Chapter V.—Larose Takes Up the TrailA few days after the wrecking of the Mary Belle, Gilbert Larose, the one time international detective, now a country squire and married to the beautiful and wealthy widow, who up to the time of her marriage with him had been Lady Helen Ardane, was sitting with three companions in the big lounge of his home at Carmel Abbey.
It was the hour before dinner, the evening was chilly, and a huge log-fire was burning in the enormous grate.
All four men were comfortably tired after a long day with the pheasants. There had been a goodly number of guns at the shoot, but the others participating in it had just made their good-byes and gone off in their cars and only the three, now with their host, were staying the night at the Abbey.
One of them was Sir Herbert Ca
