It struck me even then that the moment Mrs. Cunningham's name was introduced there was introduced also something of that sex-antagonism—perhaps I had better modify that and say sex-difference—for which her personal story had given her such bitter reason. Here now was Mollie, suddenly and in the middle of our tÊte-À-tÊte, abolishing me as an individual and saddling me with the collective qualities of men in general. And I must remind you once more that as a matter of mere historical sequence I was still unaware of what had passed between her and Philip on that night when she had put Audrey Cunningham to bed, and Monty had spent half the night in wandering through the dark Roehampton lanes.

"Well, let's take it that we're funny," I said rather shortly. "I don't quite see the joke myself, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that if I can do Monty a good turn I want to. Whether patching it up between him and Mrs. Cunningham is a good turn is for you to decide. I only met her once in my life, and hardly exchanged a dozen words with her."

"You shall presently if I can lay my hands on her."

"What do you mean? That you're going to have her down here?"

"Of course I'm going to have her down here if she can come," said Mollie in her most matter-of-fact tones. "How slowly you think! She must come immediately. I shall see about it this afternoon mÊme."

"And Rooke too?"

"We'll see about that."

"And Hubbard? And Mackwith?"

"No. What have they got to do with it?"

"Merely to make the party complete. We should be just where we started then."

"Oh, I think we can dispense with that side of it," she answered lightly. "Let me see: was it Harrogate? It was Buxton, and then Matlock, and then either Harrogate or Scarboro...."

I wonder whether the surmise has dawned on you that was now beginning to dawn on me? I admit that I had none but the very slightest grounds for it, and that even these were more exclusions than affirmations; but in the absence of anything more positive they had to serve. Think for a moment how we men, solemnly, ponderously and sure that we were doing the decent thing, had decided that at all costs certain facts of our Case should be kept from the womenfolk. To that end we had evaded, temporized, shuffled. And now suppose—just suppose—that all our care and concealment had been wasted, and that two of the women at any rate knew as much as Philip Esdaile knew and far, far more than any of the rest of us? Mind you, I was only guessing; but I began rather to fancy my guess. If there was little for it, I could see nothing against it. Certain things, moreover, were distinctly in its favor. Why this remarkable brightening in Mollie's manner, this change from her dizzy little stagger over those strips of inverted sky when I had first produced that ring to her air of lightsome raillery now? Why this quick instinctive taking of sex-sides, this sudden practical decision to seek out Audrey Cunningham this very day and to have her down to Santon? It was not the ring at all; it was—could only be—the place in which the ring had been found. Always, always we came back to that hole in the studio floor at which Philip's eye could not possibly have been at the moment of the crash that May morning. Somewhere between the hole and the cellar the elusive explanation lay. I had been thwarted, Mackwith knew nothing about it, and Hubbard could only grunt and mumble about periscopes and sound-ranging and selenium cells; but Mollie, I was persuaded, knew.

And what I had just told her, which she had not hitherto known, was that Audrey Cunningham shared the knowledge with her.

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