THE CHARING CROSS MYSTERY

BY

J. S. FLETCHER

HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
3 YORK STREET, LONDON, S.W.1

A HERBERT JENKINS' BOOK

Sixth printing completing 46,825 copies

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

CONTENTS

THE CHARING CROSS MYSTERY

CHAPTER I

THE LAST TRAIN EAST

Hetherwick had dined that evening with friends who lived in Cadogan Gardens, and had stayed so late in conversation with his host that midnight had come before he left and set out for his bachelor chambers in the Temple; it was, indeed, by the fraction of a second that he caught the last east-bound train at Sloane Square. The train was almost destitute of passengers; the car which he himself entered, a first-class smoking compartment, was otherwise empty; no one came into it when the train reached Victoria. But at St. James's Park two men got in, and seated themselves opposite to Hetherwick.

Now Hetherwick was a young barrister, going in for criminal practice, in whom the observant faculty was deeply implanted; it was natural to him to watch and to speculate on anything he saw. Because of this, and perhaps because he had just then nothing else to think about, he sat observing the new-comers; he found interest, amusement, and not a little profit in this sort of thing, and in trying to decide whether a given man was this, that, or something else.

Of the two men thus under inspection, the elder was a big, burly, fresh-coloured man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age. His closely cropped silvery hair, his smartly trained grey moustache, his keen blue eyes and generally alert and vivacious appearance, made Hetherwick think that he was or had been in some way or other connected with the army; this impression was heightened by an erect carriage, square-set shoulders and something that suggested a long and close acquaintance with the methods of the drill-yard and the parade ground. Perhaps, thought Hetherwick, he was a retired non-commissioned officer, a regimental sergeant-major, or something of that sort; this idea, again, was strengthened by the fact that the man carried a handsome walking-cane, the head of which, either of gold or of silver-gilt, was fashioned like a crown. There was something military, too, about the cut of his clothes; he was a smartly dressed man, from his silk hat, new and glossy and worn a little rakishly on the right side of his head, to his highly polished boots. A well-preserved, cheery-looking, good-humoured sort of person, this, decided Hetherwick, and apparently well satisfied with himself and full of the enjoyment of life, and likely, from all outward sight, to make old bones.

The other man came into a different category. The difference began with his clothes, which, if not exactly shabby, were semi-shabby, much worn, ill-kept and badly put on: he was evidently a careless man, who scorned a clothes-brush and was also indifferent to the very obvious fact that his linen was frayed and dirty. He was a thin, meagre man, of not one-half the respectable, well-fed bulk of his companion; his sallow-complexioned face was worn, and his beard thin and irregular: altogether he suggested some degree of poor circumstances. Yet, in Hetherwick's opinion, he was a person of something beyond ordinary mental capacity; his eyes were large and intelligent, his nose was well-shaped, his chin square and determined. And his ungloved hands were finely moulded and delicate of proportion; the fingers were long, thin and tapering. Hetherwick noticed two facts about those fingers: the first, that they were restless; the second, that they were much stained, as if the man had recently been mixing dyes or using chemicals. And then he suddenly observed that the big man's hands and fingers were similarly stained—blue and red and yellow, in patches.

These men were talking when they entered the compartment; they continued to talk as they settled down. Hetherwick could not avoid hearing what they said.

"Queerest experience I've ever had in my time!" the big man was saying as he dropped into a corner seat. "Tell you, I knew her the instant I clapped eyes on that portrait! After—how many years will it be, now? Ten, I think—yes, ten. Oh, yes! Knew her well enough. When we get to my hotel, I'll show you the portrait—I cut it out and put it aside—and you'll identify it as quick as I did—lay you aught you like on it! No mistaking that!"

This was said in a broad North Country accent, in full keeping, thought Hetherwick, with the burly frame of the speaker. But the other man replied in tones that suggested the born Londoner.

"I think I shall be able to recognise it," he said softly. "I've a very clear recollection of the lady, though, to be sure, I only saw her once or twice."

"Aye, well, a fine-looking woman—and a beauty!—like that's not soon forgotten," declared the other. "And nowadays the years don't seem to make much difference to a woman's age. Anyway, I knew her!—'That's you, my fine madam,' says I to myself, as soon as ever I unfolded that paper. But, mind you, I kept it to myself! Not a word to my granddaughter, though she was sitting opposite to me when I made the discovery. No—not to anybody!—till to-night. Not the sort of thing to blab about—that!"

"Just so," said the smaller man. "Of course, you'd remember that I was likely to have some recollection of her and of the circumstances. Odd!—very. And I suppose the next thing is—what are you going to do about it?"

"Oh, well!" replied the big man. "Of course, ten years have elapsed. But as to that, it wouldn't matter, you know, if twenty years had slipped by. Still——"

At that point he sank his voice to the least of a whisper, bending over to his companion, and Hetherwick heard no more. But it seemed to him that the little man, although he appeared to be listening intently, was, in reality, doing nothing of the sort. His long, stained fingers became more restless than ever; twice, before the train came to Westminster, he pulled out his watch and glanced at it; once, after that, Hetherwick caught the nervous hand again shaking towards the waistcoat pocket. And he got an idea that the man was regarding his big, garrulous companion with curiously furtive glances, as if he were waiting for some vague, yet expected thing, and wondering when it would materialise: there was a covert watchfulness about him, and though he nodded his head from time to time as if in assent to what was being whispered to him, Hetherwick became convinced that he was either abstracted in thought or taking no interest. If eyes and fingers were to be taken as indications, the man's thoughts were elsewhere.

The train pulled up at Westminster, lingered its half-minute, moved onward again; the big man, still bending down to his companion, went on whispering; now and then, as if he were telling a good story or making a clever point, he chuckled. But suddenly, and without any warning, he paused, coming to a dead, sharp-cut stop in an apparently easy flow of language. He stared wildly around him: Hetherwick caught the flash of his eye as it swept the compartment, and never forgot the look of frightened amazement that he saw in it; it was as if the man had been caught, with lightning-like swiftness, face to face with some awful thing. His left hand shut up, clutching at his breast and throat; the other, releasing the gold-headed cane, shot out as if to ward off a blow. It dropped like lead at his side; the other arm relaxed and fell, limp and nerveless, and before Hetherwick could move, the big, burly figure sank back in its corner and the eyes closed.

Hetherwick jumped from his seat, shouting to the other man.

"Your friend!" he cried. "Look!"

But the other man was looking. He, too, had got to his feet, and he was bending down and stretching out a hand to the big man's wrist. He muttered something that Hetherwick failed to catch.

"What do you say?" demanded Hetherwick impatiently. "Good heavens!—we must do something! The man's—what is it? A seizure?"

"A seizure!" answered the other. "Yes—that's it—a seizure! He'd had one—slight giddiness—just before we got in. A—the train's stopping, though. Charing Cross? I—I know a doctor close by."

The train was already pulling up. Hetherwick flung open the dividing door between his compartment and the next—he had seen the conductor down there and he beckoned to him.

"Quick!" he called. "Here!—there's a man ill—dying, I think! Come here!"

The conductor came—slowly. But when he saw the man in the corner, he made for the outer door and beckoned to men on the platform. A uniformed official ran up and got in.

"What is it?" he asked. "Gentleman in a fit? Who's with him? Anybody?"

Hetherwick looked round for the man with the stained fingers. But he was already out of the carriage and on the platform and making for the stairs that led to the exit. He flung back a few words, pointing upward at the same time.

"Doctor!—close by!" he shouted. "Back in five minutes!—get him out."

But already there was a doctor at hand. Before the man with the stained fingers had fairly vanished, other men had come in from the adjoining compartments; one pushed his way to the front.

"I am a medical man," he said curtly. "Make way, please."

The other men stood silently watching while the new-comer made a hasty examination of the still figure. He turned sharply.

"This man's dead!" he said in quick, matter-of-fact tones. "Is anyone with him?"

The train officials glanced at Hetherwick. But Hetherwick shook his head.

"I don't know him," he answered. "There was another man with him—they got in together at St. James's Park. You saw the other man," he continued, turning to the conductor. "He jumped out as you came in here, and ran up the stairs, saying that he was going for some doctor, close by."

"I saw him—heard him, too," assented the conductor. He glanced at the stairs and the exit beyond. "But he ain't come back," he added.

"You had better get the man out," said the doctor. "Bring him in to some place on the platform."

A station policeman had come up by that time; he and the railwaymen lifted the dead man and carried him across the platform to a waiting-room. Hetherwick, feeling that he would be wanted, followed in the rear, the doctor with him. It struck Hetherwick with grim irony that as soon as they were off it, the train went on, as if careless and indifferent.

"Good heavens!" he muttered, more to himself than to the man at his side. "That poor fellow was alive, and, as far as I could see, in the very best of health and spirits, five minutes ago!"

"No doubt!" observed the doctor dryly. "But he's dead now. What happened?"

Hetherwick told him briefly.

"And the other man's—gone!" remarked the doctor. "Um! But I suppose nobody thought of detaining him. Now—if he doesn't come back—eh?"

"You don't suspect foul play?" exclaimed Hetherwick.

"The circumstances are odd," said his companion. "I should say the man just died! Died as suddenly as man can die—as if he'd been shot dead or literally blown to fragments. That's from what you tell me, you know. And it may be—a case of poisoning. Will that other man come back? If not——"

By that time Hetherwick was beginning to wonder if the other man would come back. He had not come at the end of ten minutes; nor of fifteen; nor of thirty. But other men had come, hurrying into the drab-walled waiting-room and gathering about the table on which the dead man had been laid. They were mostly officials and police, and presently a police surgeon arrived and with him a police inspector, one Matherfield, who knew Hetherwick. While the two doctors made another examination, this man drew Hetherwick aside. Hetherwick retold his story; this time with full details. Matherfield listened and shook his head.

"That second man won't come back!" he said. "Gone half an hour now. Do you think he knew the man was dead before he cleared out?"

"I can't say," replied Hetherwick. "The whole thing was so quick that it was all over before I could realise what was happening. I certainly saw the other man give the dead man a quick, close inspection. Then he literally jumped for the door—he was out of it and running up the stairs before the train had come to a definite stop."

"You can describe him, Mr. Hetherwick?" suggested the inspector.

"Describe him?—yes. And identify him, too," asserted Hetherwick. "He was a man of certain notable features. I should know him again, anywhere."

"Well, we'll have to look for him," said Matherfield. "And now we'll have to take this dead man to the mortuary and have a thorough examination and see what he's got on him. You'd better come, Mr. Hetherwick—in fact, I shall want you."

Hetherwick went—in the tail of a sombre procession, himself and the two medical men walking together. He had to tell his tale again, to the police surgeon; that functionary, like all the rest who had heard the story, shook his head ominously over the disappearance of the sallow-faced man.

"All an excuse, that," he said. "There's no doctor close by. You didn't get any idea—from their conversation, I mean—of the dead man's identity? Any name mentioned?"

"I heard no name mentioned," answered Hetherwick. "They didn't address each other by name. I've no idea who the man is."

That was what he wanted to know. Somewhere, of course, this dead man had friends. He had spoken of his hotel—there, perhaps, somebody was awaiting his coming; somebody to whom the news of his death would come as a great shock, perhaps, and terrible trouble. And he waited with a feeling that was little short of personal anxiety while the police searched the dead man's pockets.

The various articles which were presently laid out on a side-table were many. There was a purse, well stocked with money; there was loose money in the pockets. There was a handsome gold watch and a heavy chain and locket. There was a pocket-book, stuffed with letters and papers. And there were all the things that a well-provided man carries—a cigar-case, a silver matchbox, a silver pencil-case, a pen-knife, and so on; clearly, the dead man had been in comfortable circumstances. But the articles of value were brushed aside by the inspector; his immediate concern was with the contents of the pocket-book, from which he hastened to take out the letters. A second later he turned to Hetherwick and the two doctors, nodding his head sidewise at the still figure on the table.

"This'll be the name and address," he said, pointing to the envelopes in his hand. "Mr. Robert Hannaford, Malter's Private Hotel, Surrey Street, Strand. Several letters, you see, addressed there, and all of recent date. We'll have to go there—there may be his wife and people of his there. Wonder who he was?—somebody from the provinces, most likely. Well——"

He laid down the letters and picked up the watch—a fine gold-cased hunter—and released the back. Within that was an inscription, engraved in delicate lettering. The inspector let out an exclamation.

"Ah!" he said. "I half suspected that from his appearance. One of ourselves! Look at this—'Presented to Superintendent Robert Hannaford, on his retirement, by the Magistrates of Sellithwaite.' Sellithwaite, eh?—where's that, now?"

"Yorkshire," replied one of the men standing close by. "South-West Riding."

Matherfield closed the watch and laid it by.

"Well," he remarked, "that's evidently who he is—ex-Superintendent Hannaford, of Sellithwaite, Yorkshire, stopping at Malter's Hotel. I'll have to go round there. Mr. Hetherwick, as you were the last man to see him alive, I wish you'd go with me—it's on your way to the Temple."

Something closely corresponding to curiosity, not morbid, but compelling, made Hetherwick accede to this request. Presently he and Matherfield walked along the Embankment together, talking of what had just happened and speculating on the cause of Hannaford's sudden death.

"We may know the exact reason by noon," remarked Matherfield. "There'll be a post-mortem, of course. But that other man!—we may get to know something about him here. And I wonder whom we shall find here? Hope it's not his wife...."

CHAPTER II

WHOSE PORTRAIT IS THIS?

Malter himself opened the door of his small private hotel; a quiet, reserved man who looked like a retired butler. He was the sort of man who is slow of speech, and he had not replied to Matherfield's guarded inquiry about Mr. Robert Hannaford when a door in the little hall opened, and a girl appeared, who, hearing the inspector's question, immediately came forward as if in answer.

Hetherwick recognised this girl. He had seen her only the previous afternoon in Fountain Court, in company with a man whom he knew slightly—Kenthwaite, a fellow-barrister. Kenthwaite, evidently, was doing the honours—showing her round the Temple; Hetherwick, in fact, in passing them, had overheard Kenthwaite telling his companion something of the history of the old houses and courts around them. And the girl had attracted him then. She was a pretty girl, tall, slim, graceful, and in addition to her undoubted charm of face and figure, she looked to have more than an average share of character and intelligence, and was listening to her guide with obvious interest and appreciation. Hetherwick had set her down as being, perhaps, a country cousin of Kenthwaite's, visiting London, maybe, for the first time. Anyhow, in merely passing her and Kenthwaite he had noticed her so closely that he now recognised her at once; he saw, too, that she recognised him. But there was another matter more pressing than that—and she had gone straight to it.

"Are these gentlemen asking for my grandfather?" she inquired, coming still nearer and glancing from the hotel proprietor to the two callers. "He's not come in——"

Hetherwick was glad to hear that the dead man was the girl's grandfather. Certainly it was a close relationship, but, after all, not so close as it might have been. And he was conscious that the inspector was relieved, too.

"We're asking about Mr. Robert Hannaford," he said. "Is he your grandfather—ex-Superintendent Hannaford, of Sellithwaite? Just so—well, I'm very sorry to bring bad news about him——"

He broke off, watching the girl keenly, as if he wanted to make sure that she would take the news quietly. And evidently reassured on that point, he suddenly went on definitely:

"You'll understand?" he said. "It's—well, the worst news. The fact is——"

"Is my grandfather dead?" interrupted the girl. "If that's it, please say so—I shan't faint, or anything of that sort. But—I want to know!"

"I'm sorry to say he is dead," replied Matherfield. "He died suddenly in the train at Charing Cross. A seizure, no doubt. Was he well when you saw him last?"

The girl turned to the hotel proprietor, who was standing by, evidently amazed.

"Never saw a gentleman look better or seem better in my life than he did when he went out of that door at half-past six o'clock!" he exclaimed. "Best of health and spirits!"

"My grandfather was quite well," said the girl quietly. "I never remember him being anything else but well—he was a very strong, vigorous man. Will you please tell me all about it?"

Matherfield told all about it, turning now and then to Hetherwick for corroboration. In the end he put a question.

"This man that Mr. Hetherwick saw in your grandfather's company?" he suggested. "Do you recognise anyone from that description?"

"No!—no one," answered the girl. "But my grandfather knew people in London whom I don't know. He has been going about a good deal since we came here, three days ago—looking out for a house."

"Well, we shall have to find that man," remarked Matherfield. "Of course, if you'd recognised the description as that of somebody known to you——"

"No," she said again. "I know nobody like that. But now—do you wish me to go with you—to him?"

"It's not necessary—I wouldn't to-night, if I were you," replied Matherfield. "I'll call again in the morning. Meanwhile, leave matters to us and the doctors. You've friends in London, I suppose?"

"Yes, we have friends—relations, in fact," said the girl. "I must let them know at once."

Matherfield nodded and turned to the door. But Hetherwick lingered. He and the girl were looking at each other. He suddenly spoke.

"I saw you this afternoon," he said, "in Fountain Court, with a man whom I know slightly, Mr. Kenthwaite. Is he, by any chance, one of the relations you mentioned just now? Because, if so, he lives close by me. I can tell him, if you wish."

"No," she answered, "not a relative. We know him. You might tell him, if you please, and if it's no trouble."

"No trouble at all," said Hetherwick. "And—if I may—I hope you'll let me call in the morning to hear if there's anything I can do for you?"

The girl gave him a quick, responsive glance.

"That's very kind of you," she said. "Yes."

Hetherwick and the police inspector left the little hotel and walked up the street. Matherfield seemed to be in a brown study. Somewhere up in the Strand and farther away down Fleet Street the clocks began striking.

"Seems to me," exclaimed Matherfield suddenly, "seems to me, Mr. Hetherwick, this is—murder!"

"You mean poison?" said Hetherwick.

"Likely! Why, yes, of course, it would be poison. We must have that man! You can't add to your description of him?"

"You've already got everything that I can tell. Pretty full and accurate, too. I should say you oughtn't to have much difficulty in laying hands on him—from my description."

Matherfield made a sound that was half a laugh and half a groan.

"Lord bless you!" he said. "It's like seeking a needle in a bundle of hay, searching for a given man in London! I mean, of course, sometimes. More often than not, in fact. Here's this chap rushes up the stairs at Charing Cross, vanishes—where? One man amongst seven millions of men and women! However——"

Then they parted, and Hetherwick, full of thought, went home to his chambers and to bed, and lay equally thoughtful for a long time before he went to sleep. He made a poor night of it, but soon after eight o'clock he was in Kenthwaite's chambers. Kenthwaite was dressing and breakfasting at the same time—a ready-packed brief bag and an open time-table suggested that he was in a hurry to catch a train. But he suspended his operations to stare, open-mouthed, wide-eyed at Hetherwick's news.

"Hannaford!—dead!" he exclaimed. "Great Scott!—why, he was as fit as a fiddle at noon yesterday, Hetherwick! He and his granddaughter called on me, and I took 'em to lunch—I come from Sellithwaite, you know, so of course I knew them. Hannaford had to go as soon as we'd lunched—some appointment—so I showed the girl round a bit. Nice girl, that—clever. Name of Rhona. Worth cultivating. And the old man's dead! Bless me!"

"I don't think there's much doubt about foul play," observed Hetherwick.

"Looks uncommonly like it," said Kenthwaite. He went on with his double task. "Well," he added, "sorry, but I can't be of any use to Miss Hannaford to-day—got to go down to a beastly Quarter Sessions case, my boy, and precious little time to catch my train. But to-morrow—perhaps you can give 'm a hand this morning?"

"Yes," answered Hetherwick. "I'm doing nothing. I'll go round there after a while. I'm interested naturally. It's a queer case."

"Queer! Seems so, rather," assented Kenthwaite. "Well—give Miss Hannaford my sympathy and all that, and tell her that if there's anything I can do when I get back—you know what to say."

"She said she'd relations here in London," remarked Hetherwick.

"Cousins—aunts—something or other—over Tooting way, I think," agreed Kenthwaite. "Twenty past eight!—Hetherwick, I'll have to rush for it!"

He swallowed the last of his coffee, seized the bag and darted away; Hetherwick went back to his own chambers and breakfasted leisurely. And all the time he sat there he was pondering over the event of the previous midnight, and especially upon the sudden disappearance of the man with the stained fingers. To Hetherwick that disappearance seemed to argue guilt. He figured it in this way—the man who ran away at Charing Cross had poisoned this other man in some clever and subtle fashion, by means of something which took a certain time to take effect, and, when that time arrived, did its work with amazing swiftness. Hetherwick, in his war service, had seen men die more times than he cared to remember. He had seen some men shot through the brain; he had seen others shot through the heart. But he had never seen any of these men—some of them shot at his very side—die with the extraordinary quickness with which Hannaford had died. And he came to a conclusion: if the man with the stained fingers had poisoned Hannaford, then he was somebody who had a rare and a profound knowledge of poisons.

