Monsieur, I am uneasy. I have foreboding. But I go. What choice? We go in a taxi-cab to the Cats’ House.

The directeur is courteous and sympathetic. He has introduced us to the cat, and my ’eart ’as turned to water, for it is Alexander. Why has he not been destroyed?

The directeur is speaking. I ’ear him in a dream.

“If you identify ’im as your cat, miss,” he has said, “the matter is ended. My ’esitation when you, sir, approached me this morning on the matter was due to the fact that a messenger was sent with instructions that he be destroyed at once.”

“Rather rough, wasn’t it, that, on the messenger, yes,” Captain Bassett has said. He is facetious, you understand, for he is conqueror.

I am silent. I am not facetious. For already I feel—how do you say?—my fowl is cooked.

“Not the messenger, sir,” the directeur has said. “You ’ave misunderstood me. It was the cat which was to be destroyed, as per instructions of the anonymous sender.”

“Who could have played such a wicked trick?” Miss Marion has asked, indignant.

The directeur has stooped, and from behind a table he has brought a ’at-box.

“In this,” he has said, “the above animal was conveyed. But with it was no accompanying letter. The sender was anonymous.”

“Per’aps,” Captain Bassett has said—and still more in a dream I ’ear him—“per’aps on the ’at-box there is some bally name or other, do you not know—what?”

I clutch at the table. The room is spinning round and round. I have no stomach—only emptiness.

“Why, bless me,” the directeur has said, “you’re quite right, sir. So there is. Funny of me not to have before observed it. There is a name, and also an address. It is the name of Jean Priaulx, and the address is the Hotel Jules Priaulx, Paris.”

My companion stopped abruptly. He passed a handkerchief over his forehead. With a quick movement he reached for his glass of liqueur brandy and drained it at a gulp.

“Monsieur,” he said, “you will not wish me to describe the scene? There is no need for me—hein?—to be Zolaesque. You can imagine?”

“She chucked you?” In moments of emotion it is the simplest language that comes to the lips.

He nodded.

“And married Captain Bassett?”

He nodded again.

“And your uncle?” I said. “How did he take it?”

He sighed.

“There was once more,” he said, “blooming row, monsieur.”

“He washed his hands of you?”