His darling sin

by M. E. Braddon

"If he's above ground I should think he would," answered the clerk, "but I must say it looks rummy that he hasn't claimed the cash and the trunk before now," and Faunce left the office more and more concerned about that corpse under the disused boat.

The steamer Boston was to leave the docks late on Saturday afternoon. Why did Colonel Rannock go to Southampton on Friday, and how did he propose to spend the intervening hours? More questions for Faunce to answer.

A woman was with him at Southampton—a woman who had not travelled with him from Waterloo, since he was alone when Chater saw the evening express leave the platform. Who was the woman, and what was her business on the scene? That she had addressed him by his Christian name showed that she was not the casual acquaintance of an idle hour.

Faunce believed that he had found the answer to this question in Mrs. Randall's blotting-book. If the letter that had left its fragmentary impression on the blotting-paper had been sent to Colonel Rannock, a letter urging him to meet her at Southampton West, it would account for his going there the night before the steamer left. From those scattered words, and that signature, "Your fond Pig," Faunce concluded that Kate Delmaine had written to the man she loved, pleading for a parting interview, and that Rannock had responded to her appeal.

There were other questions for Faunce to answer, and it was in the quiet pursuit of knowledge that he took himself to the hotel which he deemed the best in Southampton, engaged a bedroom, and ordered a dinner in the coffee-room at the old-fashioned hour of six.

Before dining he called upon the coroner, who was also a well-known family solicitor, and heard all that gentleman could tell him about the inquest at Redbridge, which was no more than had been recorded in the local newspaper.

Faunce having revealed himself in his professional capacity, the coroner expressed his own opinion freely.

"I made up my mind that it was a murder case, and a bad one," he said; "I've got the tailor's buttons in my criminal museum. Dash, Savile Row. That stamps the victim as a stranger. We Southampton people don't get our clothes in Savile Row."

The fashionable tailor's name was the only link between the nameless corpse and the world of the living; the sole clue to identity.

There was no one in the coffee-room at six o'clock, and Faunce dined snugly at a small table near the fire, where he was able to enjoy a tête-à-tête with the head-waiter, an old servant of the hotel, and possessed of that vast extent of local and general knowledge which seems the peculiar property of head-waiters and hotel-porters. The porter's knowledge takes a wider range; but the waiter has the more subtle mind.