He went round to Surrey Street at ten o'clock. Miss Hannaford, said the hotel proprietor, had gone with her aunt, a Mrs. Keeley, who had come early that morning, to see her grandfather's dead body—some police official had fetched them. But she had left a message for anyone who called—that she would not be long away. And Hetherwick waited in the little dingy coffee-room; there were certain questions that he wanted to put to Rhona Hannaford, also he wanted to give her certain information.

"Very sad case this, sir," observed the hotel proprietor, hovering about his breakfast-tables. "Cruel end for a fine healthy gentleman like Mr. Hannaford!"

"Very sad," agreed Hetherwick. "You said last night—or, rather, this morning—that Mr. Hannaford was in good health and spirits when he went out early in the evening?"

"The best, sir! He was a cheery, affable gentleman—fond of his joke. Joked and laughed with me as I opened the door for him—never thinking, sir, as I should never see him again alive!"

"You don't know where he was going?"

"I don't, sir. And his granddaughter—clever young lady, that, sir—she don't know, neither. She went to a theatre, along of her aunt, the lady that came early this morning. We wired the bad news to her first thing, and she came along at once. But him—no, I don't know where he went to spend his evening. Been in and out, and mostly out, ever since they were here, three days ago. House-hunting, so I understood."

Rhona Hannaford presently returned, in company with a motherly-looking woman whom she introduced as her aunt, Mrs. Keeley. Then Hetherwick remembered that he had not introduced himself; rectifying that omission, he found that Kenthwaite had told Rhona who he was when he passed them the previous afternoon. He delivered Kenthwaite's message and in his absence offered his own services.

"It's very good of you," said Rhona. "I don't know that there's anything to do. The police seem to be doing everything—the inspector who was here last night was very kind just now, but, as he said, there's nothing to be done until after the inquest."

"Yes," said Hetherwick. "And that is—did he say when?"

"To-morrow morning. He said I should have to go," replied Rhona.

"So shall I," observed Hetherwick. "They'll only want formal evidence from you. I shall have to say more. I wish I could say more than I shall have to say."

The two women glanced at him inquiringly.

"I mean," he continued, "that I wish I had stopped the other man from leaving the train. I suppose you have not heard anything from the police about him—that man?"

"Nothing. They had not found him or heard of him up to just now. But you can tell me something that I very much want to know. You saw this man with my grandfather for some little time, didn't you?"

"From St. James's Park to Charing Cross."

"Did you overhear their conversation, or any of it?"

"A good deal—at first. Afterwards, your grandfather began to whisper, and I heard nothing of that. But one reason I had for calling upon you this morning was that I might tell you what I did overhear, and another that I might ask you some questions arising out of what I heard. Mr. Hannaford was talking to this man, now missing, about some portrait or photograph. Evidently it was of a lady whom he, your grandfather, had known ten years ago; whom the other man had also known. Your grandfather said that when they got to his hotel he would show the portrait to the other man who, he asserted, would be sure to recognise it. Now, had Mr. Hannaford said anything to you? Do you know anything about his bringing any friend of his to this hotel last night? And do you know anything about any portrait or photograph such as that to which he referred?"

"About bringing anyone here—no! He never said anything to me about it. But about a photograph, or rather about a print of one—yes. I do know something about that."

"What?" asked Hetherwick eagerly.

"Well, this," she answered. "My grandfather, who, as I dare say you know by this time, was for a good many years Superintendent of Police at Sellithwaite, had a habit of cutting things out of newspapers—paragraphs, accounts of criminal trials, and so on. He had several boxes full of such cuttings. When we were coming to town the other day I saw him cut a photograph out of some illustrated paper he was reading in the train, and put it away in his pocket-book—in a pocket-book, I ought to say, for he had two or three pocket-books. This morning I was looking through various things which he had left lying about on his dressing-table upstairs, and in one of his pocket-books I found the photograph which he cut out in the train. That must be the one you mention—it's of a very handsome, distinguished-looking woman."

"If I may see it——" suggested Hetherwick.

Within a couple of minutes he had the cutting in his hand—a scrap of paper, neatly snipped out of its surrounding letterpress, which was a print of a photograph of a woman of apparently thirty-five to forty years of age, evidently of high position, and certainly, as Rhona Hannaford had remarked, of handsome and distinguished features. But it was not at the photograph that Hetherwick gazed with eyes into which surmise and speculation were beginning to steal; after a mere glance at it, his attention fixed itself on some pencilled words on the margin at its sides:

"Through my hands ten years ago!"

"Is that your grandfather's writing?" he inquired suddenly.

"Yes, that's his," replied Rhona. "He had a habit of pencilling notes and comments on his cuttings—all sorts of remarks."

"He didn't mention this particular cutting to you when he cut it out?"

"No—he said nothing about it. I saw him cut it out, and heard him chuckle as he put it away, but he said—nothing."

"You don't know who this lady is?"

"Oh, no! You see, there's no name beneath it. I suppose there was in the paper, but he cut out nothing but the picture and the bit of margin. But from what he's written there, I conclude that this is a portrait of some woman who had been in trouble with the police at some time or other."

"Obvious!" muttered Hetherwick. He sat silently inspecting the picture for a minute or two.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "I want you to let me help in trying to get at the bottom of this—naturally you want to have it cleared up. And to begin with, let me have this cutting, and for the present don't tell anyone—I mean the police or any inquirers—that I have it. I'd like to have a talk about it to Kenthwaite. You understand? As I was present at your grandfather's death, I'd like to solve the mystery of it. If you'll leave this to me——"

"Oh, yes!" replied Rhona. "But—you think there has been foul play?—that he didn't die a natural death?—that it wasn't just heart failure or——"

The door of the little coffee-room was opened and Matherfield looked in. Seeing Hetherwick there, he beckoned him into the hall, closing the door again as the young barrister joined him. Hetherwick saw that he was full of news, and instantly thought of the man with the stained fingers.

"Well?" he said eagerly, "laid your hands on that fellow?"

"Oh, him?—no!" answered Matherfield. "Not a word or sign of him—so far! But the doctors have finished their post-mortem. And there's no doubt about their verdict. Poisoned!"

Matherfield sank his voice to a whisper as he spoke the last word. And Hetherwick, ready though he was for the news, started when he got it—the definiteness of the announcement seemed like opening a window upon a vista of obscured and misty distances. He glanced at the door behind him.

"Of course, they'll have to be told, in there," said Matherfield, interpreting his thoughts. "But the thing's certain. Our surgeon suspected it from the first, and he got a Home Office specialist to help at the autopsy—they say the man was poisoned by some drug or other—I don't understand these things—that had been administered to him two or three hours before he died, and that when it did work, worked with absolutely lightning-like effect."

"Yes," muttered Hetherwick thoughtfully. "Lightning-like effect—good phrase. I can testify that it did that!"

Matherfield laid a hand on the door.

"Well," he said, "I'd better tell these ladies. Then—there are things I want to know from the granddaughter. I've seen her—and her aunt—before this morning. I found out that Hannaford brought up and educated this girl, and that she lived with him in Sellithwaite since she left school, so she'll know more about him than anybody. And I want to learn all I can. Come in with me."

CHAPTER III

THE POTENTIAL FORTUNE

Elder and younger woman alike took Matherfield's intimation quietly. Rhona made no remark. But Mrs. Keeley spoke impulsively.

"There never was a more popular man than he was—with everybody!" she exclaimed. "Who should want to take his life?"

"That's just what we've got to find out, ma'am," said Matherfield. "And I want to know as much as I can—I dare say Miss Hannaford can tell me a lot. Now, let's see what we do know from what you told me this morning. Mr. Hannaford had been Superintendent of Police at Sellithwaite for some years. He had recently retired on his pension. He proposed to live in London, and you and he, Miss Hannaford, came to London to look for a suitable house, arrived three days ago, and put up at this hotel. That's all correct? Very good—now then, let me hear all about his movements during the last three days. What did he do? Where did he spend his time?"

"I can't tell you much," answered Rhona. "He was out most of the day, and generally by himself. I was only out with him twice—once when we went to do some shopping, another time when we called on Mr. Kenthwaite at his rooms in the Temple. I understood he was looking for a house—seeing house agents and so on. He was out morning, afternoon and evening."

"Did he never tell you anything about where he'd been, or whom he'd seen?"

"No. He was the sort of man who keeps things to himself. I have no idea where he went nor whom he saw."

"Didn't say anything about where he was going last night?"

"No. He only said that he was going out and that I should find him here when I got back from the theatre, to which I was going with Mrs. Keeley. We got back here soon after eleven. But he hadn't come in—as you know."

"You never heard him speak of having enemies?"

"I should think he hadn't an enemy in the world! He was a very kind man and very popular, even with the people he had to deal with as a police-superintendent."

"And I suppose he'd no financial worries—anything of that sort? Nor any other troubles—nothing to bother him?"

"I don't think he'd a care in the world," said Rhona confidently. "He was looking forward with real zest to settling down in London. And as to financial worries, he'd none. He was well off."

"Always a saving, careful man," remarked Mrs. Keeley. "Oh, yes, quite well off—apart from his pension."

Matherfield glanced at Hetherwick, who had listened carefully to all that was asked and answered. Something in the glance seemed to invite him to take a hand.

"This occurs to me," said Hetherwick. He turned to Rhona. "Apart from this house-hunting, do you know whether your grandfather had any business affair in hand in London? What I'm thinking of is this—from what I saw of him in the train, he appeared to be an active, energetic man, not the sort of man who, because he'd retired, would sit down in absolute idleness. Do you know of anything that he thought of undertaking—any business he thought of joining?"

Rhona considered this question for a while.

"Not any business," she replied at last. "But there is something that may have to do with what you suggest. My grandfather had a hobby. He experimented in his spare time."

"What in?" asked Hetherwick. Then he suddenly remembered the stained fingers that he had noticed on the hands of both men the night before. "Was it chemicals?" he added quickly.

"Yes, in chemicals," she answered with a look of surprise. "How did you know that?"

"I noticed that his hands and fingers were stained," replied Hetherwick. "So were those of the man he was with. Well—but this something?"

"He had a little laboratory in our garden at Sellithwaite," she continued. "He spent all his spare time in it—he'd done that for years. Lately, I know, he'd been trying to invent or discover something—I don't know what. But just before we left Sellithwaite, he told me that he'd solved the problem, and when he was sorting out and packing up his papers he showed me a sealed envelope in which he said were the particulars of his big discovery—he said there was a potential fortune in it and that he should die a rich man. I saw him put that envelope in a pocket-book which he always carried with him."

"That would be the pocket-book I examined last night," said Matherfield. "There was no sealed envelope, nor one of which any seal had been broken, in that. There was nothing but letters, receipts and unimportant papers."

"It is not in his other pocket-books," declared Rhona. "I went through all his things myself very early this morning—through everything that he had here. I know that he had that envelope yesterday—he pulled out some things from his pocket when we were lunching with Mr. Kenthwaite in a restaurant in Fleet Street, and I saw the envelope. It was a stout, square envelope, across the front of which he had drawn two thick red lines, and it was heavily sealed with black sealing-wax at the back."

"That was yesterday, you say?" asked Matherfield sharply. "Yesterday noon? Just so! Then as he had it yesterday at noon, and as it wasn't in his pockets last night and is not among his effects in this house, it's very clear that between, say, two o'clock yesterday and midnight he parted with it. Now then, to whom? That's a thing we've just got to find out! But you're sure he wasn't joking when he told you that this discovery, or invention, or whatever it was, was worth a potential fortune?"

"On the contrary, he was very serious," replied Rhona. "Unusually serious for him. He wouldn't tell me what it was, nor give me any particulars—all he said was that he'd solved a problem and hit on a discovery that he'd worked over for years, and that the secret was in that envelope and worth no end of money. I asked him what he meant by no end of money and he said: 'Well, at any rate, a hundred thousand pounds—in time.'"

The two men exchanged glances; silence fell on the whole group.

"Oh!" said Matherfield at last. "A secret worth a hundred thousand pounds—in time. This will have to be looked into—narrowly. What do you think, Mr. Hetherwick?"

"Yes," answered Hetherwick. "You've no idea, of course, as to whether your grandfather had done anything about putting this discovery on the market—or made any arrangement about selling it? No! Well, can you tell me this: What sort of house did your grandfather want to rent here in London? I mean, do you know what rent he was prepared to pay?"

"I can answer that," remarked Mrs. Keeley. "He told me he wanted a good house—a real good one—in a convenient suburb, and he was willing to go up to three hundred a year."

"Three hundred a year," said Hetherwick. He exchanged a meaning glance with Matherfield. "That," he added, "looks as if he felt assured of a considerable income, and as though he had already realised on his discovery or was very certain of doing so."

"To be sure," agreed Matherfield. "Of course, I don't know what his private means were, but I know what his retiring pension would be—and three hundred a year for rent alone means—a good deal! Um!—we'll have to endeavour to trace that sealed envelope."

"It seems to me, Matherfield," observed Hetherwick, "that the first thing to do is to trace Hannaford's movements last night, from the time he left this hotel until his death in the train."

"We're at that already," replied Matherfield. "We've a small army of men at work. But as we want all the help we can get, I'm going to stir up the newspaper men, Mr. Hetherwick—the Press, sir, is always valuable in this sort of thing!—and I want Miss Hannaford, if she's got one, to give me a recent photograph of her grandfather so that it can appear in the papers. Somebody, you know, may recognise it—somebody who saw him last night with somebody else."

Rhona had a new photograph of the dead man, taken in plain clothes just before he left Sellithwaite, and she gave Matherfield some copies of it. Reproductions appeared in the Meteor and other evening papers that night, and in some of the dailies next morning. And, as a result, a man came forward at the inquest, a few hours later, who declared with positive assurance that he had seen Hannaford early in the evening of the murder. His appearance was the only sensational thing about these necessarily only preliminary proceedings before the coroner; until he stepped forward nothing had transpired with which Hetherwick was not already familiar. There had been his own evidence; somewhat to his surprise neither coroner nor police seemed to pay much attention to his account of the conversation about the woman's portrait; they appeared to regard Hannaford's observations as a bit of garrulous reminiscence about some criminal or other. There had been Rhona's—a repetition of what she had told Matherfield and Hetherwick at Malter's Hotel: police and coroner evidently fixed on the missing sealed envelope and its mysterious secret as a highly important factor in the case. Then there had been the expert testimony of the two doctors as to the cause of death—that had been confined to positive declarations that Hannaford died from the administration of some subtle poison, the exact details being left over until experts could tell more at the adjourned proceedings. And the coroner was about to adjourn for a fortnight when a man, who had entered the court and been in conversation with the officials, was put into the witness-box to tell a story which certainly added information and, at the same time, accentuated mystery.

This man was a highly-respectable person in appearance, middle-aged, giving the name of Martin Charles Ledbitter, manager of an insurance office in Westminster, and residing at Sutton, in Surrey. It was his habit, he said, to travel every evening from Victoria to Sutton by the 7.20 train. As a rule he arrived at Victoria just before seven and took a cup of tea in the refreshment-room. He did this on the night before last. While he was drinking his tea at the counter, an elderly man came in and stood by him, whom he was sure beyond doubt was the same man whose photograph was reproduced in some of last night's and some of this morning's newspapers. He had no doubt whatever about this. He first noticed the man's stained fingers as he took up the glass of whisky-and-soda which he had ordered; he had, at the time, wondered at the contrast between those fingers and the general spick-and-spanness of the man and his smart attire; also he had noticed his gold-headed walking-cane and that the head was fashioned like a crown. They stood side by side for some minutes, then the man went out. A minute or two later he saw him again—this time at the right-hand side bookstall; he was there obviously looking out for somebody.

This was the point where the interest really began; everybody in court strained eyes and ears as the coroner put a direct question.

"Looking out for somebody? Did you see him meet anybody?"

"I did!"

"Tell me what you saw."

"I saw this. When I approached the bookstall, to buy some evening papers, the man whom I had seen in the refreshment-room was standing close by. He was looking about him, but chiefly at the entrances to the big space between the offices and the platforms. Once or twice he looked at his watch. It was then—by the station clock—about ten minutes past seven. He seemed impatient; he moved restlessly about. I passed him and went to the bookstall. When I turned round again he was standing a few yards away, shaking hands with another man. From the way in which they shook hands, I concluded that they were old friends, who perhaps had not seen each other for some time."

"Their greeting was cordial?"

"I should call it effusive."

"Can you describe the other man?"

"I can describe a sort of general impression of both. He was a tall man, taller than Hannaford, but not so broadly built. He wore a dark ulster overcoat, with a strap at the back; it was either a very dark blue or a black in colour. He had a silk hat—new and glossy. He gave me the impression of being a smartly-dressed man—smart boots and gloves and that sort of thing—you know the general impression you get at a quick glance. But as to his features, I can't tell you anything."

"Why not?" asked the coroner.

"Because, to begin with, he wore an unusually large pair of blue spectacles, which completely veiled his eyes, and to end with, his throat and chin were swathed in a heavy white muffler, which covered the lower part of his face as well. Between the rim of his hat and the collar of his coat it was all muffler and spectacles!"

The coroner looked disappointed. His interest in the witness seemed to evaporate.

"Did you notice anything else?" he asked.

"Only that the new-comer took Hannaford's arm and that they walked away towards the left-hand entrance hall, evidently in earnest conversation. That was the last I saw of them."

"There's just one question I should like to put to you in conclusion," said the coroner. "You say that you are confident that the photograph in the newspapers is that of the man you saw at Victoria. Now, have you seen the dead man's body?"

"I have. The police took me to see it when I volunteered my evidence."

"And you recognised it as that of the man you saw?"

"Without doubt! There is no question of that in my mind."

Five minutes later the inquest stood adjourned, and those chiefly concerned gathered together in the emptying court to discuss the voluntary witness's evidence. Matherfield manifested an almost cheerful optimism.

"This is better!—much better," he declared, rubbing his hands as if in anticipation of laying them on something. "We know now that Hannaford met, at any rate, two men that night. It's easier to find two men than one!"

Rhona, whom Hetherwick had escorted to the coroner's court, looked her astonishment. "How can that be?" she asked.

"Mr. Hetherwick understands," answered Matherfield with a laugh. "He'll tell you."

But Hetherwick said nothing. He was always wondering—always wondering—about the woman whose picture lay in his pocket.

CHAPTER IV

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE

The conviction that there was more than met the eye in Hannaford's cutting out and putting away the handsome and distinguished woman's photograph grew mightily in Hetherwick's mind during the next few days. He recalled all that Hannaford had said about it in the train in those few short minutes before his sudden death. Why had he been so keen about showing it to the other man? Was he taking the other man specially to his hotel to show it to him—at that time of night? Why did the recollections which his possession of it brought up afford him—obviously—so much interest and, it seemed, amusement? And what, exactly, was meant by the pencilled words in the margin of the cutting?—Through my hands ten years ago! Under what circumstances had this woman been through Hannaford's hands? And who was she? The more he thought of it, the more Hetherwick was convinced that there was more importance in this matter than the police attached to it. They had proved utterly indifferent to Hetherwick's account of the conversation in the train—that, said Matherfield, with official superiority, was nothing but a bit of chat, reminiscence, recollection, on the ex-superintendent's part; old men, he said, were fond of talking about incidents of the past. The only significance Matherfield saw in it was that it seemed to argue that whoever the man who had disappeared was, he and Hannaford had known each other ten years ago.

At the end of a week the police had heard nothing of this man. Nor had they made any discovery in respect of the other man whom Ledbitter swore he had seen with Hannaford at Victoria. The best Scotland Yard hands had been hard and continuously at work, and had brought nothing to light. Only one person had seen the first man after he darted up the stairs of Charing Cross calling out that he was going for a doctor; this was a policeman on duty at the front of the Underground Station. He had seen the man run out; had watched him run at top speed up Villiers Street, and had thought no more of it than that he was some belated passenger hurrying to catch a last bus in the Strand. But with that, all news and trace of him vanished. Of the tall man in the big blue spectacles and white muffler there never was any trace, nor any news beyond Ledbitter's. Yet Ledbitter was a thoroughly dependable witness, and there was no doubt that he had seen Hannaford in this man's company. So, without question, Hannaford, during his last few hours of life, had been with two men—neither of whom could be found. Within twenty-four hours of his death several men came forward voluntarily who had had dealings or conversation with Hannaford since his arrival in London. But there was a significant fact about the news which any of them could give—not one knew anything of the tall man seen by Ledbitter, or of the shabby man seen by Hetherwick, or of the secret which Hannaford carried in his sealed packet. The story of that sealed packet had been told plentifully in the newspapers—but nobody came forward who knew anything about it. And when a week had elapsed after the ex-Superintendent's burial, the whole mystery of his undoubted murder seemed likely to become one of the many which are never solved.

