In Friendship's Guise   By: William Murray Graydon (1864-1946)

BY WM. MURRAY GRAYDON

AUTHOR OF "The Cryptogram," etc.

1899

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER.

I. The Duplicate Rembrandt

II. Five Years Afterwards

III. An Old Friend

IV. Number 320 Wardour Street

V. A Mysterious Discussion

VI. A Visitor from Paris

VII. Love's Young Dream

VIII. An Attraction in Pall Mall

IX. Uncle and Nephew

X. A London Sensation

XI. A Mysterious Discovery

XII. A Cowardly Communication

XIII. The Tempter

XIV. The Dinner at Richmond

XV. From the Dead

XVI. The Last Card

XVII. Two Passengers from Calais

XVIII. Home Again

XIX. A Shock for Sir Lucius

XX. At a Night Club

XXI. A Quick Decision

XXII. Another Chance

XXIII. On the Track

XXIV. A Fateful Decision

XXV. A Fruitless Errand

XXVI. A Thunderbolt from the Blue

XXVII. An Amateur Detective

XXVIII. A Discovery

XXIX. The Vicar of Dunwold

XXX. Run to Earth

XXXI. Noah Hawker's Disclosure

XXXII. How the Day Ended

XXXIII. Conclusion

IN FRIENDSHIP'S GUISE.

CHAPTER I.

THE DUPLICATE REMBRANDT.

The day began well. The breakfast rolls were crisper than usual, the butter was sweeter, and never had Diane's slender white hands poured out more delicious coffee. Jack Clare was in the highest spirits as he embraced his wife and sallied forth into the Boulevard St. Germain, with a flat, square parcel wrapped in brown paper under his arm. From the window of the entresol Diane waved a coquettish farewell.

"Remember, in an hour," she called down to him. "I shall be ready by then, Jack, and waiting. We will lunch at Bignon's "

"And drive in the Bois, and wind up with a jolly evening," he interrupted, throwing a kiss. "I will hasten back, dear one. Be sure that you put on your prettiest frock, and the jacket with the ermine trimming."

It was a clear and frosty January morning, in the year 1892, and the streets of Paris were dry and glistening. There was intoxication in the very air, and Jack felt thoroughly in harmony with the fine weather. What mattered it that he had but a few francs in his pocket that the quarterly remittance from his mother, who dreaded the Channel passage and was devoted to her foggy London, would not be due for a fortnight? The parcel under his arm meant, without doubt, a check for a nice sum. He and Diane would spend it merrily, and until the morrow at least his fellow workers at Julian's Academy would miss him from his accustomed place.

Bright eyed grisettes flung coy looks at the young artist as he strode along, admiring his well knit figure, his handsome boyish features chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight tendency to curl, his velvet jacket and flowing tie. Jack nodded and smiled at a familiar face now and then, or paused briefly to greet a male acquaintance; for the Latin Quarter had been his little world for three years, and he was well known in it from the Boulevard St. Michel to the quays of the Seine. He snapped his fingers at a mounted cuirassier in scarlet and silver who galloped by him on the Point Royal, and whistled a few bars of "The British Grenadiers" as he passed the red trowsered, meek faced, under sized soldiers who shouldered their heavy muskets in the courts of the Louvre. The memory of Diane's laughing countenance, as she leaned from the window, haunted him in the Avenue de l'Opera.