Professor Le Beau kept a school of dancing in Pimlico, and incessantly¹ trained pupils for the stage. Many of them had appeared with more or less success in the ballets at the Empire and Alhambra, and he was widely known amongst stage-struck aspirants² as charging moderately and teaching in a most painstaking³ manner. He thus made an income which, if not large, was at least secure, and was assisted in the school by his niece, Peggy Garthorne. She was the manager of his house and looked after the money, otherwise the little professor would never have been able to lay aside for the future. But when the brother of the late Madame Le Beau — an Englishwoman — died, his sister took charge of the orphan⁵. Now that Madame herself was dead, Peggy looked after the professor out of gratitude⁶ and love. She was fond of the excitable little Frenchman, and knew how to manage him to a nicety.

It was to the Dancing Academy that Jennings turned his steps a few days after the interview with Susan. He had been a constant visitor there for eighteen months and was deeply in love with Peggy. On a Bank Holiday he had been fortunate enough to rescue her from a noisy crowd, half-drunk and indulging in horse-play, and had escorted her home to receive the profuse⁷ thanks of the Professor. The detective was attracted by the quaint⁸ little man, and he called again to inquire for Peggy. A friendship thus inaugurated ripened⁹ into a deeper feeling, and within nine months Jennings proposed for the hand of the humble¹⁰ girl. She consented and so did Le Beau, although he was rather rueful at the thought of losing his mainstay. But Peggy promised him that she would still look after him until he

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