But Hetherwick was becoming absorbed in this affair into which he had been so curiously thrown head-first. He had leisure on his hands; also, he was well off in this world's goods, and much more concerned with the psychology of his profession than with a desire to earn money by its practice. From the moment in which he heard that the doctors had found that Hannaford had been poisoned, he felt that here was a murder mystery at the bottom of which he must get—it fascinated him. And all through his speculations and theorisings about it, he was obsessed by the picture in his pocket. Who was that woman—and what did the dead man remember about her?

Suddenly, one morning, after a visit from Matherfield, who looked in at his chambers casually, to tell him that the police had discovered nothing, Hetherwick put on his hat and went round to Surrey Street. He found Rhona Hannaford busy in preparing to leave Malter's Hotel: she was going to live, for a time at any rate, with Mrs. Keeley. Hetherwick went straight to the matter that had brought him.

"That print of a woman's photograph which your grandfather had in his pocket-book," he said, "and that's now in mine. Out of what paper did he cut it?—a newspaper, evidently."

"Yes, but I don't know what paper," answered Rhona. "All I know is that it was a paper which he got by post, the morning that he left Sellithwaite. We were just leaving for the station when the post came. He put his letters and papers—there were several things—in his overcoat pocket, and opened them in the train. It was somewhere on the way to London that he cut out that picture. He threw the paper away—with others. He had a habit of buying a lot of papers, and used to cut out paragraphs."

"Well—I suppose it can be traced," muttered Hetherwick, thinking aloud. He glanced at the evidences of Rhona's departure. "So you're going to live with your aunt?" he said.

"For a time—yes," she answered.

"I hope you'll let me call?" suggested Hetherwick. "I'm awfully interested in this affair, and I may be able to tell you something about it."

"We'd be pleased," she replied. "I'll give you the address. I don't intend to be idle though—unless you call in the evening, you'll probably find me out."

"What are you thinking of doing?" he asked.

"I think of going in for secretarial work," she answered. "As a matter of fact, I had a training for that, in Sellithwaite. Typewriting, correspondence, accounts, French, German—I'm pretty well equipped."

"Don't think me inquisitive," said Hetherwick, suddenly. "I hope your grandfather hasn't forgotten you in his will—I heard he'd left one!"

"Thank you," replied Rhona. "He hasn't. He left me everything. I've got about three hundred a year—rather more. But that's no reason why I should sit down, and do nothing, is it?"

"Good!" said Hetherwick. "But—if that sealed packet could be found? What was worth a hundred thousand to him, would be worth a hundred thousand to his sole legatee. Worth finding!"

"I wonder if anything will be found?" she answered. "The whole thing's a mystery that I'm not even on the edge of solving."

"Time!" said Hetherwick. "And—patience."

He went away presently, and strolled round to Brick Court, where Kenthwaite had his chambers.

"Doing anything?" he asked, as he walked in.

"Nothing," replied Kenthwaite. "Go ahead!"

Hetherwick sat down, and lighted his pipe.

"You know Sellithwaite, don't you?" he asked when he had got his tobacco well going. "Your town, eh?"

"Born and bred there, and engaged to a girl there," replied Kenthwaite. "Ought to! What about Sellithwaite?"

"Were you there ten years ago?" demanded Hetherwick.

"Ten years ago? No—except in the holidays. I was at school ten years ago. Why?"

"Do you remember any police case at Sellithwaite about that time in which a very handsome woman was concerned—probably as defendant?"

"No! But I was more interested in cricket than in crime, in those days. Are you thinking about the woman Hannaford spoke of in the train to the chap they can't come across?"

"I am! Seems to me there's more in that than the police think."

"Shouldn't wonder. Let's see: Hannaford spoke of that woman as—what?"

"Said she'd been through his hands, ten years ago."

"Well, that's easy! If she was through Hannaford's hands, as Superintendent of Police, ten years ago, that would be at Sellithwaite. And there'll be records, particulars, and so on at Sellithwaite."

Hetherwick nodded, and smoked in silence for awhile.

"Think I shall go down there," he said at last.

Kenthwaite stared, wonderingly.

"Keen as all that!" he exclaimed.

"Queer business!" said Hetherwick. "Like to solve it."

"Oh, well, it's only a four hours' run from King's Cross," observed Kenthwaite. "Interesting town, too. Old as the hills and modern as they make 'em. Excellent hotel—'White Bear.' And I'll tell you what, my future's brother is a solicitor there—Michael Hollis. I'll give you a letter of introduction to him, and he'll show you round and give you any help you need."

"Good man!" said Hetherwick. "Write it!"

Kenthwaite sat down and wrote, and handed over the result.

"What do you want to find out, exactly?" he asked, as Hetherwick thanked him, and rose to go.

"All about the woman, and why Hannaford cut her picture out of the paper," answered Hetherwick. "Well—see you when I get back."

He went off to his own chambers, packed a bag, and drove to King's Cross to catch the early afternoon train for the North. At half-past seven that evening he found himself in Sellithwaite, a grey, smoke-laden town set in the midst of bleak and rugged hills, where the folk—if the railway officials were anything to go by—spoke a dialect which, to Hetherwick's southern ears, sounded like some barbaric language. But the "White Bear," in which he was presently installed, yielded all the comforts and luxuries of a first-class hotel: the dining-room, into which Hetherwick turned as soon as he had booked his room, seemed to be thronged by a thoroughly cosmopolitan crowd of men; he heard most of the principal European languages being spoken—later, he found that his fellow-guests were principally Continental business men, buyers, intent on replenishing exhausted stocks from the great warehouses and manufactories of Sellithwaite. All this was interesting, nor was he destined to spend the remainder of his evening in contemplating it from a solitary corner, for he had scarcely eaten his dinner when a hall-porter came to tell him that Mr. Hollis was asking for Mr. Hetherwick.

Hetherwick hastened into the lounge, and found a keen-faced, friendly-eyed man of forty or thereabouts stretching out a hand to him.

"Kenthwaite wired me this afternoon that you were coming down, and asked me to look you up here," he said. "I'd have asked you to dine with me, but I've been kept at my office until just now, and again, I live a good many miles out of town. But to-morrow night——"

"You're awfully good," replied Hetherwick. "I'd no idea that Kenthwaite was wiring. He gave me a letter of introduction to you, but I suppose he thought I wanted to lose no time. And I don't, and I dare say you can tell me something about the object of my visit—let's find a corner and smoke."

Installed in an alcove in the big smoking-room, Hollis read Kenthwaite's letter.

"What is it you're after?" he asked. "Kenthwaite mentions that my knowledge of Sellithwaite is deeper than his own—naturally, it is, as I'm several years older."

"Well," responded Hetherwick. "It's this, briefly. You're aware, of course, of what befell your late Police-Superintendent in London—his sudden death?"

"Oh, yes—read all the newspapers, anyway," assented Hollis. "You're the man who was present in the train on the Underground, aren't you?"

"I am. And that's one reason why I'm keen on solving the mystery. There's no doubt whatever that Hannaford was poisoned—that it's a case of deliberate murder. Now, there's a feature of the case to which the police don't seem to attach any importance. I do attach great importance to it. It's the matter of the woman to whom Hannaford referred when he was talking—in my presence—to the man who so mysteriously disappeared. Hannaford spoke of that woman as having been through his hands ten years ago. That would be some experience he had here, in this town. Now then, do you know anything about it? Does it arouse any recollection?"

Hollis, who was smoking a cigar, thoughtfully tapped its long ash against the edge of his coffee-cup. Suddenly his eyes brightened.

"That's probably the Whittingham case," he said. "It was about ten years ago."

"And what was the Whittingham case?" asked Hetherwick. "Case of a woman?"

"Of a woman—evidently an adventuress—who came to Sellithwaite about ten years ago, and stayed here some little time, in this very hotel," replied Hollis. "Oddly enough, I never saw her! But she was heard of enough—eventually. She came here, to the 'White Bear,' alone, with plenty of luggage and evident funds. I understand she was a very handsome woman, twenty-eight or thirty years of age, and she was taken for somebody of consequence. I rather think she described herself as the Honourable Mrs. Whittingham. She paid her bills here with unfailing punctuality every Saturday morning. She spent a good deal of money amongst the leading tradesmen in the town, and always paid cash. In short, she established her credit very successfully. And with nobody more so than the principal jeweller here—Malladale. She bought a lot of jewellery from Malladale—but in his case, she always paid by cheque. And in the end it was through a deal with Malladale that she got into trouble."

"And into Hannaford's hands!" suggested Hetherwick.

"Into Hannaford's hands, certainly," assented Hollis. "It was this way. She had, as I said just now, made a lot of purchases from Malladale, who, I may tell you, has a first-class trade amongst our rich commercial magnates in this neighbourhood. Her transactions with him, however, were never, at first, in amounts exceeding a hundred or two. But they went through all right. She used to pay him by cheque drawn on a Manchester bank—Manchester, you know, is only thirty-five miles away. As her first cheques were always met, Malladale never bothered about making any inquiry about her financial stability; like everybody else he was very much impressed by her. Well, in the end, she'd a big deal with Malladale, Malladale had a very fine diamond necklace in stock. He and she used to discuss her acquisition of it: according to his story they had a fine old battle as to terms. Eventually, they struck a bargain—he let her have it for three thousand nine hundred pounds. She gave him a cheque for that amount there and then, and he let her carry off the necklace."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hetherwick.

"Just so!" agreed Hollis. "But—he did. However, for some reason or other, Malladale had that cheque specially cleared. She handed it to him on a Monday afternoon; first thing on Wednesday morning Malladale found that it had been returned with the ominous reference to drawer inscribed on its surface! Naturally, he hurried round to the 'White Bear.' But the Honourable Mrs. Whittingham had disappeared. She had paid up her account, taken her belongings, and left the hotel, and the town, late on the Monday evening, and all that could be discovered at the station was that she had travelled by the last train to Leeds, where, of course, there are several big main lines to all parts of England. And she had left no address: she had, indeed, told the people here that she should be back before long, and that if any letters came they were to keep them until her return. So then Malladale went to the police, and Hannaford got busy."

"I gather that he traced her?" suggested Hetherwick.

Hollis laughed sardonically.

"Hannaford traced her—and he got her," he answered. "But he might well use the expression that you mentioned just now. She was indeed through his hands—just as a particularly slippery eel might have been—she got clear away from him."

CHAPTER V

THE POLICE RETURN

Hetherwick now began to arrive at something like an understanding of a matter that had puzzled him ever since and also at the time of the conversation between Hannaford and his companion in the train. He had noted then that whatever it was that Hannaford was telling, he was telling it as a man tells a story against himself; there had been signs of amused chagrin and discomfiture in his manner. Now he saw why.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "She was one too many for him. Then?"

"A good many times too many!" laughed Hollis. "She did Hannaford completely. He strove hard to find her, and did a great deal of the spade-work himself. And at last he ran her down—in a fashionable hotel in London. He had a Scotland Yard man with him, and a detective from our own police-office here, a man named Gandham, who is still in the force—I'll introduce you to him to-morrow. Hannaford, finding that Mrs. Whittingham had a suite of rooms in this hotel—a big West End place—left his two men downstairs, or outside, and went up to see her alone. According to his own account, she was highly indignant at any suspicions being cast upon her, and still more so, rose to a pitch of most virtuous indignation when he told her that he'd got a warrant for her arrest and that she'd have to go with him. During a brief interchange of remarks she declared that if her bankers at Manchester had returned her cheque unpaid it must have been merely because they hadn't realised certain valuable securities which she'd sent to them, and that if Malladale had presented his cheque a few days later it would have been all right. Now, that was all bosh!—Hannaford, of course, had been in communication with the bankers; all they knew of the lady was that she had opened an account with them while staying at some hotel in Manchester, and that she had drawn all but a few pounds of her balance the very day on which she had got the necklace from Malladale and fled with it from Sellithwaite. Naturally, Hannaford didn't tell her this—he merely reiterated his demand that she should go with him. She assented at once, only stipulating that there should be no fuss—she would walk out of the hotel with him, and he and his satellites could come back and search her belongings at their leisure. Then Hannaford—who, between you and me, Hetherwick, had an eye for a pretty woman!—made his mistake. Her bedroom opened out of the sitting-room in which he'd had his interview with her; he was fool enough to let her go into it alone, to get ready to go with him. She went—and that was the very last Hannaford ever saw of her!"

"Made a lightning exit, eh?" remarked Hetherwick.

"She must have gone instantly," asserted Hollis. "A door opened from the bedroom into a corridor—she must have picked up hat and coat and walked straight away, leaving everything she had there. Anyway, when Hannaford, tired of waiting, knocked at the door and looked in, his bird was flown. Then, of course, there was a hue-and-cry, and a fine revelation. But she'd got clear away, probably by some side door or other exit, and although Hannaford, according to his own account, raked London with a comb for her, she was never found. Vanished!"

"And the necklace?" inquired Hetherwick.

"That had vanished too," replied Hollis. "They searched her trunks and things, but they found nothing but clothing. Whatever she had in the way of money and valuables she'd carried off. And so Hannaford came home, considerably down in the mouth, and he had to stand a good deal of chaff. And if he found this woman's picture in a recent paper—well, small wonder that he did cut it out! I should say he was probably going to set Scotland Yard on her track!—for, of course, there's no time-limit to criminal proceedings."

"This is the picture he cut out," observed Hetherwick, producing it from his pocket-book. "But you say you never saw the woman?"

"No, I never saw her," assented Hollis, examining the print with interested curiosity. "So, of course, I can't recognise this. Handsome woman! But you meet me at my office—close by—to-morrow morning, at ten, and I'll take you to our police-station. Gandham will know!"

Gandham, an elderly man with a sphinx-like manner and watchful eyes, laughed sardonically when Hollis explained Hetherwick's business. He laughed again when Hetherwick showed him the print.

"Oh, aye, that's the lady!" he exclaimed. "Not changed much, neither! Egad, she was a smart 'un, that, Mr. Hollis!—I often laugh when I think how she did Hannaford! But you know, Hannaford was a soft-hearted man. At these little affairs, he was always for sparing people's feelings. All very well—but he had to pay for trying to spare hers! Aye, that's her! We have a portrait of her here, you know."

"You have, eh?" exclaimed Hetherwick. "I should like to see it."

"You can see it with pleasure, sir," replied the detective. "And look at it as long as you like." He turned to a desk close by and produced a big album, full of portraits with written particulars beneath them. "This is not, strictly speaking, a police photo," he continued. "It's not one that we took ourselves, ye understand—we never had the chance! No!—but when my lady was staying at the 'White Bear,' she had her portrait taken by Wintring, the photographer, in Silver Street, and Wintring was that suited with it that he put it in his window. So, of course, when her ladyship popped off with Malladale's necklace, we got one of those portraits, and added it to our little collection. Here it is!—and you'll not notice so much difference between it and that you've got in your hand, sir."

There was very little difference between the two photographs, and Hetherwick said so. And presently he went away from the police-office wondering more than ever about the woman with whose past adventures he was concerning himself.

"May as well do the thing thoroughly while you're about it," remarked Hollis, as they walked off. "Come and see Malladale—his shop is only round the corner. Not that he can tell you much more than I've told you already."

But Malladale proved himself able to tell a great deal more. A grave, elderly man, presiding over an establishment which Hetherwick, unaccustomed to the opulence of provincial manufacturing towns, was astonished to find outside London, he ushered his visitor into a private room, and listened to the reasons they gave for calling on him. After a close and careful inspection of the print which Hetherwick put before him, he handed it back with a confident nod.

"There is no doubt whatever—in my mind—that that is a print from a photograph of the woman I knew as the Honourable Mrs. Whittingham," he said. "And if it has been taken recently, she has altered very little during the ten years that have elapsed since she was here in this town."

"You'd be glad to see her again, Mr. Malladale—in the flesh?" laughed Hollis.

The jeweller shook his head.

"I think not," he answered. "No, I think not, Mr. Hollis. That's an episode which I had put out of my mind—until you recalled it."

"But—your loss?" suggested Hollis. "Close on four thousand pounds, wasn't it?"

Mr. Malladale raised one of his white hands to his grey beard and coughed. It was a cough that suggested discretion, confidence, secrecy. He smiled behind his moustache, and his spectacled eyes seemed to twinkle.

"I think I may venture a little disclosure—in the company of two gentlemen learned in the law," he said. "To a solicitor whom I know very well, and to a barrister introduced by him, I think I may reveal a little secret—between ourselves and to go no further. The fact of this matter is, gentlemen—I had no loss!"

"What?" exclaimed Hollis. "No—loss?"

"Eventually," replied the jeweller. "Eventually! Indeed, to tell you the truth plain, I made my profit, and—er, something over."

Hollis looked his bewilderment.

"Do you mean that—eventually—you were paid?" he asked.

"Precisely! Eventually—after a considerable interval—I was paid," replied Mr. Malladale. "I will tell you the circumstances. It is, I believe, common knowledge that I sold the diamond necklace to Mrs. Whittingham for three thousand, nine hundred pounds, and that the cheque she gave me was dishonoured, and that she cleared off with the goods and was never heard of after she escaped from Hannaford. Well, two years ago, that is to say, eight years after her disappearance, I one day received a letter which bore the New York postmark. It contained a sheet of notepaper on which were a few words and a few figures. But I have that now, and I'll show it to you."

Going to a safe in the corner of his parlour, the jeweller, after some searching, produced a paper and laid it before his visitors. Hetherwick examined it with curiosity. There was no name, no address, no date; all that appeared was, as Malladale had remarked, a few words, a few figures, typewritten:—

Principal . . . . . . . . . . £3,900
8 years' Interest @ 5% . . . . 1,560
------
£5,460
Draft £5,460 enclosed herein: kindly acknowledge in
London _Times_.

"Enclosed, as is there said, was a draft on a London bank for the specified amount," continued Mr. Malladale. "£5,460! You may easily believe that at first I could scarcely understand this: I knew of no one in New York who owed me money. But the first figures—£3,900—threw light on the matter—I suddenly remembered Mrs. Whittingham and my lost necklace. Then I saw through the thing—evidently Mrs. Whittingham had become prosperous, wealthy, and she was honest enough to make amends; there was my principal, and eight years' interest on it. Yet, I felt somewhat doubtful about taking it—I didn't know whether I mightn't be compounding a felony? You gentlemen, of course, will appreciate my little difficulty?"

"Um!" remarked Hollis in a non-committal tone. "The more interesting matter is—what did you do? Though I think we already know," he added with a smile.

"Well, I went to see Hannaford, and told him what I had received," answered the jeweller. "And Hannaford said precisely what I expected him to say. He said 'Put the money in your pocket, Malladale, and say nothing about it!' So—I did!"

"Each of you feeling pretty certain that Mrs. Whittingham was not likely to show her face in Sellithwaite again, no doubt!" observed Hollis. "Very interesting, Mr. Malladale. But it strikes me that whether she ever comes to Sellithwaite again or not, Mrs. Whittingham, or whatever her name may be nowadays, is in England."

"You think so?" asked the jeweller.

"Her picture's recently appeared in an English paper, anyway," said Hollis.

"But pictures of famous American ladies appear in English newspapers," suggested Mr. Malladale. "I have recollections of several. Now my notion is that Mrs. Whittingham, who was a very handsome and very charming woman, eventually went across the Atlantic and married an American millionaire! That's how I figured it. And I have often wondered who she is now."

"That's precisely what I want to find out," said Hetherwick. "One thing is certain—Hannaford knew! If he'd been alive he could have told us. Because in whatever paper it was that this print appeared there would be some letterpress about it, giving the name, and why it appeared at all."

"You can trace that," remarked Hollis.

"Just so," agreed Hetherwick, "and I may as well get back to town and begin the job. But I think with Mr. Hollis," he added, turning to the jeweller, "I believe that the woman is here in England: I think it possible, too, that Hannaford knew where. And I don't think it impossible that between the time of his cutting out her picture from the paper and the time of his sudden death he came in touch with her."

"You think it probable that she, in some way, had something to do with his murder—if it was murder?" asked Mr. Malladale.

"I think it possible," replied Hetherwick. "There are strange features in the case. One of the strangest is this. Why, when Hannaford cut out that picture, for his own purposes, evidently with no intention of showing it to anyone else, did he cut it out without the name and letterpress which must have been under and over it?"

"Queer, certainly!" said Hollis. "But, you know, you can soon ascertain what that name was. All you've got to do is to get another copy of the paper."

