"I wonder what it's all going to lead to?" said Rhona. "Pretty much of a maze, isn't it?"
"It is," agreed Hetherwick. "But if we can only get a firm hold on a thread——"
"And that might break!" she laughed.
"Well, then, one that won't break," he said. "There are several loose ends lying about already. Matherfield's got a hold on one or two."
He went to see Matherfield next morning and told him the story that he had heard from Rhona. Matherfield grew thoughtful.
"Well, Mr. Hetherwick," he said, after a pause, "it's as I've said before—if this Lady Riversreade is mixed up in it, the thing to do is to go back and get as full a history as can possibly be got of her antecedents. We'll have to get on to that—but we'll wait to see what that clerk of yours discovers about this man. There may be something in it—in the meantime I'm hard at work on my own clues."
"Any luck?" asked Hetherwick.
"Scarcely that. But, as I say, we're at work. The five-pound note is a difficult matter. Given in change, of course, at Vivian's Night Club—but they tell me there that it's no uncommon thing to change ten, twenty, and even fifty-pound notes for their customers—it's a swell lot who forgather there—and of course they've no recollection whatever about that particular note or night. Still, the fact remains—that note came through Vivian's, and through one of its frequenters, to Granett, and I'm in hopes."
"And the medicine bottle?" suggested Hetherwick.
"Ah, there is more chance!" responded Matherfield, with a lightening eye. "That's only a question of time! I've got a man going round all the chemists in the West Central district—stiff job, for there are more of 'em than I believed. But he's bound to hit on the right one eventually. And then—well, we shall have a pretty good idea, if not positive proof, as to how Granett got hold of the stuff that poisoned him."