About noon on the same day which Jean and her husband spent so happily together by the Devon sea, two men of about thirty-five met in the cosy little American bar of a well-known London hotel.

Both were wealthy Americans, smartly dressed in summer tweeds, and wore soft felt hats of American shape.

One, a tall, thin, hard-faced man, who had been drinking a cocktail and chatting with the barmaid while awaiting his friend, turned as the other entered, and in his pronounced American accent exclaimed:

“Halloa, boy! Thought you weren’t coming. Say, you’re late.”

The other—dark, clean-shaven, with a broad brow, and rather good-looking—grasped his friend’s hand and ordered a drink. Then, tossing it off at one gulp, he walked with his friend into the adjoining smoking-room, where they could be alone.

“What’s up?” asked the newcomer, in a low, eager voice.

“Look here, Hoggan, my boy,” exclaimed the taller of the two to the newcomer, “I’m glad you’ve come along. I ’phoned you to your hotel at half-past ten, but you were out. It seems there’s trouble over that game of poker you played with those two boys in Knightsbridge last night. They’ve been to the police, so you’d better clear out at once.”

“The police!” echoed the other, his dark brows knit. “Awkward, isn’t it?”

“Very. You go, old chap. Get across the Channel as quick as ever you can, or I guess you’ll have some unwelcome visitors. Don’t go back to the hotel. Abandon your traps, and clear out right away.”

Silas P. Hoggan, the man with the broad brow, had no desire to make further acquaintance with the police. As a cosmopolitan adventurer he had lived for the past six years a life of remarkable experiences in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Rome. He posed as a financier, and had matured many schemes for public companies in all the capitals—companies formed to exploit all sorts of enterprises, all of which, however, had placed money in his pocket.

Two years before he had been worth thirty thousand pounds, the proceeds of various crooked businesses. At that moment he had been in San Francisco, when, by an unlucky mischance, a scheme of his had failed, ingenious as it was, and now he found himself living in an expensive hotel in London, with scarcely sufficient to settle his hotel bill.

Since the day when he had stolen those notes from the coat pocket of his accomplice, and locked him in the trap so that the police should arrest him, and thus give him time to escape—for Silas P. Hoggan and Ralph Ansell were one and the same person—things had prospered with him, and he had cultivated an air of prosperous refinement, in order to move in the circle of high finance.

After his escape across the Seine, he had sought refuge in the house of a friend in the Montmartre, where he had dried the soddened bank-notes and turned them into cash. Then, after a week, he had taken the night rapide to Switzerland, and thence to Germany, where in Berlin he had entered upon financial undertakings in partnership with a “crook” from Chicago. Their first venture was the exploiting of a new motor tyre, out of which they made a huge profit, although the patent was afterwards found to be worthless. Then they moved to Russia, and successively to Austria, to Denmark, and then across to the States.

Losses, followed by gains, had compelled him of late to adopt a more certain mode of living, until now he found himself in London, staying at one of its best hotels—for like all his class he always patronised the best hotel and ate the best that money could buy—and earning a precarious living by finding “pigeons to pluck,” namely, scraping up acquaintanceship with young men about town and playing with them games of chance.

As a card-sharper, Silas P. Hoggan was an expert. Among the fraternity “The American” was known as a clever crook, a man who was a past-master in the art of bluff.

Yet his friend’s warning had thoroughly alarmed him.

The circumstance which had been recalled was certainly an ugly one.

He had found his victims there, in a swell bar, as he had often found them. About many of the London hotels and luxuriously appointed restaurants and fashionable meeting places are always to be seen young men of wealth and leisure who are easy prey to the swindler, the blackmailer, or the sharper—the vultures of society.

A chance acquaintanceship, the suggestion of an evening at cards, a visit to a theatre, with a bit of supper afterwards at an hotel, was, as might be expected, followed by a friendly game at the rooms of the elder of the two lads at Knightsbridge.

Hoggan left at three o’clock that morning with one hundred and two pounds in his pocket in cash and notes, and four acceptances of one hundred pounds each, drawn by the elder of the two victims.

Five hundred pounds for one evening’s play was not a bad profit, yet Hoggan never dreamed that the London police were already upon his track.

What his friend had suggested was the best way out of the difficulty. As he had so often done before he must once again burn his boats and clear.

The outlook was far too risky. Yet he was filled with chagrin. In the circumstances, the acceptances were useless.

“I shall want money,” he remarked.

“Well, boy, I guess I haven’t any cash-money to spare just at the moment, as you know,” replied his accomplice. “We’ve been hard hit lately. I’m sorry we came across on this side.”

“Our luck’s out,” Hoggan declared despondently, as he selected a cigarette from his case and lit it. “What about little Lady Michelcoombe? She ought to be good for a bit more.”

“I’ll try, if you like, boy. But for Heaven’s sake clear out of this infernal city, or you’ll go to jail sure,” urged Edward Patten, his friend.

“Where shall I go, Ted? What’s your advice?”

“Get over to Calais or Ostend, or by the Hook into Holland. Then slip along to some quiet spot, and let me know where you are. Lie low until I send you some oof. You can go on for a week or so, can’t you?”

