CHAPTER

A PUNT SHOT OUT from the dappled shadow of willows fringing the backwater and slid slowly by a solitary flower-covered house-boat. It was a house-boat such as may be seen on almost any reach of the Thames in summer, with its upper deck fringed with geraniums and calceolarias, its windows daintily curtained and a flanneled figure lounging in a deck chair. It lay hidden from the main stream, yet not so far away but that it was easily accessible.

      The man in the deck chair dropped his book and yawned. As he stretched himself, however, a close observer might have seen that he never took his eyes from the punt until it disappeared round the bend. A few seconds later, a double-oared rowing skiff appeared from the opposite direction and moored inconspicuously some two hundred yards from the house-boat; so inconspicuously that it would scarce be noticed from the latter craft through the green promontory behind which it sheltered, unless one were looking for it. The man on the house-boat frowned.

      "They're at work," he muttered. "I was a blamed fool to give the show away, as I did. We've been under observation for the last three hours. Well, we'll see."

      He rose languidly and entered the little saloon in which two girls were seated. Hilary was reading and Nora was bending over a watercolor sketch. Both looked up as he entered.

      "Well, ladies," he observed, "you will be sorry to learn that your stay in this idyllic spot is drawing to a close. As a humble old friend of mine used to remark: 'The 'ounds is out.'"

      A light of apprehension leapt into Nora's green eyes. "The police—" she began.

      He nodded. "Our worthy friends from Scotland Yard reinforced, no doubt, by the alert mind of our young friend Silverdale are on to us. They have got us picketed and are playing a waiting game just now. I fancy they are not quite sure enough to pounce. If you go outside, Miss Dring, and look carefully to the right, you will see a boat near the bank with two men in it."

      Nora rose with a swish of skirts and passed out, a charming figure in white, to view the watchers in their seclusion. Eston turned with a smile to Hilary. "This rather forces my hand, Miss Sloane. It will be awkward if they should take it into their heads to try to effect an arrest. "

      Hilary placed one hand at the back of her neck and looked up at him. She was all in white—a picture of summer. A hint of amusement flickered round her lips. "Yes," she answered placidly. "I suppose it would be awkward—for you. I don't see why you should drag me into your sudden upheaval of conscience."

      "My dear young lady," he said suavely. "You know as well as I do that if I stood aside and let matters take their course, you would be in peril of a very alarming experience. Do you realize that you are suspected of the murder of Sir Harold Saxon? Do you understand?"

      The girl smiled, a half-mocking, cynical smile. "I understand—that," she said. "There are lots of things I don't understand. Why, for instance, you should take such a very great interest in a comparative stranger—so great an interest that you abduct me and make me a prisoner on this boat. I know that you employ men to watch me night and day. is this just pure altruism on your part to help a suspected murderess to escape, or what? It has been a quaint little episode and I've enough of the gypsy in me to have enjoyed it in a sense, but I'm a little tired of it now. Really, I'm not afraid of the police—are you?"

      There was challenge in her gray eyes—a contemptuous challenge which somehow worried him. Threats, tears, entreaties—he would have known how to meet them, but this cool, nonchalant attitude was calculated to disconcert even so adroit a man as Eston.

      "You're a cool hand," he said admiringly. "Jove, what a pair we should make—you and I together, Hilary. We'd have the world at our feet."

      "You flatter me," she said scornfully.

      "I mean it, " he declared earnestly. "Hilary, you're in a tight corner. There is not a soul on earth that you can rely on to get you out except myself. I know that you have probably got some lingering sentiment in your mind for that newspaper fellow—for Jimmie Silverdale. Put him out of your mind. He doesn't amount to anything and he's hand in glove with Scotland Yard. Don't," his voice sunk to an impressive whisper, "don't under-estimate what you're up against if you don't stand in with me. At the best it's a shameful notoriety—every catch-penny rag in the country yelping at you as the woman suspected of murdering Saxon; at the worst an ignominious death. Marry me, Hilary, and play the game with me—the big, bold game that we'll pull off together. It'syour only chance, girl!"

      Whether he was acting or not, he seemed terribly in earnest. He seized her hand, and at the physical contact she sprang to her feet, wrenching herself free. Her eyes were blazing but she held herself well under command. She realized that it would be a fatal error in tactics to lose her temper.

      "You will keep your hands off me," she ordered sharply.

      "Forgive me," he muttered silkily. "I am not responsible for myself when I am in your presence, Hilary. You madden me—I want you—"

      "That will do," she broke in. "I don't know which I dislike most—your love-making or your veiled threats. I'm not a child, Mr. Eston. In future, you will keep your bands from me. I'm in your power for the moment but a time will come—" She broke off and trilled with a merry burst of laughter. "Oh, I'm talking like the heroine in a melodrama. Yet I don't see why not. This is all sheer melodrama and you make an admirable villain. If you'd only tell me what it is all about—but leave out my Christian name, please. I have a prejudice in favor of that being used only by friends of my own sex."

