“Yes.” Rollison moved across the large room, a combination of study and living-room, essentially a man’s with its massive leather chairs and its sporting prints, its lack of any sign of femininity. He picked up a newspaper, the Daily Globe, flipping over the pages until he came to a photograph of a dark, gypsylike woman with a shawl over her head and long, voluminous skirts. Her strange, almost hypnotic gaze stared up at him, absorbing all his attention, so that he scarcely noticed the young girl photographed beside her.

It was with a conscious effort that he at last wrenched his eyes from hers, and handed the newspaper to Jolly, who looked down at the photograph.

“And this is the reason, sir?”

Rollison nodded. “If you read the list of people this Madam Melinska is said to have swindled, you will see the august name of Lady Hurst. She—”

Jolly, appalled, cried out:

“Not Lady Hurst, sir?”

“No less.”

“But she can’t have been taken in by a charlatan!”

Rollison made no reply, and Jolly, after his first incredulous exclamation, studied the charges brought against the self-styled seer who called herself Madam Melinska. Convincing her clients of her ability to see into the future, she had, so the newspaper report read, persuaded them to give her certain sums of money for investment in a company known as Space Age Publishing, Limited. Of this money there was now no trace. The police had made the arrest; and Madam Melinska, it was said, would be in the West London Magistrates Court to face the charge this morning.

It was now ten minutes past nine.

“Are you going to the Court, sir?” inquired Jolly.

“Not unless I’m invited or instructed to,” said Rollison. “Have you read the small print?”

“Yes. That among the—ah—Melinska woman’s clients who have invested money has been Lady Hurst. Do you expect her to ask you to take an interest in the case?”