"My brother is unable to be with us to-night, Mr. Barnes," explained Mrs. Collier. "Mr. O'Dowd may have told you that he is an invalid. Quite rarely is he well enough to leave his room. He has been feeling much better of late, but now his nerves are all torn to pieces by this shooting affair. The mere knowledge that our grounds were being inspected to-day by the authorities upset him terribly. He has begged me to present his apologies and regrets to you. Another time, perhaps, you will give him the pleasure he is missing to-night. He wanted so much to talk with you about the quaint places you have described so charmingly in your articles. They must be wonderfully appealing. One cannot read your descriptions without really envying the people who live in those enchanted--"
"Ahem!" coughed O'Dowd, who actually had read the articles and could see nothing alluring in a prospect that contemplated barren, snow- swept wildernesses in the Andes. "The only advantage I can see in living up there," he said, with a sly wink at Barnes, "is that one has all the privileges of death without being put to the expense of burial."
"How very extraordinary, Mr. O'Dowd," said Mrs. Collier, lifting her lorgnon.
"Mrs. Collier has been reading my paper on the chateau country in France," said Barnes mendaciously. (It had not yet been published, but what of that?) "Perfectly delightful," said Mrs. Collier, and at once changed the subject.
De Soto's cocktails came in. Miss Cameron did not take one. O'Dowd proposed a toast.
"To the rascals who went gunning for the other rascals. But for them we should be short at least one member of this agreeable company."
It was rather startling. Barnes's glass stopped half-way to his lips. An instant later he drained it. He accepted the toast as a compliment from the whilom Irishman, and not as a tribute to the prowess of those mysterious marksmen.
"Rather grewsome, O'Dowd," drawled Van Dyke, "but offset by the foresightedness of the maker of this cocktail. Uncommonly good one, De Soto."
The table in the spacious dining-room was one of those long, narrow Italian boards, unmistakably antique and equally rare. Sixteen or eighteen people could have been seated without crowding, and when the seven took their places wide intervals separated them. No effort had been made by the hostess to bring her guests close together, as might have been done by using one end or the centre of the table. Except for scattered doylies, the smooth, nut-brown top was bare of cloth; there was a glorious patina to this huge old board, with tiny cracks running like veins across its surface.