"Unfortunately, Hannaford's granddaughter doesn't know what particular paper it was," replied Hetherwick. "Her sole recollection of it is that it was some local newspaper, sent to Hannaford by post, the very morning that he left here for London."

"Still—it can be traced," said Hollis. "It was in some paper—-and there'll be other copies."

Presently he and Hetherwick left the jeweller's shop. Outside, Hollis led his companion across the street, and turned into a narrow alley.

"I'll show you a man who'll remember Mrs. Whittingham better than anybody in Sellithwaite," he said, with a laugh. "Better even than Malladale. I told you she stayed at the 'White Bear' when she was here? Well, since then the entire staff of that eminent hostelry has been changed, from the manager to the boots—I don't think there's a man or woman there who was there ten years ago. But there's a man at the end of this passage who was formerly hall-porter at the 'White Bear'—Amblet Hudson—and who now keeps a rather cosy little saloon-bar down here: we'll drop in on him. He's what we call a bit of a character, and if you can get him to talk, he's usually worth listening to."

CHAPTER VI

SAMPLES OF INK

Hollis led the way farther along the alley, between high, black, windowless walls, and suddenly turning into a little court, paused before a door set deep in the side of an old half-timbered house.

"Queer old place, this!" he remarked over his shoulder. "But you'll get a glass of as good port or sherry from this chap as you'd get anywhere in England—he knows his customers! Come in."

He led the way into a place the like of which Hetherwick had never seen—a snug, cosy room, panelled and raftered in old oak, with a bright fire burning in an open hearth and the flicker of its flames dancing on the old brass and pewter that ornamented the walls. There was a small bar-counter on one side of it; and behind this, in his shirt-sleeves, and with a cigar protruding from the corner of a pair of clean-shaven, humorous lips, stood a keen-eyed man, busily engaged in polishing wine-glasses.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" he said heartily. "Nice morning, Mr. Hollis, for the time o' year. And what can I do for you and your friend, sir?"

Hollis glanced round the room—empty, save for themselves. He drew a stool to the bar and motioned Hetherwick to follow his example.

"I think we'll try your very excellent dry sherry, Hudson," he answered. "That is, if it's as good as it was last time I tasted it."

"Always up to standard, Mr. Hollis, always up to standard, sir!" replied the bar-keeper. "No inferior qualities, no substitutes, and no trading on past reputation in this establishment, gentlemen! As good a glass of dry sherry here, sir, as you'd get where sherry wine comes from—and you can't say that of most places in England, I think. Everything's of the best here, Mr. Hollis—as you know!"

Hollis responded with a little light chaff; suddenly he bent across the bar.

"Hudson!" he said confidentially. "My friend here has something he'd like to show you. Now, then," he continued, as Hetherwick, in response to this, had produced the picture, "do you recognise that?"

The bar-keeper put on a pair of spectacles and turned the picture to the light, examining it closely. His lips tightened; then relaxed in a cynical smile.

"Aye!" he said, half carelessly. "It's the woman that did old Malladale out of that diamond necklace. Of course!—Mistress Whittingham!"

"Would you know her again, if you met her—now?" asked Hollis.

The bar-keeper picked up one of his glasses and began a vigorous polishing.

"Aye!" he answered, laconically. "And I should know her by something else than her face!"

Just then two men came in, and Hudson broke off to attend to their wants. But presently they carried their glasses away to a snug corner near the fire, and the bar-keeper once more turned to Hollis and Hetherwick.

"Aye!" he said confidentially. "If need were, I could tell that party by something else than her face, handsome as that is! I used to tell Hannaford when he was busy trying to find her that if he'd any difficulty about making certain, I could identify her if nobody else could! You see, I saw a deal of her when she was stopping at the 'White Bear.' And I knew something that nobody else knew."

"What is it?" asked Hetherwick.

Hudson leaned closer across the counter and lowered his voice.

"She was a big, handsome woman, this Mrs. Whittingham," he continued. "Very showy, dressy woman; fond of fine clothes and jewellery, and so on; sort of woman, you know, that would attract attention anywhere. And one of these women, too, that was evidently used to being waited on hand and foot—she took her money's worth out of the 'White Bear,' I can tell you! I did a deal for her, one way or another, and I'll say this for her: she was free enough with her money. If it so happened that she wanted things doing for her, she kept you fairly on the go till they were done, but she threw five-shilling pieces and half-crowns about as if they were farthings! She'd send you to take a sixpenny telegram and give you a couple of shillings for taking it. Well, now, as I say, I saw a deal of her, one way and another, getting cabs for her, and taking things up to her room, and doing this, that, and t'other. And it was with going up there one day sudden-like, with a telegram that had just come, that I found out something about her—something that, as I say, I could have told her by anywhere, even if she could have changed her face and put a wig on!"

"Aye—and what, now?" asked Hollis.

"This!" answered Hudson with a knowing look. "Maybe I'm a noticing sort of chap—anyhow, there was a thing I always noticed about Mrs. Whittingham. Wherever she was, and no matter how she was dressed, whether it was in her going-out things or her dinner finery, she always wore a band of black velvet round her right forearm, just above the wrist, where women wear bracelets. In fact, it was a sort of bracelet, a strip, as I say, of black velvet, happen about two inches wide, and on the front a cameo ornament, the size of a shilling, white stone or something of that sort, with one of these heathen figures carved on it. There were other folk about the place noticed that black velvet band, too—I tell you she was never seen without it; the chambermaids said she slept with it on. But on the occasion I'm telling you about, when I went up to her room with a telegram, I caught her without it. She opened her door to see who knocked—she was in a dressing-gown, going to change for dinner, I reckon, and she held out her right hand for what I'd brought her. The black velvet band wasn't on it, and for just a second like I saw what was on her arm!"

"Yes?" said Hollis. "Something—remarkable?"

"For a lady—aye!" replied Hudson, with a grim laugh. "Her arm was tattooed! Right round the place where she always wore this black velvet band there was a snake, red and green, and yellow, and blue, with its tail in its mouth!—wonderfully done, too; it had been no novice that had done that bit of work, I can tell you! Of course, I just saw it, and no more, but there was a strong electric light close by, and I did see it, and saw it plain and all. And that's a thing that that woman, whoever she may be, and wherever she's got to, can never rub off, nor scrub off!—she'll carry that to the day of her death."

The two listeners looked at each other.

"Odd!" remarked Hollis.

Hetherwick turned to the bar-keeper.

"Did she notice that you saw that her arm was tattooed?" he asked.

"Nay, I don't think she did," replied Hudson. "Of course, the thing was over in a second. I made no sign that I'd seen aught particular, and she said nought. But—I saw!"

Just then other customers came in, and the bar-keeper turned away to attend to their wants. Hollis and Hetherwick moved from the counter to one of the snug corners at the farther end of the room.

"Whoever she may be, wherever she may be—as Hudson said just now," remarked Hollis, "and if this woman really had anything to do with the mysterious circumstances of Hannaford's death, she ought not to be difficult to find. A woman who carries an indefaceable mark like that on her arm, and whose picture has recently appeared in a newspaper, should easily be traced."

"I think I shall get at her through the picture," agreed Hetherwick. "The newspaper production seems to have been done from a photograph which, from its clearness and finish, was probably taken by some first-class firm in London. I shall go round such firms as soon as I get back. It may be, of course, that she's nothing whatever to do with Hannaford's murder, but still, it's a trail that's got to be followed to the end now that one's started out on it. Well! that seems to finish my business here—as far as she's concerned. But there's another matter—I told you that when Hannaford came to town he had on him a sealed packet containing the secret of some invention or discovery, and that it's strangely and unaccountably missing. His granddaughter says that he worked this thing out—whatever it is—in a laboratory that he had in his garden. Now then, before I go I want to see that laboratory. As he's only recently left the place, I suppose things will still be pretty much as he left them at his old house. Where did he live?"

"He lived on the outskirts of the town," replied Hollis. "An old-fashioned house that he bought some years ago—I know it by sight well enough, though I've never been in it. I don't suppose it's let yet, though I know it's being advertised in the local papers. Let's get some lunch at the 'White Bear,' and then we'll drive up there and see what we can do. You want to get an idea of what it was that Hannaford had invented?"

"Just so," assented Hetherwick. "If the secret was worth all that he told his granddaughter it was, he may have been murdered by somebody who wanted to get sole possession of it. Anyway, it's another trail that's got to be worked on."

"I never heard of Hannaford as an inventor or experimenter," remarked Hollis. "But there, I knew little about him, except in his official capacity: he and his granddaughter, and an elderly woman they kept as a working housekeeper, were quiet sort of folk. I knew that he brought up his granddaughter from infancy, and gave her a rattling good education at the Girls' High School, but beyond that, I know little of their private affairs. I suppose he amused himself in this laboratory you speak of in his spare time?"

"Dabbled in chemistry, I understand," said Hetherwick. "And, if it hasn't been dismantled, we may find something in that laboratory that will give us a clue of some sort."

Hollis seemed to reflect for a minute or two.

"I've an idea!" he said suddenly. "There's a man who lunches at the 'White Bear' every day—a man named Collison; he's analytical chemist to a big firm of dyers in the town. I've seen him in conversation with Hannaford now and then. Perhaps he could tell us something on this point. Come on! this is just about his time for lunch."

A few minutes later, in the coffee-room of the hotel, Hollis led Hetherwick up to a bearded and spectacled man who had just sat down to lunch, and having introduced him, briefly detailed the object of his visit to Sellithwaite. Collison nodded and smiled.

"I understand," he said, as they seated themselves at his table. "Hannaford did dabble a bit in chemistry—in quite an amateur way. But as to inventing anything that was worth all that—come! Still, he was an ingenious man, for an amateur, and he may have hit on something fairly valuable."

"You've no idea what he was after?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Of late, no! But some time ago he was immensely interested in aniline dyes," replied Collison. "He used to talk to me about them. That's a subject of infinite importance in this district. Of course, as I dare say you know, the Germans have been vastly ahead of us as regards aniline dyes, and we've got most, if not all, of the stuff used, from Germany. Hannaford used to worry himself as to why we couldn't make our own aniline dyes, and I believe he experimented. But, with his resources, as an amateur, of course, that was hopeless."

"I've sometimes seen him talking to you," observed Hollis. "You've no idea what he was after, of late?"

"No. He used to ask me technical questions," answered Collison. "You know, I just regarded him as a man who had a natural taste for experimenting with things. This was evidently his hobby. I used to chaff him about it. Still, he was a purposeful man, and by reading and experiment he'd picked up a lot of knowledge."

"And, I suppose, it's within the bounds of possibility that he had hit on something of practical value?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Oh, quite within such bounds!—and he may have done," agreed Collison. "I've known of much greater amateurs suddenly discovering something. The question then is—do they know enough to turn their discovery to any practical purpose and account?"

"Evidently, from what he told his granddaughter, Hannaford did think he knew enough," said Hetherwick. "What I want to find out from a visit to his old laboratory is—what had he discovered?"

"And as you're not a chemist, nor even a dabbler," remarked Hollis, with a laugh, "that won't be easy! You'd better come with us after lunch, Collison."

"I can give you a couple of hours," assented Collison. "I'm already curious—especially if any discovery we can make tends to throw light on the mystery of Hannaford's death. Pity the police haven't got hold of the man who was with him," he added, glancing at Hetherwick. "I suppose you could identify him?"

"Unless he's an absolute adept at disguising himself, yes—positively!" replied Hetherwick. "He was a noticeable man."

An hour later the three men drove up to a house which stood a little way out of the town, on the edge of the moorland that stretched towards the great range of hills on the west. The house, an old-fashioned, solitary place, was empty, save for a caretaker who had been installed in its back rooms to keep it aired and to show it to possible tenants. The laboratory, a stone-walled, timber-roofed shed at the end of the garden, had never been opened, said the caretaker, since Mr. Hannaford locked it up and left it. But the key was speedily forthcoming, and the three visitors entered and looked round, each with different valuings of what he saw.

The whole place was a wilderness of litter and untidiness. Whatever Hannaford had possessed in the way of laboratory plant and appliances had been removed, and now there was little but rubbish—glass, whole and broken, paper, derelict boxes and crates, odds and ends of wreckage—to look at. But the analytical chemist glanced about him with a knowing eye, examining bottles and boxes, picking up a thing here and another there, and before long he turned to his companions with a laugh, pointing at the same time to a table in a corner which was covered with and dust-lined pots.

"It's very easy to see what Hannaford was after!" he said. "He's been trying to evolve a new ink!"

"Ink!" exclaimed Hollis incredulously. "Aren't there plenty of inks on the market?"

"No end!" agreed Collison with another laugh, and again pointing to the table. "These are specimens of all the better-known ones—British, of course, for no really decent ink is made elsewhere. But even the very best ink, up to now, isn't perfect. Hannaford perhaps thought, being an amateur, that he could make a better than the known best. Ink!—that's what he's been after. A superior, perfectly-fluid, penetrating, permanent, non-corrosive writing-ink—that's been his notion, a thousand to one! I observe the presence of lots of stuffs that he's used."

He showed them various things, explaining their properties and adding some remarks on the history of the manufacture of writing-inks during the last hundred years.

"Taking it altogether," he concluded, "and in spite of manufacturers' advertisements and boasting, there isn't a really absolutely perfect writing-fluid on the market—that I know of, anyway. If Hannaford thought he could make one, and succeeded, well, I'd be glad to have his formula! Money in it!"

"To the extent of a hundred thousand pounds?" asked Hetherwick, remembering what Rhona had told him. "All that?"

"Oh, well!" laughed Collison, "you must remember that inventors are always very sanguine; always apt to see everything through rose-coloured spectacles; invariably prone to exaggerate the merits of their inventions. But if Hannaford, by experiment, really hit on a first-class formula for making a writing-ink superior in all the necessary qualities to its rivals—yes, there'd be a pot of money in it. No doubt of that!"

"I suppose he'd have to take out a patent for his invention?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Oh, to be sure! I should think that was one of his reasons for going to London—to see after it." assented Collison. He looked round again, and again laughed. "Well," he said, "I think you know now—you may be confident about it from what I've seen here—what Hannaford was after! Ink—just ink!"

Hetherwick accepted this judgment, and when he left Sellithwaite later in the afternoon on his return journey to London, he summed up the results of his visit. They were two. First, he had discovered that the woman of whom Hannaford had spoken in the train was a person who ten years before had been known as Mrs. Whittingham, appeared to be some sort of an adventuress, and, in spite of her restitution to the jeweller whom she had defrauded, was still liable to arrest, conviction, and punishment—if she could be found. Second, he had found out that the precious invention of which Hannaford had spoken so confidently and enthusiastically to his granddaughter and the particulars of which had mysteriously disappeared, related to the manufacture of a new writing-ink, which might, in truth, prove a very valuable commercial asset. So far, so good; he was finding things out. As he ate his dinner in the restaurant car he considered his next steps. But it needed little consideration to resolve on them. He must find out all about the woman whose picture lay in his pocketbook—what she now called herself; where she was; how her photograph came to be reproduced in a newspaper; and, last, but far from least, if Hannaford, after seeing the reproduction, had got into touch with her or given information about her. To the man in the train Hannaford had remarked that he had said nothing about her until that evening—yes, but was that man the only man to whom he had spoken? So much for that—and the next thing was to find out somehow what had become of the sealed packet which Hannaford undoubtedly had on him when he went out of Malter's Hotel on the night of his death.

CHAPTER VII

BLACK VELVET

Next morning, and before calling on either Kenthwaite or Rhona Hannaford, Hetherwick set out on a tour of the fashionable photographers in the West End of London. After all, there were not so many of them, so many at any rate of the very famous ones. He made a hit and began to work methodically. His first few coverts were drawn blank, but just before noon, and as he was thinking of knocking off for lunch, he started his fox. In a palatial establishment in Bond Street the person to whom he applied, showing his picture, gave an immediate smile of recognition.

"You want to know who is the original of this?" he said. "Certainly! Lady Riversreade, of Riversreade Court, near Dorking."

Hetherwick had no deep acquaintance with Debrett nor with Burke, nor even with the list of peers, baronets and knights given in the ordinary reference books, and to him the name of Lady Riversreade was absolutely unknown—he had never heard of her. But the man to whom he had shown the print, and who now held it in his hand, seemed to consider that Lady Riversreade was, or should be, as well known to everybody as she evidently was to him.

"This print is from one of our photographs of Lady Riversreade," he said, turning to a side table in the reception-room in which they were standing and picking up a framed portrait. "This one."

"Then you probably know in what newspaper this print appeared?" suggested Hetherwick. "That's really what I'm desirous of finding out."

"Oh, it appeared in several," answered the photographer. "Recently. It was about the time that Lady Riversreade opened some home or institute—I forget what. There was an account of it in the papers, and naturally her portrait was reproduced."

Hetherwick made a plausible prearranged excuse for his curiosity, and went away. Lady Riversreade!—evidently some woman of rank, or means, or position. But was she identical with the Mrs. Whittingham of ten years ago—the Mrs. Whittingham who did the Sellithwaite jeweller out of a necklace worth nearly four thousand pounds and cleverly escaped arrest at the hands of Hannaford? And if so...

But that led to indefinite vistas; the main thing at present was to find out all that could be found out about Lady Riversreade, of Riversreade Court, near Dorking. Hetherwick could doubtless have obtained considerable information from the fashionable photographer, but he had carefully refrained from showing too much inquisitiveness. Moreover, he knew a man, one Boxley, a fellow club-member, who was always fully posted up in all the doings of the social and fashionable world and could, if he would, tell him everything about Lady Riversreade—that was, if there was anything to tell about her. Boxley was one of those bachelor men about town who went everywhere, knew everybody, and kept himself fully informed; he invariably lunched at this particular club, the Junior Megatherium, and thither Hetherwick presently proceeded, bent on finding him.

He was fortunate in running Boxley to earth almost as soon as he entered the sacred and exclusive portals. Boxley was lunching and there was no one else at his table. Hetherwick joined him, and began the usual small talk about nothing in particular. But he soon came to his one point.

"Look here!" he said, at a convenient interval. "I want to ask you something. You know everybody and everything. Who is Lady Riversreade, who's recently opened some home or institution, or hospital or something?"

"One of the richest women in England!" replied Boxley promptly. "Worth a couple of millions or so. That's who she is—who she was, I don't know. Don't suppose anybody else does, either. In this country, anyhow."

"What, is she a foreigner, then?" asked Hetherwick. "I've seen her portrait in the papers—that's why I asked you who she is. Doesn't look foreign, I think."

"I can tell you all that is known about her," said Boxley, "and that's not much. She's the widow of old Sir John Riversreade, the famous contractor—the man who made a pot of money building railways, and dams across big rivers, and that sort of thing, and got a knighthood for it. He also built himself a magnificent place near Dorking, and called it Riversreade Court—just the type of place a modern millionaire would build. Now, old Sir John had been a bachelor all his life, until he was over sixty—no time for anything but his contracts, you know. But when he was about sixty-five, which would be some six or seven years ago, he went over to the United States and made a rather lengthy stay there. And when he returned he brought a wife with him—the lady you're inquiring about."

"American, then?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Well, he married her over there, certainly," said Boxley. "But I should say she isn't American."

"You've met her—personally?"

"Just. Run across her once or twice at various affairs, and been introduced to her, quite casually. No, I don't think she's American. If I wanted to label her, I should say she was cosmopolitan."

"Woman of the world, eh?"

"Decidedly so. Handsome woman—self-possessed—self-assured—smart, clever. I think she'll know how to take care of the money her husband left her."

"Leave her everything?"

"Every penny!—except some inconsiderable legacies to charitable institutions. It was said at the time—it's two years since the old chap died—that she's got over two millions."

"And this institution, or whatever it is?"

"Oh, that! That was in the papers not so long since."

"I'm no great reader of newspapers. What about it?"

"Oh, she's started a home for wounded officers near Riversreade Court. There was some big country house near there empty—couldn't really be sold or let. She bought it, renovated it, fitted it up, stuck a staff of nurses and servants in, and got it blessed by the War Office. Jolly nice place, I believe, and she pays the piper."

"Doing the benevolent business, eh?"

"So it appears. Easy game, too, when you've got a couple of millions behind you. Useful, though."

Boxley went away soon after that, and Hetherwick, wondering about what he had learned, and now infinitely inquisitive about the identity of Lady Riversreade with Mrs. Whittingham, went into the smoking-room, and more from habit than because he really wanted to see it, picked up a copy of The Times. Almost the first thing on which his glance lighted was the name that was just then in his thoughts—there it was, in capitals, at the head of an advertisement:

"LADY RIVERSREADE'S HOME FOR WOUNDED OFFICERS, SURREY.—Required at once a Resident Lady-Secretary, fully competent to undertake accounts and correspondence and thoroughly trained in shorthand and typewriting; a knowledge of French and German would be a high recommendation. Application should be made personally any day this week between 10.0 and 12.0 and 3.0 and 5.0 to Lady Riversreade, Riversreade Court, Dorking."

