The detective shook his head slowly, and pursed his lips. "I'm afraid not. I have my orders and my warrant, you see, and I am in no way a free agent. My personal views don't come into the thing." Honiton looked at him keenly, but with a smile of amusement. "I see," he said. "If you had only your own views to consider you would take my word for it and let me go." "Well, I-I wouldn't go so far as to say that." The detective was noticeably embarrassed. "I only wanted you to understand that as things are, I am merely the agent. There is no personal feeling in the matter at all. Every man is innocent until he is proved guilty," he added sententiously. "That is the theory, certainly," agreed Honiton. "If you propose to carry it into practice, it will make our enforced association very much more pleasant. However, let's get down to hard facts. What's the next move? "I am instructed to request you to accompany me London." 66 'And, like an invitation to Buckingham Palace, the request is tantamount to a command, eh?" He gave a desperate glance around, like a trapped animal mad for freedom; then, as he noticed the furtive look that Peter Brown cast towards the hotel entrance, he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself back upon the couch. "Of course you wouldn't come here alone," he said, with no sign of his recent excitement. "I should have known that. But about the Bedouin-isn't there any other boat that would do as well? There are people sailing by her whom I know." "I'm afraid not. You see, I am causing enough delay already by sailing all the way, and I dare not wait for the next boat. As a matter of fact, I have already booked our passages." "Assuming my acceptance of your invitation!" "Precisely. I made sure of that." "Well-er-yes, I suppose one might say so," agreed Peter Brown, fingering his long chin. "But it shall be made as little In this Peter Brown made disagreeable for you as possible. no idle boast. On the technical I've arranged to go by boat all side of his profession he was a the way to avoid unnecessary man of method, and his dischangings." positions had been so made "And to avoid unnecessary that there was little chance of his prisoner slipping through effect, unless his very quietude the net. It was only that temperament of his that betrayed him into indiscretions such as the one to which he was about to fall a victim. Honiton picked up the card with which the detective had introduced himself, and looked at it thoughtfully. "Then it must be the Bedouin?" he demanded, looking up sharply. was deliberately theatrical. "To live amongst people for days as an outcast-to catch the glances of curiosity as they are thrown at me! You say that every man is innocent until he is proved guilty, but that won't hold good aboard ship. I shall see my conviction in every look, and read my sentence in every back that is turned on me. I don't fancy The detective nodded, and it, Brown." avoided the other's eye. 66 Honiton whistled raspingly through the edge of the card. "Look here, Mr Brown," he said after a long pause, you look a decent sort. Will you let me put a proposition to you ↑ " "Of course I'll listen to anything you want to say, but -but I'm afraid it can't do any good." He was aching to bring the painful conversation to a close. Perhaps it hurt him through his imagination more than it hurt the object of his sympathy. He was certainly the more perturbed of the two. Honiton leant forward and laid his hand upon the detective's knee. "Of course you're used to this kind of job, and it's nothing to you." He watched the other's face intently as he spoke, and guessed the detective's feelings more correctly than his words implied. "Try to picture what it means to me," he went on, speaking quietly conversationally without attempt at "Unfortunately it can't be helped, but you can be sure that I'll do all I can to make it easy for you." "I suppose cabin ! "Yes. that." we share a I have arranged Honiton again laid his hand on the detective's knee as he spoke, and his attitude and the tone of his voice were those of a man preferring a request, the granting of which was a matter of life or death to him. "Let me travel as an ordinary tourist," he said, his wide eyes intent upon the other's face. "It can make no difference to you. I give you my word of honour-if you take any stock in that-that I shall make no attempt to escape nor to interfere in any way with your plans. You would not refuse a drink to a dying man, Brown. Don't refuse me this?" The fingers dug into the detective's knee until they hurt but not so much as the man's words pained Peter Brown's sensitive heart. His imagina- "It's a thin fiction," said, shaking his head depre- surely, needlessly. But with brows drawn down and a face more dour because of the vacillation of the brain behind, he shook his head slowly. "You won't?" It was like the last despairing cry of a drowning man. "I must do my duty." "I have friends going home on the Bedouin-people who have known me here and liked me. I'd sooner you would handcuff me to your wrist and drag me through the streets of Cairo than take me among these people openly openly under arrest." Peter Brown rose from his seat. He could not bear the appeal of that hand upon his knee. He stood with his sloping shoulders bowed and his back turned to the suppliant, rubbing his leathery cheek with a nervous hand. "Don't be a brute, Brown." Honiton, too, rose, and slipped his hand through the detective's arm. "You needn't arrest me now. Travel with me to England, and take me in charge when we arrive. That will get over your difficulty." Brown looked at Honiton thoughtfully, and his face broke into a smile for the first time. "Then you'll do it?" A flame lit in Honiton's eyes, and he crushed the detective's bony arm between his fingers. "I'm a fool-but I will." Brown blurted out his acquiescence with