"I think I will see this Pauline to-night," he said. "Meantime, I can only recommend you to hope, Mrs. Marsh. These things generally have some simple explanation in the end, and turn out less black than they look. Expect me, then, at your residence within an hour."
But when Mrs. Marsh and Osborne were gone he was perplexed, remembering that this was Thursday evening, for he had promised himself on this very evening to be at a spot which he had been told by one of his men that Furneaux had visited on two previous Thursday evenings, a spot where he would see a sight that would interest him.
While he was on the horns of the dilemma as to going there, or going to Pauline, Inspector Clarke entered: and at once Winter shelved upon Clarke the business of sounding Pauline.
"You seem to have a lot of power over her—to make her give up the diary so promptly," he said to Clarke. "Go to her, then, get at the bottom of this business, and see if you cannot hit upon some connection between the disappearance of Miss Marsh and the murder of the actress."
Clarke stood up with alacrity, and started off. Presently Winter himself was in a cab, making for the Brompton Cemetery.
As for Clarke, the instant he was within sight of Porchester Gardens, his whole interest turned from Pauline Dessaulx and the vanished Rosalind to two men whom he saw in the street almost opposite the house in which Pauline lay. They were Janoc and the Italian, Antonio, and Antonio seemed to be reasoning and pleading with Janoc, who had the gestures of a man distracted.
Hanging about near them was a third man, whom Clarke hardly noticed—a loafer in a long coat of rags, a hat without any crown, and visible toes—a diminutive loafer—Furneaux, in fact, who, for his own reasons, was also interested in Janoc in these days.
Every now and again Janoc looked up at the windows of Mrs. Marsh's residence with frantic gestures, and a crying face—a thing which greatly struck Clarke; and anon the loafer passed by Janoc and Antonio, unobserved, peering into the gutter for the cast-aside ends of cigars and cigarettes.
Instantly Clarke stole down the opposite side of the square into which the house faced, looked about him, saw no one, climbed some railings, and then through the bushes stole near to the pavement where the foreigners stood. There, concealed in the shrubbery, he could clearly hear Janoc say:
"Am I never to see her? My little one! But I am about to see her! I will knock at that door, and clasp her in my arms."