Chapter VI

Mr. and Mrs. Hegner stood together in their
brilliantly lighted but now empty front shop.
In a few minutes their guests would begin to arrive.
Mrs. Hegner looked tired, and rather cross,
for the shop had not been transformed into its present
state without a good deal of hard work on the
part of all of them, her husband, their German assistants,
and herself -- their English shopman had
been told that tonight his services would not be
required. But Mrs. Hegner, though her pretty face
was tired and peevish-looking, yet looked far pleasanter
than she had done half an hour ago, for her
husband had just presented her with a long gold
chain.

In a very, very quiet way, quite under the rose, so
to speak, Mr. Hegner sometimes went in for small
money-lending transactions. He would give loans on
jewellery, and even on "curios" and good furniture;
always, however, in connection with an account which
had, maybe, run a little too long -- never as a separate
transaction. The old-fashioned chain of 18-carat gold,
which he had just hung with a joking word round
his pretty wife's slender neck, had been the outcome
of one of these minor activities.

It was now a quarter to nine; and suddenly there
came the sound of loud, rather impatient knocking
on the locked and barred front door of the shop.
A frown gathered over Mr. Hegner's face; it trans-

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v?