CHAPTER

HILARY SLOANE WAS BY NATURE an extravagant and luxurious little person. She could rough it uncomplainingly on occasion, but when opportunity offered she preferred to be comfortable. So it was that, aided and abetted by Nora Dring, she invested in first-class tickets after they left Jimmie Silverdale—lavishness all the more fascinating because they could not really afford them.

      They found that they had, after all, ample time to settle themselves comfortably before the train started. Nora bought two or three illustrated papers and fumbled with them as she maintained a conversation that both at first strove to keep as commonplace as though they were merely leaving London on a holiday. Nora Dring was, however, in spite of many masculine qualities, a woman. The repression of curiosity was hateful to her.

      "I rather like your Mr. Silverdale," she observed.

      "He has been very good to us," agreed Hilary. Nora leaned back with feline grace. She had the pussy-cat habit of physical comfort. From under her long, silky eye-lashes she regarded her companion steadily.

      "What were you talking about before I came down this morning?"

      Hilary turned over the pages of the magazine in her lap. "Oh, things," she retorted vaguely.

      Outside a whistle blew and the train began to draw out from the station. Nora drew a morocco case from her hand bag, selected a delicately scented cigarette and, with a graceful gesture of her slim, white hand, applied a light. She gave a few tentative puffs and gazed after the smoke rings as they disappeared to the roof.

      "He must have thought everything very mysterious," she commented.

      Hilary folded her magazine and laid it on the seat beside her. She began to appreciate the drift of Nora Is questioning and whither it might lead. Nora Dring had been her friend for a long time, but she had come to realize in this last day or two that people may be intimately associated with each other for long periods without in the least understanding each other's personality.

      "He probably did," she fenced.

      "I'm wondering what he knew-what he asked you," went on Nora. "It wasn't like you to fall into a faint." She blew on the red end of her cigarette and watched the ash flutter away. Then her eyes turned to her friend.

      Hilary flushed, but met the gaze of the other girl squarely. "I flatter myself I worked that stunt rather well," she said flippantly. "Do you know, Nora, all this kind of thing reminds me of a picture-palace drama. I just carried out the atmosphere. It was the right thing for the distressed heroine to faint at that moment. Some little actress—what!"

      Two thin, hard lines appeared between Nora's brows. "That's all nonsense," she said brusquely. "This superficial cynicism does not impose on me. I want to hear how much Jimmie Silverdale knows. Don't play with me, Hilary. Let's have this out. I'm not a child and I'm not going to be led blindfold any longer." She threw her cigarette away and ground her heel on it viciously. Her lips were set resolutely and there was more than a suggestion in her voice of a schoolmistress lecturing a stubborn child.

      "Don't be silly," Hilary laughed, but there was resentment in her gray eyes. "You agreed to leave matters to me. Let me manage this."

      Nora shifted to the seat beside her and caught her hand. "Forgive me, Hilary, but I must know." Her voice had lost its menaciug accent and was coaxing, persuasive. "Do you remember when we were a pair of silly little flappers together that we swore we'd never have secrets from one another as long as we lived?"

      "Did we? I suppose we've carried out that compact—more or less!" There was no missing the irony in Hilary's voice. "You have had no secrets from me all this time. I can make allowances, Nora, but you are putting a strain on my loyalty to you." She flung out a hand impulsively. "Aren't there any questions I should like to ask you—questions burning in my brain even now. I want to know—" she checked herself.

      Nora withdrew, white-lipped. "What?" she demanded.

      "Oh, nothing. Let's drop the subject."

      "I will not. I'm going to thrash this thing out. You have been talking to Mr. Silverdale. He has questioned you. He knows something. I know this, Hilary—you are in love with him. You appealed to him for help, and he is using you for some purpose. You are just a silly little fool!"

      Hilary stiffened a little and took the seat that Nora had vacated a few minutes before so that they were again face to face. Her Red Cross training warned her that her friend was rapidly developing all the symptoms of a form of hysteria. She had fought long with her own high spirit to restrain herself, but now the limit had been overstepped. Two spots of high, red color appeared in her cheeks.

      "Then I'll tell you," she said coldly.

      Nora leaned forward, her elbows on her knee, her chin between her cupped hands, and her eyes fixed tensely on her friend.

      "Mr. Silverdale," went on Hilary, articulating the words with vivid distinctness, "asked me what I knew of the murder of Sir Harold Saxon. It was then I fainted."

      A cold shiver shook Nora Dring from head to foot. Her face had gone ashen and she put a hand out blindly. Something like a moan escaped her lips.

      "He accused you of the murder?"

      "He warned me I was suspected," said Hilary stonily.

      "And yet—and yet he helped you—us—to get away." Nora shook herself as though to be freed from some physical affliction. "It's a trap, Hilary. He is playing with you." She fell on her knees, sobbing, and buried her face in Hilary's lap.

      A score of questions were on Hilary's lips— questions suppressed for long, but the answers to which would have supplied the key to a riddle that was torturing her. She bit them back and her hand fell gently on Nora's head. Very gently she fondled the distraught girl, murmuring little endearments that one would use to a sobbing child.

