“Yes, I wonder if I may glance at his rooms.”
“Certainly, sir. But they are let again. Colonel Mayhew is out, so we can go up. Mr. Audley sent all his things to store when he left, but I was away at the time, so I don’t know where they went to.” He took me to a well-furnished front sitting-room on the first floor.
“Do you recollect that he had a lady visitor—a tall, handsome, dark-eyed young lady, whose name was Shaylor?”
“Certainly, sir. A young lady came once or twice to tea, but I don’t know her name. And—well to tell you the truth, sir, his movements were often very curious.”
“How?” I asked, with sudden interest.
“Well, he would walk out without any luggage sometimes, and then a week later I would hear from him telling me to send on his letters to some Poste Restante abroad. Once it was in Paris, another time at Geneva and twice in Madrid. It always struck me as very curious that he traveled without any luggage—or if he had any, he never brought it here.”
“Curious,” I said. “Then he was a bit of a mystery?”
“He was, sir. That’s his photograph there, on the mantleshelf,” and he pointed to a photograph in a small oval ebony frame.
To my amazement it was the picture of a man I had never seen in my life.
“But that round-faced man isn’t Stanley Audley!” I exclaimed.