Hetherwick threw the paper aside, left the club, and at the first newsagent's he came to bought another copy. With this in his hand he jumped into a taxi-cab and set off for Surrey Street, wondering if he would find Rhona Hannaford still at Malter's Hotel. He was fortunate in that—she had not yet left—and in a few minutes he was giving her a full and detailed account of his doings since his last interview with her. She listened to his story about Sellithwaite and his discoveries of that morning with a slightly puzzled look.

"Why are you taking all this trouble?" she asked suddenly and abruptly. "You're doing more, going into things more, than the police are. Matherfield was here this morning to tell me, he said, how they were getting on. They aren't getting on at all!—they haven't made one single discovery; they've heard nothing, found out nothing, about the man in the train or the man at Victoria—they're just where they were. But you—you've found out a lot! Why are you so energetic about it?"

"Put it down to professional inquisitiveness, if you like," answered Hetherwick, smiling. "I'm—interested. Tremendously! You see—I, too, was there in the train, like the man they haven't found. Well, now—now that I've got to this point I've arrived at, I want you to take a hand."

"I? In what way?" exclaimed Rhona.

Hetherwick pulled out The Times and pointed to the advertisement.

"I want you to go down to Dorking to-morrow morning and personally interview Lady Riversreade in response to that," he said. "You've all the qualifications she specifies, so you've an excellent excuse for calling on her. Whether you'd care to take the post is another matter—what I want is that you should see her under conditions that will enable you to observe her closely."

"Why?" asked Rhona.

"I want you to see if she wears such a band as that which Hudson told Hollis and myself about," replied Hetherwick. "Sharp eyes like yours will soon see that. And—if she does, then she's Mrs. Whittingham! In that case, I might ask you to do more—still more."

"What, for instance?" she inquired.

"Well, to do your best to get this post," he answered. "I think that you, with your qualifications, could get it."

"And—your object in that?" she asked.

"To keep an eye on Lady Riversreade," he replied promptly. "If the Mrs. Whittingham of ten years ago at Sellithwaite is the same woman as the Lady Riversreade of Riversreade Court of to-day, then, in view of your grandfather's murder, I want to know a lot more about her! To have you—there!—would be an immense help."

"I'm to be a sort of spy, eh?" asked Rhona.

"Detective, if you like," assented Hetherwick. "Why not?"

"You forget this," she remarked. "If this Lady Riversreade is identical with the Mrs. Whittingham of ten years ago, she'd remember my name—Hannaford! She's not likely to have forgotten Superintendent Hannaford of Sellithwaite!"

"Exactly—but I've thought of that little matter," replied Hetherwick. "Call yourself by some other name. Your mother's, for instance."

"That was Featherstone," said Rhona.

"There you are! Go as Miss Featherstone. As for your address, give your aunt's address at Tooting. Easy enough, you see," laughed Hetherwick. "Once you begin it properly."

"There's another thing, though," she objected. "References! She'll want those."

"Just as easy," answered Hetherwick. "Give me as one and Kenthwaite as the other. I'll speak to him about it. Two barristers of the Middle Temple!—excellent! Come!—all you've got to do is to work the scheme out fully and carry it out with assurance, and you don't know what we might discover."

Rhona considered matters awhile, watching him steadily.

"You think that—somehow—this woman may be at the back of the mystery surrounding my grandfather's murder?" she suddenly asked.

"I think it's quite within the bounds of probability," he answered.

"All right," she said abruptly. "I'll go. To-morrow morning, I suppose?"

"Sooner the better," agreed Hetherwick. "And, look here, I'll go down with you. We'll go by the 10.10 from Victoria, drive to this place, and I'll wait outside while you have your interview. After that we'll get some lunch in Dorking—and you can tell me your news."

Next morning found Hetherwick pacing the platform at Victoria and on the look-out for his fellow-companion. She came to him a little before the train was due to leave, and he noticed at once that she had discarded the mourning garments in which he had found her the previous afternoon; she now appeared in a smart tailor-made coat and skirt, and looked the part he wanted her to assume—that of a capable and self-reliant young business woman.

"Good!" he said approvingly, as they went to find their seats. "Nothing like dressing up to it. You're all ready with your lines, eh?—I mean, you've settled on all you're going to say and do?"

"Leave that to me," she answered with a laugh, "I shan't forget the primary object, anyway. But I've been wondering—supposing we come to the conclusion that this Lady Riversreade is the Mrs. Whittingham of ten years ago? What are you going to do then?"

"My ideas are hazy on that point—at present," confessed Hetherwick. "The first thing, surely, is to establish identity. Don't forget that the main thing to do at Riversreade Court is to get a good look at Lady Riversreade's right wrist, and see what's on it!"

Riversreade Court proved to be some distance from Dorking, in the Leith Hill district; Hetherwick charted a taxi-cab and gave his companion final instructions as they rode out. Half an hour's run brought them to the house—a big, pretentious, imitation Elizabethan structure, set on the hill-side amongst a grove of firs and pines, and having an ornamental park laid out between its gardens and terraces and the high road. At the lodge gates he stopped the driver and got out.

"I'll wait here for you," he said to Rhona. "You ride up to the house, get your business done, and come back here. Be watchful now—of anything."

Rhona nodded reassuringly and went off; Hetherwick lighted his pipe and strolled about admiring the scenery. But his thoughts were with Rhona; he was wondering what adventures she was having in the big mansion which the late contractor had built amidst the woods. And Rhona kept him wondering some time; an hour had elapsed before the cab came back. With a hand on its door, he turned to the driver:

"Go to the 'White Horse' now," he said. "We'll lunch there, and afterwards you can take us to the station. Well?" he continued, as he got in and seated himself at Rhona's side. "What luck?"

"Good, I should say," answered Rhona. "She wears a broad black velvet band on her right wrist, and on the outer face is a small cameo. How's that?"

"Precisely!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Just what that bar-keeper chap at Sellithwaite described. Wears it openly—makes no attempt at concealment beneath her sleeve, eh?"

"None," answered Rhona. "She was wearing a smart, fashionable, short-sleeved jumper. She'd a very fine diamond bracelet on the other wrist."

"And she herself," asked Hetherwick. "What sort of woman is she?"

"That's a very good photograph of her that my grandfather cut out of the paper," replied Rhona. "Very good, indeed! I knew her at once. She's a tall, fine, handsome, well-preserved woman, perhaps forty, perhaps less. Very easy, accustomed manner; a regular woman of the world I should think. Quite ready to talk about herself and her doings—she told me the whole history of this Home she's started and took me to see it—it's a fine old house, much more attractive than the Court, a little way along the hillside. She told me that it was her great hobby, and that she's devoting all her time to it. I should say that she's genuinely interested in its welfare—genuinely!"

"She impressed you?" suggested Hetherwick.

"I think, from what I saw and heard, that she's a good-natured, probably warm-hearted, woman. She spoke very feelingly of the patients she's got in her Home, anyhow."

"And the post—the secretaryship?"

"I can have it if I want it—of course, I told her I did. She examined me pretty closely about my qualifications—she herself speaks French and German like a native—and I mentioned you and Mr. Kenthwaite as references. She's going to write to you both to-day. So—it's for you to decide."

"I suppose it's really for you!"

"No!—I'm willing, eager, indeed, to do anything to clear up the mystery about my grandfather's murder. But—I don't think this woman had anything to do with it. In my opinion—and I suppose I've got some feminine intuition—she's honest and straightforward enough."

"And yet it looks as if she were certainly the Mrs. Whittingham who did a Sellithwaite jeweller to the tune of four thousand pounds!" laughed Hetherwick. "That wasn't very honest or straightforward!"

"I've been thinking about that," said Rhona. "Perhaps, after all, she really thought the cheque would be met, and anyway, she did send the man his money, even though it was a long time afterwards. And again—an important matter!—Lady Riversreade may not be Mrs. Whittingham at all. More women than one wear wristlets of velvet."

"But—the portrait!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "The positive identity!"

"Well," answered Rhona, "I'm willing to go there and to try to find out more. But, frankly, I think Lady Riversreade's all right! First impression, anyhow!"

The cab drew up at the "White Horse," and Hetherwick led Rhona into the coffee-room. But they had hardly taken their seats when the manager came in.

"Does your name happen to be Hetherwick, sir?" he inquired. "Just so—thank you. A Mr. Mapperley has twice rung you up here during the last hour—he's on the phone again now, if you'll speak to him."

"I'll come," said Hetherwick. "That's my clerk," he murmured to Rhona as he rose. "I told him to ring me up here between twelve and three if necessary. Back in a minute."

But he was away several minutes, and when he came to her again, his face was grave. "Here's a new development!" he said, bending across the table and whispering. "The police have found the man who was with your grandfather in the train! Matherfield wants me to identify him. And you'll gather from that that they've found him dead! We must lunch quickly and catch the two-twenty-four."

CHAPTER VIII

FLIGWOOD'S RENTS

Hetherwick went to the hotel telephone again before he had finished his lunch, and as a result Matherfield was on the platform at Victoria when the two-twenty-four ran in. He showed no surprise at seeing Hetherwick and Rhona together; his manifest concern was to get Hetherwick to himself and away from the station. And Hetherwick, seeing this, said good-bye to Rhona with a whispered word that he would look in at Malter's Hotel before evening; a few minutes later he and Matherfield were in a taxi-cab together, hastening along Buckingham Palace Road.

"Well?" inquired Hetherwick. "This man?"

"I don't think there's any doubt about his being the man you saw with Hannaford," replied Matherfield. "He answers to your description, anyway. But I'll tell you how we came across his track. Last night a man named Appleyard came to me—he's a chap who has a chemist's shop in Horseferry Road, Westminster—a middle-aged, quiet sort of man, who prefaced his remarks by telling us that he very rarely had time to read newspapers or he'd have been round to see us before. But yesterday he happened to pick up a copy of one of last Sunday's papers, and he read an account of the Hannaford affair. Then he remembered something that seemed to him to have a possible connection with it. Some little time ago he advertised for an assistant—a qualified assistant. He'd two or three applications which weren't exactly satisfactory. Then, one evening—he couldn't give any exact date, but from various things he told us I reckoned up that it must have been on the very evening on which Hannaford met his death—a man came and made a personal application. Appleyard described him—medium-sized, a spare man, sallow-complexioned, thin face and beard, large dark eyes, very intelligent, superior manner, poorly dressed, and evidently in low water——"

"That's the man, I'll be bound!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Did he give this chemist his name?"

"He did—-name and address," answered Matherfield. "He said his name was James Granett, and his address Number 8, Fligwood's Rents, Gray's Inn Road—Holborn end. He told Appleyard that he was a qualified chemist, and produced his proofs and some references. He also said that though he'd never had a business of his own he'd been employed, as, indeed, the references showed, by some good provincial firms at one time or another. Lately he'd been in the employ of a firm of manufacturing chemists in East Ham—for some reason or other their trade had fallen off, and they'd had to reduce their staff, and he'd been thrown out of work, and had had the further bad luck to be seriously ill. This, he said, had exhausted his small means, and he was very anxious to get another job—so anxious that he appeared to come to Appleyard on very low terms. Appleyard told him he'd inquire into the references and write to him in a day or two. He did inquire, found the references quite satisfactory, and wrote to Granett engaging him. But Granett never turned up, and Appleyard heard no more of him until he read this Sunday paper. Then he felt sure Granett was the man, and came to me."

"I shouldn't think there's any doubt in the case," remarked Hetherwick. "But before we go any further, a question. Did Appleyard say what time it was when this man came to him that evening?"

"He did. It was just as he was closing his shop—nine o'clock. Granett stopped talking with him about half an hour. Indeed, Appleyard told me more. After they'd finished their talk, Appleyard, who doesn't live at the shop, locked it up, and he then invited Granett to step across the street with him and have a drink before going home. They had a drink together in a neighbouring saloon bar, and chatted a bit there; it would be nearly ten o'clock, according to Appleyard, when Granett left him. And he remembered that Granett, on leaving him, went round the corner into Victoria Street, on his way, no doubt, to the Underground."

"And in Victoria Street, equally without doubt, he met Hannaford," muttered Hetherwick. "Well, and the rest of it?"

"Well, of course, as soon as I learnt all this, I determined to go myself to Fligwood's Rents," replied Matherfield. "I went, first thing this morning. Fligwood's Rents is a slum street—only a man who is very low down in the world would ever dream of renting a room there. It's a sort of alley or court on the right-hand side of Gray's Inn Road, going up—some half-dozen squalid houses on each side, let off in tenements. Number 8 was a particularly squalid house!—slatternly women and squalling brats about the door and general dirt and shabbiness all round. None of the women about the place knew the name of Granett, but after I'd described the man I wanted they argued that it must be the gentleman on the top back; they added the further information that they hadn't seen him for some days. I went up a filthy stair to the room they indicated; the door was locked and I couldn't get any response to my repeated knockings. So then I set out to discover the landlord, and eventually unearthed a beery individual in a neighbouring low-class tavern. I got out of him that he had a lodger named Granett, who paid him six shillings a week for this top back room, and he suddenly remembered that Granett hadn't paid his last week's rent. That made more impression on him than anything I said, and he went with me to the house. And to cut things short, we forced the door, and found the man dead in his bed!"

"Dead!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Dead—then?"

"Dead then—yes, and he'd been dead several days, according to the doctors," replied Matherfield grimly. "Dead enough! It was a poor room, but clean—you could see from various little things that the man had been used to a better condition. But as regards himself—he'd evidently gone to bed in the usual way. His clothes were all carefully folded and arranged, and by the side of the bed there was a chair on which was a half-burnt candle and an evening newspaper."

"That would fix the date," suggested Hetherwick.

"Of course, it did—and it was the same date as that on which Hannaford died," answered Matherfield. "I've made a careful note of that circumstance! Everything looked as if the man had gone to bed in just his ordinary way, read the paper a bit, blown out his light, dropped off to sleep, and died in his sleep."

"Yes!—and from what cause, I wonder?" exclaimed Hetherwick.

"Precisely the same idea occurred to me, knowing what I did about Hannaford," said Matherfield. "However, the doctors will tell us more about that. But to wind up—I had a man of mine with me, and I left him in charge while I got further help, and sent for Appleyard. Appleyard identified the dead man at once as the man who had been to see him. Indeed, on opening the door, we found Appleyard's letter, engaging him, lying with one or two others, just inside. So that's about all, except that I now want to know if you can positively identify him as the man you saw with Hannaford, and that I also want to open a locked box that we found in the room, which may contain something that will give us further information. Altogether, it's a step forward."

"Yes," admitted Hetherwick. "It's something. But there's spade-work to be done yet, Matherfield. I don't think there's any doubt, now, that Granett encountered Hannaford after he left Appleyard—and that indicates that Granett and Hannaford were old acquaintances. But, supposing they met at, or soon after, ten o'clock—where did they go, where did they spend their time between that and the time they entered my compartment at St. James's Park?"

"That would be—what?" asked Matherfield.

"It was well after midnight—mine was the last train going east, anyway," said Hetherwick. "I only just caught it at Sloane Square. But we can ascertain the exact time, to a minute. Still, those two, meeting accidentally, as I conclude they did, must have been together two or three hours. Where?—at that time of night. Surely there must be some way of finding that out! Two men, each rather noticeable—somebody must have seen them together, somewhere! It seems impossible that they shouldn't have been seen."

"Aye, but in my experience, Mr. Hetherwick, it's the impossible that happens!" rejoined Matherfield. "In a bee-hive like this, where every man's intent on his own business, ninety-nine men out of a hundred never observe anything unless it's shoved right under their very eyes. Of course, if we could find out if and where Hannaford and Granett were together that night, and where Granett went to after he slipped away at Charing Cross, it would vastly simplify matters. But how are we going to find out? There's been immense publicity given to this case in the papers, you know, Mr. Hetherwick—portraits of Hannaford, and details about the whole affair, and so on, and yet we've had surprisingly little help and less information. I'll tell you what it is, sir—what we want is that tall, muffled-up chap who met Hannaford at Victoria! Who is he, now?"

"Who, indeed!" assented Hetherwick. "Vanished!—without a trace."

"Oh, well!" said Matherfield cheerfully, "you never know when you might light on a trace. But here we are at this unsavoury Fligwood's Rents."

The cab pulled up at the entrance to a dark, high-walled, stone-paved alley, which at that moment appeared to be full of women and children; so, too, did the windows on either side. The whole place was sombre and evil-smelling, and Hetherwick felt a sense of pity for the unfortunate man whose luck had been bad enough to bring him there.

"A murder, a suicide, or a sudden death is as a breath of heaven to these folk!" said Matherfield as they made their way through the ragged and frowsy gathering. "It's an event in uneventful lives. Here's the place," he added, as they came to a doorway whereat a policeman stood on guard. "And here are the stairs—mind you don't slip on 'em, for the wood's broken and the banisters are smashed."

Hetherwick cautiously followed his guide to the top of the house. There at another door stood a second policeman, engaged when they caught sight of him in looking out through the dirt-obscured window of the landing. His bored countenance brightened when he saw Matherfield; stepping back he quietly opened the door at his side. And the two new-comers, silent in view of the task before them, tiptoed into the room beyond.

It was, as Matherfield had remarked, a poor place, but it was clean and orderly, and its occupant had evidently tried to make it as habitable and comfortable as his means would allow. There were one or two good prints on the table; half a dozen books on an old chest of drawers; in a cracked vase on the mantelpiece there were a few flowers, wilted and dead. Hetherwick took in all this at a glance; then he turned to Matherfield, who silently drew aside a sheet from the head and shoulders of the rigid figure on the bed, and looked inquiringly at his companion. And Hetherwick gave the dead man's face one careful inspection and nodded.

"Yes!" he said. "That's the man!"

"Without doubt?" asked Matherfield.

"No doubt at all," affirmed Hetherwick. "That is the man who was with Hannaford in the train. I knew him instantly."

Matherfield replaced the sheet and turned to a small table which stood in the window. On it was a box, a square, old-fashioned thing, clamped at the corners.

"This seems to be the only thing he had that's what you may call private," he observed. "It's locked, but I've got a tool here that'll open it. I want to know what's in it—there may be something that'll give us a clue."

Hetherwick stood by while Matherfield forced open the lock with an instrument which he produced from his pocket, and began to examine the contents of the box. At first there seemed little that was likely to yield information. There was a complete suit of clothes and an outfit of decent linen; it seemed as if Granett had carefully kept these in view of better days. There were more books, all of a technical nature, relating to chemistry; there was a small case containing chemical apparatus, and another in which lay a pair of scales; in a third they found a microscope.

"He wasn't down to the very end of his resources, or he'd have pawned these things," muttered Matherfield. "They all look good stuff, especially the microscope. But here's more what I want—letters!"

He drew forth two bundles of letters, neatly arranged and tied up with tape. Unloosing the fastenings and rapidly spreading the envelopes out on the table, he suddenly put his finger on an address.

"There you are, Mr. Hetherwick," he exclaimed. "That's just what I expected to find out—though I certainly didn't think we should discover it so quickly This man has lived at Sellithwaite some time or other. Look there, at this address—Mr. James Granett, 7, Victoria Terrace, Sellithwaite, Yorkshire. Of course!—that's how he came to know and be with Hannaford. They were old acquaintances. See, there are several letters."

Hetherwick took two or three of the envelopes in his hand and looked closely at them. He perceived at once what Matherfield had not noticed.

"Just so!" he said. "But what's of far more importance is the date. Look at this—you see? That shows that Granett was living at Sellithwaite ten years ago—it was of that time that Hannaford was talking to him in the train."

"Oh, we're getting at something!" assented Matherfield. "Now we'll put everything back, and I'll take this box away and examine it thoroughly at leisure." He replaced the various articles, twisted a cord round the box, knotted it, and turned to the dead man's clothes, lying neatly folded on a chair close by. "I haven't had a look at the pockets of those things yet," he continued. "I'll just take a glance—you never know."

Hetherwick again watched in silence. There was little of interest revealed until Matherfield suddenly drew a folded bit of paper from one of the waistcoat pockets. Smoothing it out he uttered a sharp exclamation.

"Good!" he said. "See this? A brand new five pound note! Now, I'll lay anything he hadn't had that on him long! Got it that night, doubtless. And—from whom?"

"I should say Hannaford gave it to him," suggested Hetherwick.

But Matherfield shook his head and put the note in his own pocket.

"That's a definite clue!" he said, with emphasis. "I can trace that!"

