dreadful as all that. And yet those words must have touched upon a chord somewhere."
"It—it recalled my father to me," Beatrice stammered. "The police found certain things out. They discovered the night my father disappeared that outside the hotel was a black hansom cab with a man inside who was a cripple."
"You don't mean to say that!" Sartoris cried.
In his turn he had almost betrayed himself. He could have cursed himself aloud now. As it was, he forced an unsteady smile to his lips.
"I mean to say that the police are very clever at that kind of thing," he went on. "But surely you would not possibly identify me or my remark with the monster in question! There are a great many people in this big London of ours who would answer to that description. Now tell me, did the police find anything more out?"
The question was eager, despite the fact that Sartoris imparted a laugh into it. But Beatrice was not to be drawn any further. She felt absolutely certain of the fact that she was talking to the real culprit who was picking her brain so that he could get to the bottom of what the police had discovered, with an eye to the future.
"Really, I don't know," the girl said coldly. "That is all that I overheard. The police I find are very close over these matters, and in any case they do not usually choose a woman as their confidant. You had better ask Colonel Berrington."
It was an unfortunate remark in more senses than one. Beatrice did not quite realize how quick and clever was the man to whom she was talking. If his
instinct had told him much his cleverness told him more. Berrington was in the confidence of the police. And Sartoris had imagined that the soldier was working out the problem on his own behalf. He had counted, too, on Berrington's affection for Mary to do as little harm as possible.
"I'll ask the Colonel," he said between his teeth. "Oh, yes, I will certainly do that. What are you looking at so closely?"