      Presently Nora rose abruptly to her feet. She had become extraordinarily calm. Her face was as impassive as though carved in stone. A complete mastery of herself had returned to her.

      "It is a trap," she repeated earnestly. "He is hand in glove with the police. He is putting us where they can lay their hands on us when they have completed their evidence."

      "I trust Mr. Silverdale, said Hilary simply. "We can separate, if you like." Yet a cold hand seemed to grip at her heart, Silverdale had told her that the detectives were linking up evidence that might implicate her. She was a woman of cool common-sense, though her apparent jaunty indifference to consequences had sometimes deluded observers. She could estimate a situation as well as most men and she realized where she stood. But she hated herself for suggesting that she should draw out.

      Nora made no answer. She thrust her head through the window and Hilary remembered later, although she was not conscious of deliberately observing it, that she seemed to make some gesture. Then she commenced to sort out her traveling impedimenta and the train drew up at a station. Hilary caught a glimpse of the name Twyford on a signboard, and then a figure darkened the window.

      "Good-morning, Miss Dring. Good-morning, Miss Sloane. None the worse for your very hurried journey, I hope?"

      Eston, bat in hand, and a dark mark on his face was opening the door, suave and smiling and sinister. Hilary shrank back in her seat.

      "You?"

      "Yes, even so humble a person as myself, Miss Sloane. I was traveling by this train, though I caught it by so narrow a margin that I had no time to seek the privilege of traveling in such pleasant company. I was a little delayed by an interview with a friend of yours, Miss Sloane—a Mr. Silverdale. Can I assist you to get your things out?"

      "Thank you," said Hilary icily. "I'mgoing on."

      A quick glance passed between Nora Dring and Eston—a glance that seemed to carry a question and answer. Nora was no longer the sobbing, distraught being of a few minutes before. Instead she was calm and business-like as she hurriedly passed the luggage out.

      "I think you had better get out here, Hilary."

      "I refuse. Nora, you'll be mad to trust this man. If you go with him, I wash my hands of the whole business."

      Eston laughed. "I'm afraid your opinion of me has changed, Miss Sloane. Let me assure you," —there was menace in his tone— "that you are going to get out here. You are too valuable to us to be allowed to go astray. You know too much—much that might be interesting to Mr. Silverdale, or the police. I propose to keep a fatherly eye on you. Now I'd hate to use force but—"

      Hilary remained unmoved, though her nerves were tense. Whatever her relations with Eston had been, there could now be no doubt that she thoroughly distrusted him.

      "I have heard a great deal about you since we last met, Mr. Eston," she said. "If you lay a finger on me, believe me, I shall not be afraid to create a scene!"

      He still wore the suave, unpleasant smile. "You will come quietly," he insisted. "Otherwise it will be embarrassing for me to explain to the station-master that you are a lady mentally afflicted, traveling in charge of Miss Dring here. Ask yourself if the officials are likely to believe any wild tale you tell."

      There was no doubt in Hilary's mind that he was bluffing and all her inclinations were to let him attempt to carry it out to the end. It was inconceivable that so barefaced an attempt at abduction could be successfully carried out in broad daylight at a railway station. But then there was another point to be considered. If the threat to force her were put into executionand now she knew that Nora would undoubtedly side with him— it would mean something more than a rather unpleasant interlude. It would attract to them an attention that she did not desire at that moment. She was in a sense a fugitive. It might lead to anything— even to a police call as a murder suspect. Better far to appear to submit until some better opportunity arose for deciding a course of action.

      She rose with a shrug of her shoulders. "I am buying experience," she said. "I'll submit. But I warn you that, after this, I hold myself free to act as I choose. Now I gave you my word of honor on certain matters. This absolves me."

      Nora Dring did not meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Hilary," she said. "Believe me, we're acting for the best. It is your interest, as well as ours."

      "You're just a pawn in this game," interposed Eston, "and pawns have to be sacrificed sometimes."

      The train glided out as soon as she had alighted. Eston hurried in search of a porter to see to the luggage and Nora busied herself, woman-fashion, in piling it into a nearer heap. Hilary extracted an envelope from her hand bag and hurriedly scrawled the wire that Silverdale was to receive some hours later. As Eston and a porter arrived, she, like Nora, fussed with the luggage, adjusting it on the hand-barrow, awaiting her opportunity. Presently she thrust the message and a ten-shilling note into the man's hand.

      "Send that for me," she said quietly. "Don't let my friends know."

      The porter nodded. "Right-oh, miss. I understand. I'll see that it goes off."

      Outside the station, a fly of the antiquated kind that can only be found in the pleasure resorts of England was waiting. Eston had, apparently, already given instructions to the driver, for the moment they had taken their seats, he drove off at a steady jog trot.

      Hilary smoothed her skirt. "Nora," she said, "since you seem to have arranged all this, perhaps you can tell me what it means. Am I a prisoner?"

      "A prisoner!" interposed Eston. "I hope you won't get that idea, Miss Sloane. Shall we not say a guest-an honored guest!"