CHAPTER IX

THE MEDICINE BOTTLE

Hetherwick went away from the sordid atmosphere of Fligwood's Rents wondering more than ever at this new development; he continued to wonder and to speculate all the rest of that day and most of the next. That Granett's sudden death had followed on Hannaford's seemed to him a sure proof that there was more behind this mystery than anybody had so far conceived of. Personally, he had not the slightest doubt that whoever poisoned Hannaford had also poisoned Granett. And he was not at all surprised when, late in the afternoon of the day following upon that of the visit to Dorking, Matherfield walked into his chambers with a face full of news.

"I know what you're going to tell me, Matherfield," said Hetherwick, motioning his visitor to an easy chair. "The doctors have held a post-mortem on Granett, and they find that he was poisoned."

Matherfield's face fell; he was robbed of his chance of a dramatic announcement.

"Well, and that's just what I was going to tell you," he answered. "That's what they do say. Same doctors that performed the autopsy on Hannaford. Doesn't surprise you?"

"Not in the least," replied Hetherwick. "I expected it. They're sure of it?"

"Dead certain! But, as in Hannaford's case, they're not certain of the particular poison used. However—also as in his case—they've submitted the whole case to two big swells in that line, one of 'em the man that's always employed by the Home Office in these affairs, and the other that famous specialist at St. Martha's Hospital—I forget his name. They'll get to work; they're at work on the Hannaford case now. Difficult job, I understand—some very subtle poison, probably little known. However, I believe we've got a clue about it."

"A clue—about the poison?" exclaimed Hetherwick. "What clue?"

"Well, this," answered Matherfield. "After you'd gone away from Fligwood's Rents yesterday afternoon, and while I was making arrangements for the removal of the poor chap's body, I took another careful look round the room. Now, if you noticed things as closely as all that, you may have observed that Granett's bed was partly in a sort of alcove—the head part. In the corner of that alcove, or recess, just where he could have set them down by reaching his arm out of bed, I found a bottle and a glass tumbler. The bottle was an ordinary medicine bottle—not a very big one. It had the cork in it and about an inch of fluid, which, on taking out the cork, I found to be whisky, and, I should say by the smell, whisky of very good quality. But I noticed that there was the very slightest trace of some sort of sediment at the bottom. There was a trace of similar sediment in the bottom of the tumbler. Now, of course, I put these things up most carefully, sealed them, and handed them over to the doctors. For it was very evident to me—reconstructing things, you know—that Granett had mixed himself a drink, a nightcap, if you like to call it so, from that bottle on getting into bed, and then had put bottle and glass down by his bed-head, in the corner. And just as I mean to trace that five-pound note, Mr. Hetherwick, so I mean to trace that bottle!"

"How?" asked Hetherwick, closely interested. "And to what, or whom?"

"To the chemists where it came from," answered Matherfield. "It came from some chemist's, and I'll find which!"

"There are hundreds of chemists in London," said Hetherwick. "It's a stiff proposition."

"It's going to be done, anyway," asserted Matherfield. "And it mayn't be such a stiff job as it at first looks to be. See here! There were labels on that bottle, both of 'em torn and defaced, it's true, but still with enough on them to narrow down the field of inquiry. I've had the face of the bottle photographed—here's a print of the result."

He brought out a photographic print, roughly finished and mounted on a card, and handed it over to Hetherwick, who took it to the light and examined it carefully. It showed the front of the medicine bottle, with a label at the top and another at the bottom. Each had been torn, as if to obliterate names and addresses, but a good deal of the lettering was left.

+-----------------------------+
| C. A , Esq., |
| The mix re as before |
| No. A.1152 |
+-----------------------------+
+-----------------------------+
| _Note_.--This medicine has |
| been dispensed by a fully |
| qualified Chemist with the |
| to possible drugs |
| is guaranteed |
| wishes of |
| the Pres- |
| |
| M.P.S. |
| St. W.C. |
+-----------------------------+

"That bottom label's the thing, Mr. Hetherwick," remarked Matherfield. "Let me get that hiatus filled up with the name and address of the chemist, and I'll soon find out who C. A. blank, Esquire, is! The chemist is one in the West Central district; he's a member of the Pharmaceutical Society; he'll have somebody whose initials are C. A. on his books; he'll recognise the number A.1152 of the prescription. It's a decided clue; and even if there are, as there undoubtedly are, scores of chemists in the West Central district, I'll run this one down!"

Hetherwick handed back the photograph and began to pace up and down the room. Suddenly he turned on his visitor, his mind made up to tell him what he himself had been doing.

"Matherfield," he said, dropping into his chair again and adopting a tone of confidence, "what do you make of this? I mean—what's your theory? Is it your opinion that the deaths of these two men are—so to speak—all of a piece?"

"That is my opinion!" answered Matherfield with an emphatic nod. "I've no more doubt about it than I have that I see you, Mr. Hetherwick. All of a piece, to be sure! Whoever poisoned Hannaford poisoned Granett! I'll tell you how I've figured it out since the doctors told me, only a couple of hours since, what their opinion is about Granett. This way: Hannaford and Granett knew each other at Sellithwaite ten years ago. That night when Granett left Appleyard in Horseferry Road and turned into Victoria Street, he met Hannaford—accidentally."

"Why accidentally?" asked Hetherwick.

"Well, that's what I think," said Matherfield. "I've figured in that way. Of course, it may have been by appointment. But anyway, they met—we know that. Now then, where did they spend their time between then and the time they got into your carriage at St. James's Park? We don't know. But here comes in an unknown factor—what about the strange man at Victoria, the man muffled to his eyes? Two things suggest themselves to me, Mr. Hetherwick. Did Hannaford take Granett to see that man, or did Hannaford and Granett meet at that man's? For I think that man, whoever he is, is at the bottom of every thing."

"Why should they meet at that man's?" asked Hetherwick.

"Well," answered Matherfield, "I think that secret of Hannaford's has something to do with it. He had the sealed packet on him when he left Malter's Hotel; it had disappeared when we searched his clothing after his death. Now, the granddaughter says it had to do with chemicals. Suppose the tall, muffled man was a chap whose business opinion on this secret Hannaford wanted, and that they met at Victoria and went to the man's rooms somewhere in that district? Suppose Granett—another man in the chemistry line—came there, knowing both? Supposing the muffled man poisoned both of 'em, to keep the secret to himself? Do you see what I'm after? Very well! There you are. The thing is to hunt out that man, whoever he is. I wish I knew what Hannaford's secret was, though—its precise nature."

"Matherfield," said Hetherwick, "I'll tell you! You've been very confidential with me; I'll be equally so with you, on condition that we work together from this. The fact is, I've been at work. I'm immensely interested in this case. Ever since I saw Hannaford die in that train and in that awfully mysterious fashion it's fascinated me, and I'm going to the very end of it. Now I'll tell you all I've been doing, and what I've discovered. Listen carefully."

He went on to tell his visitor the whole details of his visit to Sellithwaite, of the results of his investigations there, and of Rhona's doings and observations at Riversreade Court. Matherfield listened in absorbed silence.

"Is Miss Hannaford going to this secretaryship, then?" he demanded abruptly, at the end of Hetherwick's story. "Is it settled?"

"Practically, yes," replied Hetherwick. "I heard from Lady Riversreade this morning; so did Mr. Kenthwaite. We gave Miss Hannaford—to be known to Lady Riversreade as Miss Featherstone—very good recommendations for the post, and I expect that as soon as she's had our letters, Lady Riversreade will telephone to Miss Hannaford that she's to go at once. Then—she'll go."

"To act as—spy?" suggested Matherfield.

"If you put it that way, yes," assented Hetherwick. "Though, from what she saw of her yesterday, Miss Hannaford formed a very favourable opinion of Lady Riversreade. However, I'm so certain that somehow or other, perhaps innocently, she's connected with this affair, that we mustn't lose any chance."

"And Miss Hannaford will report anything likely to you?" asked Matherfield.

"Just so! Miss Hannaford's duties don't include any Sunday work; on Sunday she'll come to town, and if there's anything to tell, she'll tell it—to me. She's a smart, clever girl, Matherfield, and she'll keep her eyes open."

Matherfield nodded, and for a while sat silent, evidently lost in his own thoughts.

"Oh, she's a clever girl, right enough!" he said suddenly. "Um! I wonder who this Lady Riversreade really is, now?"

"This Lady Riversreade!" laughed Hetherwick. "A multi-millionairess!"

"Aye, just so; but who was she before her marriage? If she is the woman who was known as Mrs. Whittingham——"

"Can there be any doubt about it after what I found out?"

"You never know, Mr. Hetherwick! Lord bless you! they talk about the long arm of coincidence. Why, in my time I've known of things that make me feel there's nothing wonderful about the most amazing coincidence! But—if Lady Riversreade used to be Mrs. Whittingham, then I'd like to know all about Mrs. Whittingham until she became Lady Riversreade, and who she was before she was Mrs. Whittingham, if she ever was Mrs. Whittingham!"

"Stiff job, Matherfield," said Hetherwick. "I think we shall have enough to do to keep an eye on Lady Riversreade."

"You anticipate something there?" suggested Matherfield.

"I think something may transpire," replied Hetherwick.

Matherfield got to his feet.

"Well," he said, "keep me informed, and I'll keep you informed. We've something to go on—Lord knows what we shall make out of it!"

"You're doing your best to trace the tall man?" asked Hetherwick.

"Best!" exclaimed Matherfield with an air of disgust. "We've done our best and our better than best! I've had special men all round that Victoria district; I should think every tall man in that part's been eyed over. And I believe that Mr. Ledbitter has so got the thing on his brain that he's been spending all his spare time patrolling the neighbourhood and going in and out of restaurants and saloons looking for the man he saw—of course, without result!"

"All the same," said Hetherwick, "that man is—somewhere!"

Matherfield went away, and except at the inquest on Granett—whereat nothing transpired which was not already known—Hetherwick did not see him again for several days. He himself progressed no further in his investigations during that time. Rhona Hannaford betook herself to Riversreade Court, as secretary to its mistress's Home, and until the Sunday succeeding his departure Hetherwick heard nothing of her. Then she came up to town on the Sunday morning and, in accordance with their previous arrangement, Hetherwick met her at Victoria, and took her to lunch at a neighbouring hotel.

"Anything to tell?" he asked, when they had settled down to their soup. "Any happenings?"

"Nothing!" answered Rhona. "Everything exceedingly proper, business-like, and orderly. And Lady Riversreade appears to me to be a model sort of person—her devotion to that Home and its inmates is remarkable! I don't believe anything's going to happen, or that I shall ever have anything to report."

"Well, that'll have its compensations," said Hetherwick. "Leave us all the more time for ourselves, won't it?"

He gave her a look to which Rhona responded, shyly but unmistakably; she knew, as well as he did, that they were getting fond of each other's society. And they continued to meet on Sundays, and three or four went by, and still she had nothing to tell that related to the mystery of Hannaford and Granett.

Three weeks elapsed before Matherfield had anything to tell, either. Then he walked into Hetherwick's chambers one morning with news in his face.

"Traced it!" he said. "Knew I should! That five-pound note—brand new. Only a question of time to do that, of course."

"Well?" inquired Hetherwick.

"It was one of twenty fivers paid by the cashier of the London and Country Bank in Piccadilly to the secretary of Vivian's," continued Matherfield. "Date—day before Hannaford's death. Vivian's, let me tell you, is a swell night club. Now then, how did that note get into the hands of Granett? That's going to be a stiff 'un!"

"So stiff that I'm afraid you mustn't ask me to go in at it," agreed Hetherwick good-humouredly. "I must stick to my own line—when the chance comes."

The chance came on the following Sunday, when, in pursuance of now established custom, he met Rhona. She gave him a significant look as soon as she got out of the train.

"News—at last!" she said, as they turned up the platform. "Something's happened—but what it means I don't know."

CHAPTER X

THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

The head-waiter in the restaurant to which Hetherwick and Rhona repaired every Sunday immediately upon her arrival now knew these two well by sight, and forming his own conclusions about them, always reserved for them a table in a quiet and secluded corner. Hither they now proceeded, and had scarcely taken their accustomed seats before Rhona plunged into her story.

"I expect you want to know what it's all about, so I won't keep you waiting," she said. "It was on Friday—Friday morning—that it happened, and I half thought of writing to you about it that evening. Then I thought it best to tell you personally to-day—besides, I should have had to write an awfully long letter. There are things to explain; I'd better explain them first. Our arrangements down there at Riversreade, for instance. They're like this: Lady Riversreade and I always breakfast together at the Court, about nine o'clock. At ten we go across the grounds to the Home. There we have a sort of formal office—two rooms, one of which, the first opening from the hall, I have, the other, opening out of it, is Lady Riversreade's private sanctum. In the hall itself we have an ex-army man, Mitchell, as hall-porter, to attend to the door and so on. All the morning we are busy with letters, accounts, reports of the staff, and that sort of thing. We have lunch at the Home, and we're generally busy until four or five o'clock. Got all that?"

"Every scrap!" replied Hetherwick. "Perfectly plain."

"Very well," continued Rhona. "One more detail, however. A good many people, chiefly medical men and folk interested in homes and hospitals, call, wanting to look over and to know about the place—which, I may tell you in parenthesis, costs Lady Riversreade a pretty tidy penny! Mitchell's instructions as regards all callers are to bring their cards to me—I interview them first; if I can deal with them, I do; if I think it necessary or desirable, I take them in to Lady Riversreade. We have to sort them out—some, I am sure, come out of mere idle curiosity; in fact, the only visitors we want to see there are either medical men who have a genuine interest in the place and can do something for it, or people who are connected with its particular inmates. Well, on Friday morning last, about a quarter to twelve, as I was busy with my letters, I heard a car come up the drive, and presently Mitchell came into my room with a card bearing the name Dr. Cyprian Baseverie. Instead of being an engraved card as, by all the recognised standards, it should have been, it was a printed card—that was the first thing I noticed."

"Your powers of observation," remarked Hetherwick admiringly, "are excellent, and should prove most useful."

"Thank you for the compliment!—but that didn't need much observation," retorted Rhona with a laugh. "It was obvious. However, I asked Mitchell what Dr. Baseverie wanted; Mitchell replied that the gentleman desired an interview with Lady Riversreade. Now, as I said before, we never refuse doctors, so I told Mitchell to bring Dr. Baseverie to me. A moment later Dr. Baseverie entered. I want to describe him particularly, and you must listen most attentively. Figure, then, to yourself a man of medium height, neither stout nor slender, but comfortably plump, and apparently about forty-five years of age, dressed very correctly and fashionably in a black morning coat and vest, dark striped trousers, immaculate as to linen and neckwear, and furnished with a new silk hat, pearl-grey gloves and a tightly rolled gold-mounted umbrella. Incidentally, he wore a thin gold watch-chain, white spats and highly polished shoes. Got that?"

"I see him—his clothes and things, I mean," assented Hetherwick. "Fashionable medico sort, evidently! But—himself?"

"Now his face," continued Rhona. "Imagine a man with an almost absolutely bloodless countenance—a face the colour of old ivory—lighted by a pair of peculiarly piercing eyes, black as sloes, and the pallor of the face heightened by a rather heavy black moustache and equally black, slightly crinkled hair, thick enough above the ears but becoming sparse and thin on the crown. Imagine, too, a pair of full, red lips above a round but determined chin and a decidedly hooked nose, and you have—the man I'm describing!"

"Um!" said Hetherwick reflectingly. "Hebraic, I think, from your description."

"That's just what I thought myself," agreed Rhona. "I said to myself at once, 'Whatever and whoever else you are, my friend, you're a Jew!' But the creature's manner and speech were English enough—very English. He had all the well-accustomed air of the medical practitioner who is also a bit of a man of the world, and I saw at once that anybody who tried to fence with him would usually come off second-best. His explanation of his presence was reasonable and commonplace enough: he was deeply interested in the sort of cases we had in the Home, and desired to acquaint himself with our methods and arrangements and so on. He made use of a few technical terms and phrases which were quite beyond my humble powers, and I carried in his card to Lady Riversreade. Lady Riversreade is always accessible when there's a doctor in the case, and in two minutes Dr. Baseverie was closeted with her."

"That ends the first chapter, I suppose?" said Hetherwick. "Interesting—very! A good curtain! And the next?"

"The events of the second chapter," replied Rhona, "took place in Lady Riversreade's room, and I cannot even guess at their nature. I can only tell of things that I know. But there's a good deal in that. To begin with, although Dr. Baseverie had said to me that he desired to see the Home—which, of course, in the ordinary way meant his being either taken round by Lady Riversreade or by our resident house physician—he was not taken round. He never left that room from the moment he entered it until the moment in which he left it. And he remained in it an entire hour!"

"With Lady Riversreade?"

"With Lady Riversreade! She never left it, either. Nor did I go into it; she hates me to go in if she has anybody with her at any time. No!—there those two were together, from ten minutes to twelve until five minutes to one. Yet the man had said that he wanted to look round!"

"Is there any other way by which they could have left that room?" suggested Hetherwick. "Another door—or a French window?"

"There is nothing of the sort. The door into my room is the only means of entrance or exit to or from Lady Riversreade's. No—they were there all the time."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Nothing! The house in which Lady Riversreade set up this Home is an old, solid, well-built one—none of your modern gimcrack work in it!—it's a far better house than the Court, grand as that may be. All the doors and windows fit—I never heard a sound from the room."

"Well," asked Hetherwick, after due meditation, "and at the end of the hour?"

"At the end of the hour the door suddenly opened and Dr. Baseverie appeared, hat, gloves and umbrella in hand. He half turned as he came out and said a few words to Lady Riversreade. I heard them. He said, 'Well, then, next Friday morning at the same time?' Then he nodded, stepped into my room, closed the door behind him, made me a very polite, smiling bow as he passed my desk, and went out. A moment later he drove off in the car—it had been waiting at the entrance all that time."

"I suppose that's the end of chapter two," suggested Hetherwick. "Is there more?"

"Some," responded Rhona. "During the hour which Dr. Baseverie had spent with Lady Riversreade I had been very busy typing letters. When he had gone I took them into her room, so that she could sign them. I suppose I was a bit curious about what had just happened and may have been more than usually observant—anyway, I felt certain that the visit of this man, whoever he is, had considerably upset Lady Riversreade. She looked it."

"Precisely how?" inquired Hetherwick.

"Well, I couldn't exactly tell you. Perhaps a man wouldn't have noticed it. But being a woman, I did. She was perturbed—she'd been annoyed, or distressed, or surprised, or—something. I saw signs which, as a woman, were unmistakable—to a woman. The man's visit had been distasteful—troubling. I'm as certain of that as I am that this is roast mutton."

"Did she say anything?"

"Not one word. She was unusually taciturn—silent, in fact. She took the letters in silence, signed them in silence. No, on reflection, she never spoke a word while I was in the room. I took the letters away and began putting them in their envelopes. Soon afterwards Lady Riversreade came through my room and went out, and I saw her go across the grounds to the Court. She didn't turn up at the usual luncheon at the Home, and I didn't see her again that afternoon. In fact, I didn't see her again that day, for when I went home to the Court at five o'clock, Lady Riversreade's maid told me that her mistress had gone up to town and wouldn't be home until late that night. I went to bed before she returned."

"Next morning?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Next morning she was just as usual, and things went on in the usual way."

"Did she ever mention this man and his visit to you?" asked Hetherwick.

"No—not a word of him. But I found out something about him myself on Friday afternoon."

"What? Something relevant?"

"May be relevant to—something. I was wondering about him—and his printed card. I thought it odd that a medical man, so smartly dressed and all that, should present a card like that—not one well printed, a cheap thing! Besides, it had no address. I wondered—mere inquisitiveness, perhaps—where the creature came from. Now, we've a jolly good lot of the usual reference-books there at the Home—and there's a first-class right up-to-date medical directory amongst them. So I looked up the name of Dr. Cyprian Baseverie. I say, looked it up—but I didn't do that—for it wasn't there! He's neither an English, nor a Scottish, nor an Irish medical man."

"Foreigner, then," said Hetherwick. "French, perhaps, or—American."

"May be an Egyptian, or a Persian, or a Eurasian, for anything I know," remarked Rhona. "What I know is that he's not on the list in that directory, though from his speech and manner you'd think he'd been practising in the West End all his life! Anyway, that's the story. Is there anything in it?"

Hetherwick picked up his glass of claret by its stem and looked thoughtfully through the contents of the bowl.