      He took a glance through the muslin curtains across the cool sheen of the river and made up his mind to play his hand for all it was worth. "You said just now that you were not afraid of the police. Do you mean that?"

      "Mean it? Of course I mean it. Why shouldn't I?"

      "You accuse me of keeping you a prisoner,' he went on quietly. "You say I've abducted you and am holding you against your will. Very well. The police are there,"—he pointed across the river—"close at hand, well within earshot. You have only to raise your voice and you will bring them here."

      It was an audacious move, for Eston knew there was more than a chance she would take him at his word. She regarded him for a couple of seconds without replying. He had dared her and she was inclined to take him at his word. Yet though she would not have cared to admit it, the possibility of what might follow a cry daunted her.

      "No," she said. "I will not."

      His laugh rang through the little saloon—a laugh, as it seemed to her, half of mockery, half of relief. "No, of course you won't," he sneered. "Shall I tell you why you won't? You realize that what I have told you of its meaning is true."

      She regarded him a little speculatively, her head poised sideways, her lips parted in a half smile. Something of this sort she bad foreseen and she was well on her guard. For all the emotion she displayed they might have been engaged in some half-playful academic discussion. "My dear man," she countered and her voice -was steady, "you are trying to frighten me with bogeys. I am not a child."

      "No, you are not a child. I'll do you that credit—you are certainly not a child. You are playing a deep game, my dear, for all your naive eyes and pink and white complexion. But you overlook one fact in this business—I hold the ace of trumps."

      "Really?" she lifted her eyebrows in mock surprise.

      "Yes, Miss Sloane, I hold you—ah," he hesitated a second as though to add emphasis to his next words. "I beg your pardon, perhaps I should not address you as Miss Sloane."

      "If you must address me at all I see no reason why you shouldn't. To be frank, you rather bore me; I'd rather you were dangerous than a bore." She swung a white shoe idly to and fro. "Your ace of trumps will fail you, you know."

      "I think not," he declared. "If you will continue to push your head in the sand I must disillusion you as to what I know—and what the police probably know. I apologized for calling you Miss Sloane just now. Should I have said —Lady Saxon?"

      Hilary Sloane's foot came abruptly to the floor. Astonishment, bewilderment was in her face. "Lady Saxon," she repeated.

      His lean fingers were drumming steadily on the tablecloth, while he studied her face searchingly. "Why not?" he asked calmly. "Legally and technically I think you are entitled to the name. I must congratulate you on your attitude at this moment. You are a picture of innocent astonishment. Did anyone ever tell you that you have all the qualities of a consummate actress? If I were not sure—if I did not have definite proof—you would almost shake my faith in myself."

      She laughed. "So I'm Lady Saxon, am I! This is your ace of trumps. I suppose this explains your vivid and paternal interest in me? I am sorry I called you a bore. Your qualities of imagination are sometimes entertaining. Please continue."

      "I willp" he said grimly. "You married Harold Saxon when he was a nonentity. For some reason you lived apart when he came to this country to build up a fortune as well as a title. You will probably be interested to a large extent in the fortune he acquired. Let me be blunt. Whether you live to enjoy it or not depends upon me, upon my silence and upon my aid."

      "Isee." She was still smiling. "I am Lady Saxon, I am a murderess. I am likely to inherit a huge fortune. That's what it all comes to, doesn't it?"

      "Put it that way, if you like."

      She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. "Do you know what an accessory after the fact is, Mr. Eston? " He scowled at her. Without waiting for a reply, she went on. "It is very noble of you to risk penal servitude in your endeavor to shield me—a widow with a past, a murderess!"

      "Let's have done with this nonsense," he said peremptorily.

      "It's not nonsense, I'm just analyzing the position. You want to marry me. Surely I am entitled to consider things? It would be an injustice to saddle so chivalrous a man as yourself with a sordid, wretched woman such as I. Don't you agree with me? And yet I see no way for you to acquire the money without me. It's a problem, isn't it?"

      Eston studied her doubtfully. His cleverness, all of the many years experience of human nature which he had gained failed him in his attempt to diagnose what was at the back of the girl's mind. She had him guessing—and he was a man who hated to be in doubt.

      "Does that mean that you climb down?— that you are agreeing to marry me after all?"

      She swept him a low curtsy. "It means," she said, "that, much though I appreciate your generous offer, I must decline with thanks."

      He turned abruptly on his heel and swung round again as he reached the doorway, with an expression not pleasant to see.

      "I'll have you on your knees yet, whining for me to lift a finger. We'll see who's top dog and don't you forget it! Meanwhile, you had better get ready to leave this place in half an hour."

      Her features puckered in a grimace that was lost on Eston as he closed the door.

      "Top dog," she murmured. "Yes, we'll see who does come out top dog. If I can keep my temper and my wits, I think I know who it will be."