V

ANTICLIMAX

The surprise was complete; none, indeed, was ever more so; but it's a question which party thereto was the more affected.

Lanyard stared with the eyes of stupefaction. To his fancy, this thing passed the compass of simple incredulity: it wasn't merely improbable, it was preposterous; it was anticlimax exaggerated to the proportions of the grotesque.

He had come prepared to surprise and bully rag the most astute police detective of whom he had any knowledge; he found himself surprised and discountenanced by this …!

Confusion no less intense informed the girl's expression; her eyes were fixed to his with a look of blank enquiry; her face, whose colouring had won his admiration two hours since, was colourless; her lips were just ajar; the fingers of one hand touched her cheek, indenting it.

The other hand caught up before her the long skirts of a pretty robe-de-chambre, beneath whose edge a hand's-breadth of white silk shimmered and the toe of a silken mule was visible. Thus she stood, poised for flight, attired only in a dressing-gown over what, one couldn't help suspecting, was her night-dress: for her hair was down, and she was unquestionably all ready for her bed.…

But Bourke's patient training had been wasted if this