This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if we do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers. Grave and earnest men, at Eton and elsewhere, had tried Freddie Threepwood with Greek, with Latin and with English; and the sheeplike stolidity with which he declined to be interested in the masterpieces of all three tongues had left them with the conviction that he would never read anything.

And then, years afterward, he had suddenly blossomed out as a student--only, it is true, a student of the Adventures of Gridley Quayle; but still a student. His was a dull life and Gridley Quayle was the only person who brought romance into it. Existence for the Honorable Freddie was simply a sort of desert, punctuated with monthly oases in the shape of new Quayle adventures. It was his ambition to meet the man who wrote them.

Lord Emsworth sat and smoked, and sipped and smoked again, at peace with all the world. His mind was as nearly a blank as it is possible for the human mind to be. The hand that had not the task of holding the cigar was at rest in his trousers pocket. The fingers of it fumbled idly with a small, hard object.

Gradually it filtered into his lordship's mind that this small, hard object was not familiar. It was something new--something that was neither his keys nor his pencil; nor was it his small change. He yielded to a growing curiosity and drew it out. He examined it. It was a little something, rather like a fossilized beetle. It touched no chord in him. He looked at it with amiable distaste.

"Now how in the world did that get there?" he said.

The Honorable Freddie paid no attention to the remark. He was now at the very crest of his story, when every line intensified the thrill. Incident was succeeding incident. The Secret Six were here, there and everywhere, like so many malignant June bugs.

Annabel, the heroine, was having a perfectly rotten time--kidnapped, and imprisoned every few minutes. Gridley Quayle, hot on the scent, was covering somebody or other with his revolver almost continuously. Freddie Threepwood had no time for chatting with his father. Not so Rupert Baxter. Chatting with Lord Emsworth was one of the things for which he received his salary. He looked up from his cards.

"Lord Emsworth?"

"I have found a curious object in my pocket, Baxter. I was wondering how it got there."

He handed the thing to his secretary. Rupert Baxter's eyes lit up with sudden enthusiasm. He gasped.

"Magnificent!" he cried. "Superb!"

Lord Emsworth looked at him inquiringly.

"It is a scarab, Lord Emsworth; and unless I am mistaken--and I think I may claim to be something of an expert--a Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty. A wonderful addition to your museum!"

"Is it? By Gad! You don't say so, Baxter!"

"It is, indeed. If it is not a rude question, how much did you give for it, Lord Emsworth? It must have been the gem of somebody's collection. Was there a sale at Christie's this afternoon?"

Lord Emsworth shook his head. "I did not get it at Christie's, for I recollect that I had an important engagement which prevented my going to Christie's. To be sure; yes--I had promised to call on Mr. Peters and examine his collection of--Now I wonder what it was that Mr. Peters said he collected!"

"Mr. Peters is one of the best-known living collectors of scarabs."

"Scarabs! You are quite right, Baxter. Now that I recall the episode, this is a scarab; and Mr. Peters gave it to me."

"Gave it to you, Lord Emsworth?"

"Yes. The whole scene comes back to me. Mr. Peters, after telling me a great many exceedingly interesting things about scarabs, which I regret to say I cannot remember, gave me this. And you say it is really valuable, Baxter?"

"It is, from a collector's point of view, of extraordinary value."

"Bless my soul!" Lord Emsworth beamed. "This is extremely interesting, Baxter. One has heard so much of the princely hospitality of Americans. How exceedingly kind of Mr. Peters! I shall certainly treasure it, though I must confess that from a purely spectacular standpoint it leaves me a little cold. However, I must not look a gift horse in the mouth--eh, Baxter?"

From afar came the silver booming of a gong. Lord Emsworth rose.

"Time to dress for dinner? I had no idea it was so late. Baxter, you will be going past the museum door. Will you be a good fellow and place this among the exhibits? You will know what to do with it better than I. I always think of you as the curator of my little collection, Baxter--ha-ha! Mind how you step when you are in the museum. I was painting a chair there yesterday and I think I left the paint pot on the floor."

He cast a less amiable glance at his studious son.

"Get up, Frederick, and go and dress, for dinner. What is that trash you are reading?"

The Honorable Freddie came out of his book much as a sleepwalker wakes--with a sense of having been violently assaulted. He looked up with a kind of stunned plaintiveness.