“For a fortnight.”

“Good. Meanwhile, I’ll touch her ladyship for a bit more.”

“Yes. She’s a perfect little gold-mine, isn’t she?”

“Quite. We’ve had about four thousand from her already, and we hope to get a bit more.”

“You worked the game splendidly, Ted,” Hoggan declared. “What fools some women are.”

“And you acted the part of lover perfectly, too. That night when I caught you two together on the terrace at Monte Carlo—you remember? She was leaning over the balustrade, looking out upon the moonlit sea, and you were kissing her. Then I caught you at supper later, and found that you were staying at the hotel where she was staying. All very compromising for her, eh? When I called on her a week afterwards, and suggested that she could shut my mouth for a consideration, I saw in a moment that she was in deadly fear lest her husband should know. But I was unaware that her husband had no idea that she had been to Monte, but believed her to be staying with her sister near Edinburgh.”

“She’s paid pretty dearly for flirting with me,” remarked Silas P. Hoggan with a grin.

“Just as one or two others have, boy. Say, do you recollect that ugly old widow in Venice? Je-hu! what a face! And didn’t we make her cough up, too—six thousand!”

“I’m rather sorry for the Michelcoombe woman,” remarked Hoggan. “She’s a decent little sort.”

“Still believes in you, boy, and looks upon me as a skunk. She has no idea that you and I are in partnership,” he laughed. “We’ll get a thousand or two more out of her yet. Fortunately, she doesn’t know the exact extent of my knowledge of her skittish indiscretions. Say, we struck lucky when we fell in with her, eh?”

Hoggan reflected. It was certainly a cruel trick to have played upon a woman. They had met casually in the Rooms at Monte Carlo, then he had contrived to chat with her, invited her to tea at a famous cafÉ, strolled with her, dined with her, and within a week had so fascinated her with his charming manner that she had fallen in love with him, the result being that Patten, who had watched the pair, suddenly came upon them, and afterwards demanded hush-money, which he divided with his friend.

Such instances of blackmail are much more frequent than are supposed. There is a class of low-down adventurer who haunts the gayer resorts of Europe, ever on the look-out for young married women who have been ordered abroad for the benefit of their health, and whose husbands, on account of their social, Parliamentary, or business duties, cannot accompany them.

Hunting in couples, they mark down a victim, and while one, giving himself the airs of wealth, and assuming a title, proceeds to flirt with the lady, the other carefully watches. Too often a woman at the gay watering-places of Europe finds the gaiety infectious and behaves indiscreetly; too often she flirts with the good-looking young stranger until, suddenly surprised in compromising circumstances, she realises that her husband must never know, and is filled with fear lest he may discover how she has allowed herself to be misled.

Then comes the blackmailer’s chance. A hint that it would be better to pay than court exposure generally has the desired effect, with the result that the woman usually pawns what jewellery she possesses, and pays up.

Many an unfortunate woman, though perfectly innocent of having committed any wrong, has paid up, and even been driven to suicide rather than allow the seeds of suspicion to be sown in her husband’s heart.

It was so in Lady Michelcoombe’s case. She was a sweet little woman, daughter of a well-known earl, and married to Viscount Michelcoombe, a man of great wealth, with a house in Grosvenor Square and four country seats. Already the pair of adventurers had compelled her to pawn some of her jewels and hand them the proceeds. She was quite innocent of having committed any wrong, yet she dreaded lest her husband’s suspicions might be excited, and had no desire that he should learn that she had deceived him by going to Monte Carlo instead of to her sister’s. The real reason was that she liked the gaiety and sunshine of the place, while her husband strongly disapproved of it.

Certainly her clandestine visit had cost her dear.

“Well,” exclaimed Hoggan, the perfect lover, “you’d better see her ladyship as soon as possible. Guess she’s still in London, eh?”

“I’ll ring up later on and ask the fat old butler. But you clear out right away, boy. There’s no time to lose. Write to me at the Poste Restante in the Strand. Don’t write here, the police may get hold of my mail.”

“If her ladyship turns on you, I guess you’ll have to look slick.”

“Bah! No fear of that, sonny. We’ve got her right there.”

“You can’t ever be sure where a woman is concerned. She might suddenly throw discretion to the winds, and tell her husband all about it. Then you, too, would have to clear right away.”

“Guess I should,” replied Patten. “But I don’t fear her. I mean to get another thousand out of her. Women who make fools of themselves have to pay for it.”

“Well, I must say you engineered it wonderfully,” declared Hoggan.

“And I’ll do so again with a little luck,” his friend declared. “Come and have another cocktail, and then shake the dust of this infernal city off your feet. Every time you have a drink things look different.”

The two men passed into the inner room, where the bar was situated, and after a final Martini each, went out together into the handsome hall of the hotel.

“Wal, so long, old pal! Clear out right away,” whispered Patten, as he shook his friend’s hand.

And next moment Silas P. Hoggan passed across the courtyard and into the busy Strand, once more a fugitive from justice.