“Surely, Mr. Corbett will answer a few questions first,” said the detective.
“Don’t you think you have troubled him sufficiently for this evening? Besides, he can tell us nothing. All the explanation is really due to him, and I propose to give it to him to-morrow. Come, White, this time I promise you that a considerable portion of your inquiry shall be cleared up, and I do not speak without foundation, as you have often learned hitherto.”
So the mysterious Sydney H. Corbett was left in undisturbed possession of his flat and his dinner, while the trio passed out into the quietude of the streets.
CHAPTER XXI
HOW LADY DYKE LEFT RALEIGH MANSIONS
Mr. White was actually inclined to preserve silence while they walked to Victoria Street. The events of the preceding hour had not exactly conduced to the maintenance, in the eyes of his brother officer, of that pre-eminent sagacity which he invariably claimed.
His companion rubbed in this phase of the matter by saying: “I should think, Jim, you will give Raleigh Mansions wide berth for some time to come, after making two bad breaks there.”
But it was no part of Bruce’s scheme that the detective should be rendered desperate by repeated failures. “It is not Mr. White’s fault,” he said, “that these errors have occurred. They are rather the result of his pertinacity in leaving no clue unsolved which promises to lead to success. When this case ends, if ever it does end, I feel sure he will admit that he has never before encountered so much difficulty in unravelling the most complex problems within his experience.”