"The particular thing is—the extent and quality of Lady Riversreade's annoyance, or dismay, or perturbation, occasioned by the man's visit," he said at last. "If she was really very much upset——"

"If you want my honest opinion as eye-witness and as woman," remarked Rhona, "Lady Riversreade was very much upset. She gave me the impression that she'd just received very bad, disconcerting, unpleasant news. After seeing and watching her as she signed the letters I had no doubt whatever that the man had deliberately lied to me when he said he wanted to see the Home and its working—what he really wanted was access to Lady Riversreade."

"Look here!" exclaimed Hetherwick suddenly "Were you present when this man went into Lady Riversreade's room?"

"Present? Of course I was! I took him in—myself."

"You saw them meet?"

"To be sure!"

"Well, then, you know! Were they strangers? Did she recognise him? Did she show any sign of recognition whatever when she set eyes on him?"

"No, none! I'm perfectly certain she'd never seen the man before in her life! I could see quite well that he was an absolute stranger to her."

"And she to him?"

"Oh, that I don't know! He may have seen her a thousand times. But I'm sure she'd never seen him."

Hetherwick laid down his knife and fork with a gesture of finality.

"I'm going to find out who that chap is," he answered. "Got to!"

"You think his visit may have something to do with this?" asked Rhona.

"May, yes. Anyway, I'm not going to let any chance go. There's enough mystery in what you tell me about the man to make it worth while following him up. It must be done."

"How will you do it?"

"You say he said that he was going there again next Friday at the same time? Well, the thing to do, then, is to watch and follow him when he goes away."

"I'm afraid I'm no use for that! He'd know me."

"Nor am I!—I'm too conspicuous," laughed Hetherwick. "If I were a head and shoulders shorter, I might be some use. But I've got the very man—my clerk, one Mapperley. He's just the sort to follow and dog anybody and yet never be seen himself. As you'll say, when you've the pleasure of seeing him, Mapperley's the most ordinary, commonplace chap you ever set eyes on—pass absolutely unnoticed in any Cockney crowd. But he's as sharp as they make 'em, veiling a peculiar astuteness under his eminently undistinguished features. And what I shall do is this—I'll give Mapperley a full and detailed description of Dr. Cyprian Baseverie: I've memorised yours already; Mapperley will memorise mine. Now Baseverie, whoever he may be, will probably go down to Dorking by the 10.10 from here; so will Mapperley. And after Mapperley has once spotted his man, he'll not lose sight of him."

"And he'll do—what?" asked Rhona.

"Follow him to Dorking—watch him—follow him back to London—find out where he goes when he returns—run him to earth, in fact. Then he'll report to me—and we shall know more than we do now, and also what to do next."

"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."

"I suppose there's no doubt that there was poison in that bottle?" inquired Hetherwick.

"According to the specialists, none," replied Matherfield. "And in the glass too. What sort of poison, I don't know—you know what these experts are—so mysterious about things! But they have told me this—the stuff that settled Granett was identical with that which finished off Hannaford. That's certain."

"Then it probably came from the same source," said Hetherwick.

"Oh, my notion is that the man or men who poisoned one man poisoned the other," exclaimed Matherfield. "And at the same time. At least, I think Granett got his dose at the same time—probably carried it off in his pocket and drank it when he got home. But—we shall trace that bottle! Let me know what you find out about this man Baseverie, Mr. Hetherwick—every little helps."

Hetherwick duly coached Mapperley in the part he wanted him to play, and Mapperley, with money in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth, lounged off to Victoria on the following Friday morning. His principal saw nothing and heard nothing of him all that day.

CHAPTER XI

LADY RIVERSREADE

As Hetherwick was breakfasting next morning, Mapperley, outwardly commonplace and phlegmatic as ever, walked into his room.

"Brief outline first, Mapperley," commanded Hetherwick, instinctively scenting news. "Details later. Well?"

"Spotted him at once at Victoria," said Mapperley. "Followed him down there. He was at Riversreade an hour. Then went back to Dorking—had lunch at 'Red Lion.' He stopped there till four o'clock, lunching and idling. Went back to town by the 4.29, arriving 6.5. I followed him then to the Café de Paris. He dined there and hung about till past ten. And then he went to Vivian's Night Club."

Hetherwick pricked up his ears at that. Vivian's Night Club!—here, at any rate, seemed to be a link in the chain of which Matherfield believed himself to hold at least one end. The five-pound note found on Granett had been traced to Vivian's Night Club: now Mapperley had tracked Lady Riversreade's mysterious visitor to the same resort.

"To Vivian's Night Club, eh, Mapperley?" he said. "Let's see?—where is that?"

"Entrance is in Candlestick Passage, off St. Martin's Lane," replied Mapperley with promptitude. "Club's on first floor—jolly fine suite of rooms, too!"

"You've been in it?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Twice! Not last night, though. You didn't give me any further orders than to see where he went finally, after returning to town. So, when I'd run him to earth at Vivian's, I went home. I argued that if he was wanted further, Vivian's would find him."

"All right, Mapperley. But before that? You followed him to Riversreade Court?"

Mapperley grinned widely.

"No!—I did better than that. I was there before him—much better that, than following. I spotted him quick enough at Victoria, and made sure he got into the 10.10. Then I got in. As soon as we got to Dorking, I jumped out, got outside the station and chartered a taxi and drove off to Riversreade Court. I made the driver hide his cab up the road: I laid low in the plantation opposite the entrance gates. Presently my lord came along and drove up to the house. He was there the best part of an hour; then he drove off again towards Dorking. I followed at a good distance: kept him in sight, all the same. He got out of his conveyance in the High Street: so did I. He went into the Red Lion: so did I. He had lunch there: so had I. After that he lounged about in the smoking-room: I kept an eye on him."

"I suppose he didn't meet anybody?"

"Nobody!"

"Well, and at the Café de Paris? Did he meet anybody there?"

"He exchanged a nod and a word here and there with men—and women—that came in and went out. But as to any arranged meeting, I should say not. I should say, too, that he was well known at the Café de Paris."

"Did he seem to be a man of means? You know what I mean?"

"He did himself very well at lunch and dinner, anyway," said Mapperley, with another grin. "Bottle of claret at Dorking, and a pint of champagne at the Café de Paris—big cigars, too. That sort of man, you know."

Hetherwick considered matters a moment.

"How do you get in to this Vivian's Night Club?" he asked suddenly.

"Pay!" answered Mapperley laconically. "At the door. Some nonsense about being proposed, but that's all bosh! Two of you go—say Brown and Smith. Brown proposes Smith and Smith proposes Brown. All rot! Anybody can get in—with money."

"And what goes on there?"

"Dancing! Drinking! Devilry! Quite respectable, though," replied Mapperley. "Been no prosecutions, anyway—so far."

"What time does it open?"

"Nine o'clock," answered Mapperley, with a suggestive grin. "In the old days it didn't open till after the theatres. But now—earlier."

"Really not a night-club at all—in the old acceptation of the term," suggested Hetherwick. "Evening, really?"

"That's about it," agreed Mapperley. "Anyhow, it's Vivian's."

For the second time in the course of his investigations, Hetherwick's thoughts turned to Boxley. Boxley's love of intimate acquaintance with all sides of London life had doubtless led him to look in at Vivian's: he would ask Boxley for some further information. And he looked up Boxley at the club.

Boxley knew Vivian's well enough—innocent and innocuous now, said Boxley, what with all these new regulations and so on: degenerated, indeed—or improved, just whichever way you regarded it—into a supper club and that sort of thing. Dancing?—oh yes, there was dancing, and so on—but things had altered—altered.

"Well, I don't want to dance there, nor to go there at all, for that matter, unless I'm obliged to," said Hetherwick. "What I want to know is something about a man who, I believe, frequents the place—a somewhat notable man."

"Describe him!" commanded Boxley.

Hetherwick retailed Rhona's description of Baseverie: Boxley nodded.

"I know that man—by sight," he said. "Seen him there. I believe he's something to do with the proprietorship: that place is owned by a small syndicate. But I don't know his name. I've seen him outside too—round about Leicester Square and its purlieus."

Hetherwick went from Boxley to Matherfield and told him the result of Mapperley's work.

"I know Vivian's, of course," said Matherfield. "Been in there two or three times lately in relation to this five-pound note. Don't remember seeing this man, though. But in view of what your clerk says, I'd like to see him. Come with me. We'll go to-night."

"Make it Monday," suggested Hetherwick. "To-morrow, Sunday, I shall be meeting Miss Hannaford again, and before we go to Vivian's I'd like to know if she has anything to tell about the last visit of Baseverie to Riversreade Court—the visit that Mapperley watched yesterday. She may have."

"Monday night then," agreed Matherfield. "I don't know what we can expect, but I'd certainly like to know who this man is and why he goes to Lady Riversreade."

"No good, you may be sure!" said Hetherwick. "But we'll ferret it out—somehow."

"Odd, that things seem to be centring round Vivian's!" mused Matherfield. "The fiver—and now this. Well—Monday evening then?—perhaps Miss Hannaford can supply a bit of extra news to-morrow."

Hetherwick, meeting Rhona at Victoria next day, found his arm grasped in Rhona's right hand and himself twisted round.

"If you want to see Lady Riversreade in the flesh, there she is!" whispered Rhona. "Came up by the same train—there, going towards the bookstall; a tall man with her!"

At that moment Lady Riversreade turned to speak to a porter who was carrying some light luggage for her, and Hetherwick had a full and good view of her face and figure. A fine, handsome, capable-looking woman, he said to himself, and one that once seen would not easily be forgotten.

"Who's the man?" he asked, looking from Lady Riversreade to her companion, a tall, bronzed man of military appearance, and apparently of about her own age.

"Major Penteney," replied Rhona promptly. "He's a friend of hers, who takes a tremendous interest in the Home—in fact, he acts as a sort of representative of it here in town. He's often down at the Court—I believe he's in love with her."

"Well-matched couple," observed Hetherwick, as the two people under notice moved away towards the exit. "And what's Lady Riversreade come up for?"

"Oh, I don't know that," replied Rhona. "She never tells me anything about her private doings. I heard her say that she was going to Town this morning and shouldn't be back until Tuesday, but that's all I know."

"That man, Baseverie, came again on Friday?" suggested Hetherwick. "But I know he did—Mapperley watched him. Anything happen?"

"Nothing—except that Lady Riversreade told me that if Dr. Baseverie called he was to be brought in to her at once," answered Rhona. "He came at the same time as before, and was with her an hour."

"Any signs on her part of being further upset?" asked Hetherwick.

"No—on the contrary she seemed quite cool and collected after he'd gone," said Rhona. "Of course she made no reference to his visit."

"Has she never mentioned him to you?"

"Never! In spite of the fact that his professed object was to see the Home and the patients, he's seen neither."

"Which shows that that was all a mere excuse to get speech with her!" muttered Hetherwick. "Well—we're going to find out who this Dr. Baseverie is! Matherfield and I intend to get in touch with him to-morrow night."

But when the next night came Hetherwick's plans about the visit to Vivian's were frustrated by an unexpected happening, and neither he nor Matherfield as much as crossed the threshold of the night-club in Candlestick Passage. They went there at ten o'clock: that, said Matherfield, was a likely hour—between then and eleven-thirty the place would be full of its habitual frequenters: the notion was to mingle unobtrusively with whatever crowd chanced to be there and to keep eyes and ears open for whatever happened to transpire.

Candlestick Passage, unfamiliar to Hetherwick until that evening, proved to be one of the many narrow alleys which open out of St. Martin's Lane in the neighbourhood of the theatres. It wore a very commonplace, not to say shabby complexion, and there was nothing in its atmosphere to suggest adventure or romance. Not was there anything alluring about the entrance to Vivian's, which was merely a wide, double doorway, ornamented by two evergreen shrubs set in tubs and revealing swing-doors within, and a carpeted staircase beyond. Hetherwick and Matherfield, however, never reached swing-doors or staircase: as they approached the outer entrance a tall woman emerged, and without so much as a look right or left turned down the passage towards the street. She paid no attention to the two men as she walked quickly past them—but Hetherwick softly seized his companion's arm.

"Lady Riversreade, by all that's wonderful!" he exclaimed under his breath. "That woman!"

Matherfield turned sharply, gazing after the retreating figure.

"That," he said incredulously, "coming out of here? Certain?"

"Dead sure!" affirmed Hetherwick. "I knew her at once—I'd had a particularly good look at her, yesterday. That's she!"

"What's she doing at Vivian's?" muttered Matherfield. "Queer, that!"

"But she's going away from it," said Hetherwick. "Come on!—let's see where she goes. We can easily come back here. But why not follow her first?"

"Good!" agreed Matherfield. "Come on then! easily keep her in sight."

Lady Riversreade at that moment was turning out of the passage, to her left hand. When the two men emerged from it, she was already several yards ahead, going towards St. Martin's Church. Her tall figure made her good to follow, but Matherfield kept Hetherwick back; no use, he said, in pressing too closely on your quarry.

"Tall as she is and tall as we are," he whispered, as they threaded in out of the crowds on the pavement, "we can spot her at twenty yards. Cautiously, now—she's making for the cab rank!"

They watched Lady Riversreade charter and enter a taxi-cab: in another minute it moved away. But it had scarcely moved when Matherfield was at the door of the next cab on the rank.

"You saw that cab go off with a tall woman in it?" he said to the driver. "There!—just rounding the corner, know its driver? Right!—follow it carefully. Note where it stops, and if the woman gets out. Drive slowly past wherever that is, and then pull up a bit farther on. Be sharp, now—this is——" he bent towards the man and whispered a word or two: a second later he and Hetherwick were in the cab and across the top side of Trafalgar Square.

"This is getting a bit thick, Mr. Hetherwick," remarked Matherfield. "Your clerk tracks his man to Vivian's on Friday night, we find Lady Riversreade coming out of Vivian's on Monday night. Now I shouldn't think Lady Riversreade, whom we hear of chiefly as a humanitarian, a likely sort of lady to visit Vivian's!"

"She came out of Vivian's, anyway!" replied Hetherwick.

"Then, of course, she'd been in!" said Matherfield. "But why? I should say—to have a meeting with Baseverie, or with somebody representing him, or having something to do with the business that took him to Riversreade Court. What business is it? Has it anything to do with our business? However, there's Lady Riversreade in that cab in front, and we'll just follow her to find out where she goes—no doubt she's bound for some swell West End hotel. And that knowledge will be useful, for I may want to see her in the morning—to ask a question or two."

"Somewhat early for that, isn't it?" suggested Hetherwick. "Do we know enough?"

"Depends on what you call enough," replied Matherfield dryly. "What I know is this: that man Granett was poisoned. He had on him a brand new five-pound note. That note I've traced as far as Vivian's, where it was certainly paid to some customer in change on the very day before Granett and Hannaford's deaths: Vivian's is accordingly a place of interest. Now I hear of a mysterious man visiting Lady Riversreade—the man is tracked to Vivian's—I myself see Lady Riversreade emerging from Vivian's. I think I must ask Lady Riversreade what she knows about Vivian's and a certain Dr. Baseverie, and, incidentally, if she ever heard of a place called Sellithwaite and a police-superintendent named Hannaford? Eh! But we're leaving the region of the fashionable hotels."

Hetherwick looked out of the window, what he saw seemed unfamiliar.

"We're going up Edgware Road," said Matherfield. He leaned out of the cab and gave some further instructions to the driver. "I don't want to arouse any suspicion there in front," he remarked, dropping into his seat again. "The probability is that she's going to some private house, and I don't want her to get any idea that she's followed. Ah!—now we turn into Harrow Road."

The cab went away by Paddington Green, turned sharply at the Town Hall, and made up St. Mary's Terrace. Presently it slowed down; proceeded still more slowly; passed the other cab which had come to a standstill in front of a block of high buildings; a few yards farther on it stopped altogether. The driver got down from his seat and came to the door.

"That tall lady!" he said confidentially. "Her as got into the other cab. She's gone into St. Mary's Mansions—just below."

"Flats, aren't they?" asked Matherfield.

"That's it, sir," answered the driver. He looked down the street. "Cab's going off again, sir. Porter came out and paid."

"That looks as if she was going to stay here awhile," remarked Matherfield in an undertone. "Well, we'll get out, too, and take a look round." He paid and dismissed the driver, and crossing over to the opposite side of the roadway, pointed out to Hetherwick the block of flats into which Lady Riversreade had disappeared. "Big place," he muttered. "Regular rabbit-warren. However, no other entrance than this—the old burial ground's at the back, no way out there, I do know that! So she can't very well vanish that way."

"You're going to wait, then?" asked Hetherwick.

"I don't believe in starting out on any game unless I see it through," replied Matherfield. "Yes, I think we'll wait. But there's no necessity to hang around in the open street. I know this district—used to be at the police station round the corner. You see all these houses on this side, Mr. Hetherwick? They're all lodging-houses, and I know most of their keepers. Wait here a minute, and I'll soon get a room that we can watch from, without being seen ourselves."

He left Hetherwick standing under the shadow of a neighbouring high wall, and went a little way down the street. Hetherwick heard him open the gate of one of the little gardens and knock at a door. There some little delay. Hetherwick passed the time in staring at the long rows of lighted windows in the flats opposite, wondering to which of them Lady Riversreade had gone and what she was doing there at all. It was clear to him that this was some adventure connected with the mysterious Baseverie and with Vivian's Night Club—but how, and of what nature?

Matherfield came back presently, cheerful and reassuring.

"Come along, Mr. Hetherwick!" he whispered. "There's a man here—lodging-house keeper—who knows me. We can have his front parlour window to watch from. Far better that than patrolling the street. We shall be comfortable there."

"You're intent on watching, then?" said Hetherwick as they moved off.

"I'm not coming all that way for nothing," replied Matherfield. "I'm going to follow her up till she settles for the night. That won't be here; she'll be off to some hotel or other before long."

But Matherfield's prediction proved to be faulty. Time dragged slowly by in the stuffy and shabby little room in which he and Hetherwick took up a position and from the window of which Matherfield kept a constant watch on the entrance of the flats, exactly opposite. Midnight came and went, but nothing happened. And at half-past twelve Hetherwick suggested that the game wasn't worth the candle, and that he should prefer to depart.

"You do as you like, Mr. Hetherwick," said Matherfield, stifling a suspicious yawn. "I'm sick enough of it, too. But here I stop till she comes out—whether it's this side of breakfast or the other side!"

"And what then?" asked Hetherwick, half derisively.

"Then we'll see—or I'll see, if you're going—where she goes next! Don't believe in half measures!" retorted Matherfield.

"Oh, I'll see it out!" said Hetherwick. "After all, it'll be daylight soon."

Daylight came over the house-tops at four o'clock. They had seen nothing up to then. But at twenty minutes to five Matherfield tugged his companion's arm. Lady Riversreade, in a big ulster travelling-coat and carrying a small suit-case, was emerging alone from the opposite door.

CHAPTER XII

ALIAS MADAME LISTORELLE

The woman thus observed marched swiftly away down the deserted street in the direction of the Town Hall at the corner, and Matherfield, after one more searching look at her, dropped the slat of the Venetian blind through which he had been peeping, and turned on his companion. At the same instant he reached a hand for his overcoat and hat.

"Now, Mr. Hetherwick," he said sharply, "this has got to be a one-man job! There'll be nothing extraordinary in one man going along the streets to catch an early morning train, but it would look a bit suspicious if two men went together on the same errand and the same track! I'm off after her! I'll run her down! I'm used to that sort of thing. You go to your chambers and get some sleep. I'll look in later and tell you what news I have. Sharp's the word, now!"

He was out of the room and the house within the next few seconds, and Hetherwick, half vexed with himself for having lingered there on a job which Matherfield thus unceremoniously took into his own hands, prepared to follow. Presently he went out into the shabby hall; the man of the house was just coming downstairs, stifling a big yawn. He smiled knowingly when he saw Hetherwick.

"Matherfield gone, sir?" he inquired. "I heard the door close."

"He's gone," assented Hetherwick. "The person he wanted appeared suddenly, and he's gone in pursuit."

The man, a smug-faced, easy-going sort of person, smiled again.

"Rum doings these police have!" he remarked. "Queer job, watching all night through a window. I was just coming down to make you a cup of coffee," he continued. "I'll get you one in a few minutes, if you like. Or tea now? Perhaps you'd prefer tea?"

"It's very good of you," said Hetherwick. "But to tell you the truth I'd rather get home and to bed. Many thanks, all the same."

Then, out of sheer good nature, he slipped a treasury note into the man's hand, and, bidding him good morning, went away. He, too, walked down the street in the direction taken by Lady Riversreade and her pursuer. But when he came to the bottom and emerged into Harrow Road he saw nothing of them, either to left or right. The road, however, was not deserted; there were already workmen going to early morning tasks, and close by the corner of the Town Hall a roadman was busy with his broom. Hetherwick went up to him.