the vehemence with which a balance-pan kicks the beam after long swaying in uncertainty-then turned away to avoid the thanks that Honiton's gratitude prompted. Now he lounged upon the deck of the Bedouin ruminating upon his folly. Barely two hours at sea, and already complications were looming ahead. The lady in the grey cashmere he liked the look of her. A melancholy face, but one that a man could trust. "Mrs Conliffe " he had heard Honiton address her, and there was a husband somewhere aboard, for Honiton had referred to him. A nice thing he Peter Brown-had done to bring this man amongst such people under false pretences! And there were others-people who had probably never been in even a police court in their livesdecent respectable citizens rubbing shoulders on equal terms with-Honiton. He glanced furtively at the pretty figure of a young girl reading in a deck-chair some distance away. She could not be more than twenty-twentyone at the outside. Her mother had just left her a refined lady of middle age, with hair just tinged with grey. Honiton would associate with these people, would joke with them, would probably be the most popular man aboard the ship. Yes, he was worse than a fool! He rubbed his hand caressingly along Peter Brown's long lean thigh, and looked at him with a winning smile in which gratitude was expressed more plainly than any words could have made it. "You're not displeased with the bargain you made?" The face that looked into that of the detective was as open and candid as a child's. Peter Brown looked at it steadily for a moment-and As he came to this conclusion, Honiton raised his cap to his companion by the rail, lounged across the deck, and sat down beside him. "Well, old friend, this is succumbed. not so bad after all, eh ? "Not a bit," he said. CHAPTER II. The detective was not the only person aboard the ship who indulged in speculation as the low land slowly faded into the horizon. Joan Conliffe, during and after her talk on deck with Honiton, had much cause for wonder. She was unaware of his presence aboard until the moment when he came and stood at her side by the rail. She turned sharply to see who had joined her, and astonishment was plain upon her face at the recognition. "I am pleased to know that I-we are to have your company home," replied Mrs Conliffe liffe with with slight hesitation. "But I am surprised-naturally enough, as you must admit, for it is not twenty-four hours since you were envying my luck and bemoaning your fate in having to stop in Cairo during the hot season. Why this sudden change of plan? Woman has not the sole prerogative of changing her mind," said Honiton easily. He showed no sign of embarrassment. "As a matter of fact, however," he continued, "I had two very good reasons for altering my plans. "You are surprised? I hope First, the unexpectedly rapid not unpleasantly?" said Honi-winding-up of a business affair; ton. "You, Mr Honiton," she exclaimed, and took the freckled hand that was held out to her. The searching look that accompanied the words suggested that the answer meant much to him. VOL. CCIX.-NO. MCCLXIV. and second, a chance meeting with a dear old friend, to whom, by the way, I must introduce you, for he is travelling home with me." L "Well, whatever the cause Peter Brown, lying back in of your change of plan, I am his deck-chair near by, looked sure you will be a very welcome at her with interest-an inaddition to the passenger list, terest inspired partly by the Mr Honiton.... Have you met fact that Honiton was acmy husband yet?" quainted with her, but largely by reason of his manhood. As she asked the question, Mrs Conliffe looked away towards the receding land, avoiding Honiton's eye. "No, I haven't run across him. He must be down below." "Probably in the bar," said Mrs Conliffe. She smiled as she spoke, but there was a suggestion of distaste-almost of contempt-in her utterance of the words, which Honiton did not fail to observe. "Very likely," he answered carelessly. "I must rout him out by-and-by," and with that he switched the talk to Cairo and the journey down; and Charlie Conliffe, for the moment, faded into the background. Joan Conliffe, though she showed a reasonable interest in the conversation, was busy at the back of her mind guessing at the real cause of Honiton's presence on the ship. That it was as he had said she could not believe. Only a day before he had been so emphatic as to the impossibility of a trip home. Then had come that unpleasant incident with Charlie. Could it be that that had to do with this sudden change of plan. Left to herself, she reviewed the circumstances at length, leaning with her arms upon the rail and gazing with absentsighted eyes over the sea. He admired the serene, somewhat full face with its melancholy eyes, and the fine profile as the head turned to throw back the wisp of dark hair that the wind ever and again displaced. The faint droop at the corners of the mouth added a deeper shade to the melancholy suggested by the wideset, wide-open eyes. The sea breeze had stung additional colour into the cheeks, bringing into the face a girlishness no longer its own. He admired her figure too. Joan Conliffe was of medium height, wide-shouldered, with a long full slope to the breast. She was wide-hipped and firmly built, with neatly but sensibly shod feet, and strong sensible ankles showing beneath her smart cashmere skirt-a mature woman, handsome yet homely, who looked as though she should be the mother of fine children. A little frown knit her brows as she puzzled over Honiton's presence aboard the ship. He had been very kind to her in Cairo in the easy friendly way he had with everybody. On more than one occasion he had taken her through the bazaars, relieving the boredom of days spent alone in the hotel. He knew the ways of the city well, and had saved her from the extortions of |