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She raised her thin eyebrows.

"You must be pretty well off not to worry about his money," she said, and asked again: "What am I to do?"

"It depends entirely on how well Marborne's plan goes," said her brother. "We needn't discuss it till then."

"What is he like?" she asked. "This Morlake?"

He went out of the room and came back with a photograph, which he handed to her, and she looked at the picture with a calculating eye.

"He's rather nice-looking," she said. "Who is he?"

"I'd give a lot of money to know," snapped Hamon. "Don't ask questions, Lydia. All I want to know from you is: is he the type of man that you could make up to if it paid you good money?"

She looked from the picture to her brother.

"That type, and any type," she said briefly.

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It was on a Friday night, and a thin film of fog lay over the City, the forerunner of those dense mists which in a month's time would make the town uninhabitable.

Jim Morlake had finished the light dinner which the Moor had served, and was reading the evening newspaper with the air of one who hoped to find something amusing in its pages, but had very little expectation of his hopes being realised. Binger had gone home earlier than usual, with instructions not to return for three days, for that night Morlake intended returning to Wold House, and his suitcase awaited him in the hall. He could have gone earlier, but the fog had been unusually thick that afternoon, and he was waiting for it to disperse. The car was at the door, and, putting down the newspaper, he walked to the window, pulled aside the heavy curtains and looked out.