"Eh, gov'nor?"

"Make haste! Beach rang the gong five minutes ago. What is that you are reading?"

"Oh, nothing, gov'nor--just a book."

"I wonder you can waste your time on such trash. Make haste!"

He turned to the door, and the benevolent expression once more wandered athwart his face.

"Extremely kind of Mr. Peters!" he said. "Really, there is something almost Oriental in the lavish generosity of our American cousins."

* * *

It had taken R. Jones just six hours to discover Joan Valentine's address. That it had not taken him longer is a proof of his energy and of the excellence of his system of obtaining information; but R. Jones, when he considered it worth his while, could be extremely energetic, and he was a past master at the art of finding out things.

He poured himself out of his cab and rang the bell of Number Seven. A disheveled maid answered the ring.

"Miss Valentine in?"

"Yes, sir."

R. Jones produced his card.

"On important business, tell her. Half a minute--I'll write it."

He wrote the words on the card and devoted the brief period of waiting to a careful scrutiny of his surroundings. He looked out into the court and he looked as far as he could down the dingy passage; and the conclusions he drew from what he saw were complimentary to Miss Valentine.

"If this girl is the sort of girl who would hold up Freddie's letters," he mused, "she wouldn't be living in a place like this. If she were on the make she would have more money than she evidently possesses. Therefore, she is not on the make; and I am prepared to bet that she destroyed the letters as fast as she got them."

Those were, roughly, the thoughts of R. Jones as he stood in the doorway of Number Seven; and they were important thoughts inasmuch as they determined his attitude toward Joan in the approaching interview. He perceived that this matter must be handled delicately--that he must be very much the gentleman. It would be a strain, but he must do it.

The maid returned and directed him to Joan's room with a brief word and a sweeping gesture.

"Eh?" said R. Jones. "First floor?"

"Front," said the maid.

R. Jones trudged laboriously up the short flight of stairs. It was very dark on the stairs and he stumbled. Eventually, however, light came to him through an open door. Looking in, he saw a girl standing at the table. She had an air of expectation; so he deduced that he had reached his journey's end.

"Miss Valentine?"

"Please come in."

R. Jones waddled in.

"Not much light on your stairs."

"No. Will you take a seat?"

"Thanks."

One glance at the girl convinced R. Jones that he had been right. Circumstances had made him a rapid judge of character, for in the profession of living by one's wits in a large city the first principle of offense and defense is to sum people up at first sight. This girl was not on the make.

Joan Valentine was a tall girl with wheat-gold hair and eyes as brightly blue as a November sky when the sun is shining on a frosty world. There was in them a little of November's cold glitter, too, for Joan had been through much in the last few years; and experience, even though it does not harden, erects a defensive barrier between its children and the world.

Her eyes were eyes that looked straight and challenged. They could thaw to the satin blue of the Mediterranean Sea, where it purrs about the little villages of Southern France; but they did not thaw for everybody. She looked what she was--a girl of action; a girl whom life had made both reckless and wary--wary of friendly advances, reckless when there was a venture afoot.

Her eyes, as they met R. Jones' now, were cold and challenging. She, too, had learned the trick of swift diagnosis of character, and what she saw of R. Jones in that first glance did not impress her favorably.

"You wished to see me on business?"

"Yes," said R. Jones. "Yes. . . . Miss Valentine, may I begin by begging you to realize that I have no intention of insulting you?"

Joan's eyebrows rose. For an instant she did her visitor the injustice of suspecting that he had been dining too well.

"I don't understand."

"Let me explain: I have come here," R. Jones went on, getting more gentlemanly every moment, "on a very distasteful errand, to oblige a friend. Will you bear in mind that whatever I say is said entirely on his behalf?"

By this time Joan had abandoned the idea that this stout person was a life-insurance tout, and was inclining to the view that he was collecting funds for a charity.

"I came here at the request of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood."

"I don't quite understand."

"You never met him, Miss Valentine; but when you were in the chorus at the Piccadilly Theatre, I believe, he wrote you some very foolish letters. Possibly you have forgotten them?"

"I certainly have."

"You have probably destroyed them---eh?"

"Certainly! I never keep letters. Why do you ask?"