in London, and an invalid is best by her own fireside. So, if you cannot make me safe here—" Her gesture was expressive.
"I feel no doubt but that we shall be able to do so," Bruce Cardyn said quickly, "only I was bound to lay the other possibility before you."
Something like a grim smile passed over Lady Anne's countenance.
"Well, you have put it before me and I refuse to have anything to do with it; therefore the responsibility is off your shoulders. In an hour, then, I shall expect you, Mr. Cardyn. By the way, under what name shall you pass as my secretary?"
"Oh, Cardyn, please," the detective said at once. "Of course, in any mention of our work officially, we are called by the name of the firm, and even that is not as well-known to the criminal classes as I should like it to be."
"As you wish." Lady Anne touched the bell and the footman appeared to show Cardyn out.
The detective glanced at him keenly. "A young man from the country," he decided.
Soames, the butler, was hovering about in the hall, a benevolent-looking, elderly man, whose bland face and dignified, stately manner might have been those of a Bishop or a Minister of State.
Cardyn took a taxi back to his office. As he let himself in with a key his partner looked out of the adjoining room—a keen-faced, clean-shaven man, a few years older than Cardyn.
"Well!"
"Well!" Cardyn responded in a non-committal voice.
The other laughed.
"Is it to be you or me?"
"Me, I think!" Cardyn's voice was firm. "For the reason I told you I wish to undertake the work."
Chapter III
"Monsieur Melange is with her ladyship, sir."
"Monsieur Melange!" Bruce Cardyn repeated with a doubtful glance at Soames's placid face.
"The French gentleman to see the miniatures, sir," the butler went on, his manner as gravely respectful to the secretary as though the young man had been Squire Daventry himself. Soames's manners were always perfect. Somehow he conveyed the impression that they were something demanded by his self-respect, and quite irrespective of the person whom he was addressing.
"Yes, sir. His lordship and Lady Barminster are coming to lunch. They are coming over with Miss Fyvert and Mr. John Daventry."
"Is that so? Mr. Daventry is Squire Daventry of the Keep, isn't he?" Bruce questioned.
"Yes, sir. Though it seems strange to think of him there, and the old Squire and both his sons gone."
"Oh, well, times change and we change with them," Bruce said as he went on.
The butler looked after him with an indulgent smile. Bruce Cardyn in his character as secretary had been a week at the house in Charlton Crescent, and he appeared to be gaining golden opinions from the household, including the mistress. There was something so boyish and attractive about his personality. It is probable that the dignified Soames would have received the shock of his life if he had been told that the young man was a private detective. But so far Bruce Cardyn was obliged to confess to himself that he was not making the progress he had hoped for.
He went straight to Lady Anne's sitting-room. He did most of his work in the room adjoining, and it was here, as he expected, that he found her with her visitor.
Monsieur Melange was not an imposing looking person. He was not very tall, and looked shorter by reason of his bowed shoulders; he had a shock of grey hair that was longer than English fashion allowed, and his round glasses were smoke-tinted. His voice, as Cardyn caught it, was soft and pleasantly modulated, and though he apparently spoke English well it was with a French turn of expression, and a particularly foreign accent.
"Yes, my Lady Anne," he was saying as Bruce closed the door, "it is a very fine one by Coros—Philippe Coros who died in 1754, and painted many of the beauties of the pre-Revolution period."
He laid the miniature on the table before him as he spoke, a table on which were arranged several boxes and cases.
"Yes. We have quite a collection of Philippe Coros' work. They are supposed to be rather characteristic specimens, but I shall leave Mr. Cardyn to show them to you," Lady Anne said, as she got up, helping herself by the table and her walking-stick. "If you want further information I shall be in my room until lunch, Mr. Cardyn."
Bruce Cardyn helped her to her usual seat near the window, then, closing the door, came back to Monsieur Melange.
That gentleman during his absence had undergone a momentary metamorphosis. He had taken off his smoked glasses, pushed back the grey wig, and the tone in which he spoke to Cardyn as he laid the miniature back in the case had lost all trace of accent.
"Well, made any discoveries?" he questioned, his voice easily recognizable now as that of Frederick Misterton, the senior partner in the firm of Wilkins and Alleyn.
Bruce Cardyn took the chair opposite.
"Nothing! A faint suspicion I entertained has been done away with by the fact that there is no motive. Nay, if there was any motive it would seem to be the other way—rather to keep Lady Anne alive. You have got the information I wanted?"
"Yes. The person principally benefiting by Lady Anne's death would undoubtedly be John Daventry, as you said. Most of the Daventry money which was left to her as the Squire's wife will revert to the head of the house at her death, the rest goes to the heirs of his daughter, Marjorie, should there be any. I have made a few inquiries about the young man, who only succeeded after the death of his cousins, Lady Anne's sons. He distinguished himself by great personal bravery during the war, gaining the D.S.O. and being mentioned in despatches. After his return and accession to the estate, there was some talk of wild oats and it was rumoured that he was heavily in debt, but of late he is reported to have turned over a new leaf. It is said that there is an understanding with Miss Dorothy Fyvert, Lady Anne's