"Did you see a lady, and then a gentleman, come down here, from St. Mary's Terrace, just now?" he asked. "Tall people, both of them."

The man rested on his broom, half turned, and pointed towards Paddington Bridge.

"I see 'em, guv'nor," he answered. "Tall lady, carrying a little portmantle. Gone along over the bridge yonder. Paddington station way. And, after her, Matherfield."

"Oh, you know him, do you?" exclaimed Hetherwick, in surprise.

The man jerked a thumb in the direction of the adjacent police station.

"Used to be a sergeant here, did Matherfield," he replied. "I knows him, right enough! Once run me in—me an' a mate o' mine—for bein' a bit festive like. Five bob and costs that was. But I don't bear him no grudge, not me! Thank 'ee, guv'nor."

Hetherwick left another tip behind him and walked slowly off towards Edgware Road. The Tube trains were just beginning to run, and he caught a south-bound one and went down to Charing Cross and thence to the Temple. And at six o'clock he tumbled into bed, and slept soundly until, four hours later, he heard Mapperley moving about in the adjoining room.

Mapperley, whose job at Hetherwick's was a good deal of a sinecure, was leisurely reading the news when his master entered. He laid the paper aside, and gave Hetherwick a knowing glance.

"Got some more information last night," he said. "About that chap I tracked the other day."

"How did you get it?" asked Hetherwick.

"Put in a bit of time at Vivian's," answered Mapperley. "There's a fellow there that I know. Clerk to the secretary chap, named Flowers. That man Baseverie has a share in the place—sort of director, I think."

"What time were you at Vivian's?" inquired Hetherwick. "Late or early?"

"Early—for them," answered Mapperley.

"Did you see the man there?"

"I did. He was there all the time I was. In and about all the time. But at first he was in what seemed to be serious conversation with a tall, handsome woman. They sat talking in an alcove in the lounge there some time. Then she went off—alone."

"Oh, you saw that, did you?" said Hetherwick. "Well, I may as well tell you, since you know what you do, that the woman was Lady Riversreade!"

"Oh, I guessed that!" remarked Mapperley. "I figured in that at once. But that wasn't all. I found out more. That dead man, Hannaford—from what I heard from Flowers—I've no doubt whatever that Hannaford was at Vivian's once, if not twice, during the two or three nights before his death. Anyway, Flowers recognised my description of him—which I'd got, of course, from you and the papers."

"Hannaford. There, eh?" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Alone?"

"No—came in with this Baseverie. They don't know him as Dr. Baseverie there, though. Plain Mister. I'm quite sure it was Hannaford who was with him."

"Did you get the exact dates—and times?" asked Hetherwick.

"I didn't. Flowers couldn't say that. But he remembered such a man."

"Well, that's something," said Hetherwick. He turned into another room and sat down to his breakfast, thinking. "Mapperley, come here!" he called presently. "Look here," he went on as the clerk came in. "Since you know this Vivian place, go there again to-night, and try to find out if that friend of yours knows anything of a tall man who corresponds to the description of the man whom Hannaford was seen to meet at Victoria. You read Ledbitter's account of that, given at the inquest?"

"Yes," replied Mapperley. "But of what value is it? None—for practical purposes! He couldn't even tell the shape of the man's nose, nor the colour of his eyes! All he could tell was that he saw a man muffled in such a fashion that he saw next to nothing of his face, and that he was tall and smartly dressed. There are a few tens of thousands—scores, perhaps—of tall, smartly-dressed men in London!"

"Never mind—inquire," said Hetherwick, "and particularly if such a man has ever been seen in Baseverie's company there."

He finished his breakfast, and then, instead of going down to the Central Criminal Court, after his usual habit, he hung about in his chambers, expecting Matherfield. But Matherfield did not come, and at noon Hetherwick, impelled by a new idea, left a message for him in case he called, and went out. In pursuance of the idea, he journeyed once more to the regions of Paddington and knocked at the door of the house wherein he and Matherfield had kept watch on the flats opposite.

The lodging-house keeper opened the door himself and grinned on seeing Hetherwick. Hetherwick stepped inside and nodded at the door of the room which he had left only a few hours before.

"I want a word or two with you," he said. "In private."

"Nobody in here, sir," replied the man. "Come in."

He closed the door on himself and his visitor, and offered Hetherwick a chair.

"I expected you'd be back during the day," he said, with a sly smile. "Either you or Matherfield, or both!"

"You haven't seen him again?" asked Hetherwick.

"No; he's not been here," replied the man.

"Well, I wanted to ask you a question," continued Hetherwick. "Perhaps two or three. To begin with, have you lived here long?"

"Been here since before these flats were built—and that's a good many years ago; I can't say exactly how many," said the other, glancing at the big block opposite his window. "Twenty-two or three, anyway."

"Then I dare say you know most of the people hereabouts?" suggested Hetherwick. "By sight, at any rate."

The lodging-house keeper smiled and shook his head.

"That would be a tall order, mister!" he answered. "There's a few thousand of people packed into this bit of London. Of course, I do know a good many, close at hand. But if you're a Londoner you'll know that Londoners keep themselves to themselves. May seem queer, but it's a fact that I don't know the names of my next-door neighbours on either side—though to be sure they've only been here a few years in either case."

"What I was suggesting," said Hetherwick, "was that you probably knew by sight many of the people who live in the flats opposite your house."

"Oh, I know some of 'em by sight," assented the man. "They're a mixed lot over in those flats! A few old gentlemen—retired—two or three old ladies—and a fair lot of actresses—very popular with the stage is those flats. But, of course, it is only by sight—I don't know any of 'em by name. Just see them going in and coming out, you know."

"Do you happen to know by sight a tall, handsome woman who has a flat there?" asked Hetherwick. "A woman who's likely to be very well dressed?"

The lodging-house keeper, who was without his coat and had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, scratched his elbows and looked thoughtful.

"I think I do know the lady you mean," he said at last. "Goes out with one o' those pesky little poms—a black 'un—on a lead? That her?"

"I don't know anything about a dog," replied Hetherwick. "The woman I mean is, as I said, tall, handsome, distinguished-looking, fair hair and a fresh complexion, and about forty or so."

"I dare say that's the one I'm thinking of," said the man. "I have seen such a lady now and then—not of late, though." Then he gave Hetherwick a shrewd, inquiring glance. "You and Matherfield after her?" he asked.

"Not exactly that," answered Hetherwick. "What I want to find out—now—is her name. The name she's known by here, anyway."

"I can soon settle that for you," said the lodging-house keeper with alacrity. "I know the caretaker of those flats well enough—often have a talk with him. He'll tell me anything—between ourselves. Now then, let's get it right—a tall, handsome lady, about forty, fair hair, fresh complexion, well dressed. That it, mister?"

"You've got it," said Hetherwick.

"Then you wait here a bit, and I'll slip across," said the man. "All on the strict between ourselves, you know. As I said, the caretaker and me's pals."

He left the room, and a moment later Hetherwick saw him cross the road and descend into the basement of the flats. Within a quarter of an hour he was back, and evidently primed with news.

"Soon settled that for you, mister!" he announced triumphantly. "He knew who you meant! The lady's name is Madame Listorelle. Here, I got him to write it down on a bit o' paper, not being used to foreign names. He thinks she's something to do with the stage. She's the tenant of flat twenty-six. But he says that of late she's seldom there—comes for a night or two, then away, maybe for months at a time. He saw her here yesterday, though; she hadn't been there, he says, for a good bit. But there, it don't signify to him whether she's there or away—always punctual with her money, and that's the main thing, ain't it?"

Hetherwick added to his largess of the early morning, and went away. He was now convinced that Lady Riversreade, for some purpose of her own, kept up a flat in Paddington, visited it occasionally, and was known there as Madame Listorelle. How much was there in that, and what bearing had it on the problem he was endeavouring to solve?

CHAPTER XIII

WHO WAS SHE?

Late that night, when Hetherwick was thinking things over, a pounding on his stairs and a knock on his outer door heralded the entrance of Matherfield, who, with an expressive look, flung himself into the nearest easy chair.

"For heaven's sake, Mr. Hetherwick, give me a drop of that whisky!" he exclaimed. "I'm dead beat—and dead disappointed, too! Such a day as I've had after that woman! And what it all means the Lord only knows—I don't!"

Hetherwick helped his evidently far-spent visitor to a whisky and soda, and waited until he had taken a hearty pull at it. Then he resumed his own seat and took up his pipe.

"I gather that you haven't had a very successful day, Matherfield?" he suggested. "Hope it wasn't exactly a wild-goose chase?"

"That's just about what it comes to, then!" exclaimed Matherfield. "Anyway, after taking no end of trouble she got clear away, practically under my very nose! But I'll tell you all about it; that's what I dropped in for. When I went out of that house in St. Mary's Terrace, she was just turning the corner to the right, Bishop's Road way. Of course I followed. She went over the bridge—the big railway bridge—and at the end turned down to Paddington Station. I concluded then that she was going up by some early morning train. She entered the station by the first-class booking office; I was not so many yards in her rear then. But instead of stopping there and taking a ticket she went right through, crossed the station to the arrival platform and signalled to a taxi-cab. In another minute she was in it, and off. Very luckily there was another cab close by. I hailed that and told the driver to keep the first cab in sight and follow it to wherever it went. So off we went again, on another pursuit! And it ended at another terminus—Waterloo!"

"Going home, I suppose," remarked Hetherwick, as Matherfield paused to take up his glass. "You can get to Dorking from Waterloo."

"She wasn't going to any Dorking!" answered Matherfield. "I soon found that out. Early as it was, there were a lot of people at Waterloo, and when she went to the ticket office I contrived to be close behind her—close enough, at any rate, to overhear anything she said. She asked for a first single to Southampton."

"Southampton!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Um!"

"Southampton!" repeated Matherfield. "First single for Southampton. She took the ticket and walked away, looking neither right nor left; she never glanced at me. Well, as I said yesterday, I don't believe in starting out on anything unless I go clean through with it. So after a minute's thought I booked for Southampton—third. Then I went out and looked at the notice board. Southampton, 5.40. It was then 5.25. So I went to the telephone office, rang up our head-quarters and told 'em I was after something and they needn't expect to see me all day. Then I bought a time-table and a newspaper or two at the bookstall, just opening, and went to the train. There were a lot of people travelling by it. The train hadn't come up to the platform then; when it came down a minute or two later I watched her get in; she was good to spot because of her tall figure. I got into a smoker, a bit lower down, and in due course off we went, me wondering, to tell you the truth, precisely why I was going! But I was going—wherever she went."

"Even out of the country?" asked Hetherwick, with a smile.

"Aye, I thought of that!" assented Matherfield. "She might be slinging her hook for anything I knew. That made me turn to the steamship news in the paper, and I saw then that the Tartaric was due to leave Southampton for New York about two o'clock that very afternoon. Well, there were more improbable things than that she meant to go by it, for reasons of her own, especially if she really is the Mrs. Whittingham of the Sellithwaite affair ten years ago. You see, I thought it out like this—granting she's Mrs. Whittingham, that was, she'll be astute enough to know that there's no time-limit to a criminal prosecution in this country, and that she's still liable to arrest, prosecution, and conviction; she'd probably know, too, that this Hannaford affair has somehow drawn fresh attention to her little matter, and that she's in danger. Again, I'd been working out an idea about her and this man Baseverie. How do we know that Baseverie wasn't an accomplice of hers in that Sellithwaite fraud? In most cases of that sort the woman has an accomplice somewhere in the background—Baseverie may have been mixed with her then. And now he may have information that has led him to warn her to make herself scarce, eh?"

"There's something in that, Matherfield," admitted Hetherwick. "Yes—decidedly something."

"There may be a good deal," affirmed Matherfield. "You see, we've let those newspaper chaps have a lot of information. I'm a believer in making use of the Press; it's a valuable aid sometimes, perhaps generally, but there are other times when you can do too much of it: it's a sort of giving valuable aid to the enemy. I don't know whether we haven't let those reporters know too much in this case. We've let 'em know, for instance, about the portrait found in Hannaford's pocket-book, and about the sealed packet in which, we believe, was the secret of his patent: all that's been in the papers, though, to be sure, they didn't make much copy out of it. Still, there was enough for anybody who followed the case closely. Now, supposing that Baseverie was Mrs. Whittingham's accomplice ten years ago, and that he'd read all this and seen the reproduction of the portrait, wouldn't he see that she was in some danger and warn her? I think it likely, and I wish we hadn't been quite so free with our news for those paper chaps. I'm glad, anyhow, that there's one thing I haven't told 'em of—that medicine bottle found at Granett's! There's nobody but me, you, and the medical men know of that, so far."

"You think this woman—Lady Riversreade as she is, Mrs. Whittingham as she used to be—was making off to Southampton, and possibly farther, on a hint from Baseverie?" said Hetherwick ruminatively.

"Put it this way," replied Matherfield. "Of course, you've got to assume a lot, but we can't do without assuming things in this business. Lady Riversreade was formerly Mrs. Whittingham. Mrs. Whittingham did a clever bit of fraud at Sellithwaite, and got away with the swag. Baseverie was her accomplice. Now then, ten years later Mrs. Whittingham has become my Lady Riversreade, a very wealthy woman. She's suddenly visited by Baseverie at Riversreade Court, and is obviously upset by his first visit. He comes again. Three nights later she's seen to come out of a club which he frequents. She spends most of the night in a flat in a quiet part of London, and next morning slopes off as early as five o'clock to a port—Southampton. What inference is to be drawn? That her visit to Southampton has certainly something to do with Baseverie's visits to her and her visit to Vivian's!"

"I think there's something in that, too," said Hetherwick, "But—we're on the way to Southampton. Go on!"

"Very good train, that," continued Matherfield. "We got to Southampton just before eight—a minute or two late. I was wanting something to eat and drink by that time, and I was glad to see my lady turn into the refreshment-room as soon as she left her carriage. So did I. I knew she'd never suspect a quiet, ordinary man like me; if she deigned to give me a glance—she's a very haughty-looking woman, I observed—she'd only take me for a commercial traveller. And we were not so far off each other in that room; she sat at a little table, having some tea and so on: I was at the counter. Of course, I never showed that I was taking any notice of her—but I got in two or three good, comprehensive inspections. Very good-looking, no doubt of it, Mr. Hetherwick—a woman that's worn well! But of course you've seen that for yourself."

"You must remember that I've only seen her twice," remarked Hetherwick, with a laugh. "Once at Victoria, when Miss Hannaford pointed her out; once night before last, when it was by a poorish gaslight. But I'll take your word, Matherfield. Well, and what happened next?"

"Oh, she took her time over her tea and toast," continued Matherfield. "Very leisured in all her movements, I assure you. At last she moved off—of course I followed, casually and carelessly. Now, as you may be aware, Southampton West, where the train set us down, is a bit out of the town, and I expected her to take a cab. But she didn't; she walked away from the station. So did I—twenty or thirty yards in the rear. She took her time; it seemed to me she was purposely loitering. It struck me at last why—she was waiting until the business offices were open. I was right in that: as soon as the town clocks struck nine she quickened her pace and made a beeline for her objective. And what do you think that was?"

"No idea," said Hetherwick.

"White Star offices!" answered Matherfield. "Went straight there, and walked straight in! Of course, I waited outside, where she wouldn't see me when she came out again. She was in there about twenty minutes. When she came out she turned to another part of the town. And near that old gateway, or bar, or whatever it is that stands across the street, I lost her—altogether!"

"Some exceptional reason, I should think, Matherfield," remarked Hetherwick. "How was it?"

"My own stupid fault!" growled Matherfield. "Took my eye off her in a particularly crowded part—the town was beginning to get very busy. I just happened to let my attention be diverted—and she was gone! At first I made certain she'd gone into some shop. I looked into several—risky as that was—but I couldn't find her. I hung about; no good. Then I came to the conclusion that she'd turned down one of the side streets or alleys or passages—there were several about there—and got clean away. And after hanging around a bit, and going up one street and down another—a poor job in our business at the best of times and all dependent on mere luck!—I decided to make a bold stroke and be sure of at any rate something."

"What? How?" asked Hetherwick.

"I thought I'd find out what she'd gone to the White Star offices for," replied Matherfield. "Of course, I didn't want to raise any suspicion against her under the circumstances. But I flatter myself I'm a bit of a diplomatist, and I laid my plans. I went in there, got hold of a clerk who was a likely looking chap for secret keeping, told him who I was and showed my credentials, and asked him for the information I wanted. I got it. As luck would have it, my man had attended to her himself and remembered her quite well. Of course, little more than an hour and a half had passed since she'd been in there."

"And—what had she been in for?" asked Hetherwick. "What did you hear?"

Matherfield nodded significantly.

"Just what I expected to hear," he answered. "She'd booked a second-class passage for New York in the Tartaric, sailing that afternoon, in the name of H. Cunningham. As soon as I found that out, I knew I should come across her again—there'd be no need to go raking the town for her. I ascertained that passengers would be allowed to go aboard from two o'clock; the boat would sail between five and six. So, having once more admonished the clerk to secrecy and given him plausible excuses for my inquisitiveness, I went off to relax a bit, and in due time sat down to an early and comfortable lunch—a man must take his ease now and then, you know, Mr. Hetherwick."

"Exactly, Matherfield—I quite agree," said Hetherwick. "But I dare say your brain was at work, all the same, while you ate and drank?"

"It was, sir," assented Matherfield. "Yes—I made my plans. I wasn't going to New York, of course; that was out of the question. But I was going to have speech with her. I decided that I'd watch for her coming aboard the Tartaric—being alone, she'd probably come early. I proposed to get her aside, accosting her, of course, as Lady Riversreade, tell her who I was and show my papers, and ask her if she would give me any information about a certain Dr. Cyprian Baseverie. I thought I'd see how she took that before asking anything further; if I saw that she was taken aback, confused, and especially if she gave me any prevaricating or elusive answer, I'd ask her straight out if before her marriage to the late Sir John Riversreade she was the Mrs. Whittingham who, some ten years ago, stayed for a time at the White Hart Hotel at Sellithwaite. And I practically made up my mind, too, that if she admitted that and I saw good cause for it, I'd detain her."

"You meant to go as far as that?" exclaimed Hetherwick.

"I did! I should have been justified," replied Matherfield. "However, that's neither here nor there, for I never saw her! I was down at the point of departure well before two, and I assured myself that nobody had gone aboard the Tartaric up to that time. I kept as sharp a look out as any man with only one pair of eyes could, right away from ten minutes to two until five-and-twenty past five, when the boat sailed, but she never turned up. Of course you'll say that she must have slipped on unobserved by me, but I'm positive she didn't. No, sir! It's my opinion that she thought better of it and didn't go—forfeiting her passage money, or a part of it, would be nothing to a woman of her means—or that she was frightened at the last minute of showing herself on that stage!"

"Frightened! Why?" asked Hetherwick.

Matherfield laughed significantly.

"There were two or three of our men from Scotland Yard about," he answered. "I'm not aware of what they were after; I didn't ask 'em. But I did ask them to give me a hand in looking out for a lady whom I fully described—which is why I'm dead certain she never went aboard. Now, it may have been that she came down there, knew—you never know!—some of those chaps and—made herself scarce! Anyway—I never set eyes on her. Never, in fact, saw her again after I lost her in the morning. So—that's where I am!"

"You came back—defeated?" remarked Hetherwick.

"Well, if you like to call it so," admitted Matherfield. "Yes, I came back by the seven thirty-eight. Dog tired! But I'm not through with this yet, Mr. Hetherwick, and I want you to do something for me. This Miss Hannaford, now, is down at Riversreade Court. They'll be on the telephone there, of course. I want you to ring her up early to-morrow morning, and ask her if she can meet you on important private business in Dorking town at noon. Where shall we say?"

"'White Horse' would do," suggested Hetherwick.

"Very well—White Horse Hotel, at noon," agreed Matherfield. "We'll go down—for I'll go with you—by the 10.10 from Victoria. Now please be very careful about this, Mr. Hetherwick, when you telephone. Don't say anything of any reason for going down to Dorking. Don't on any account mention Lady Riversreade, in any way. Merely tell Miss Hannaford that you have urgent reasons for seeing her. And—fix it up!"

"Oh, I can fix it up all right," answered Hetherwick. "Miss Hannaford can easily drive down from Riversreade Court. But I don't know what you want her for."

"Wait till morning," replied Matherfield, with a knowing look. "You'll see. I'll meet you at Victoria at ten o'clock, sharp."

CHAPTER XIV

IS IT BLACKMAIL?

Hetherwick was still in ignorance of the reason of Matherfield's desire to see Rhona when, just before noon next day, Matherfield and he walked up from Dorking Station into the High Street, and made for the "White Horse." Matherfield halted a few yards away from its door.

"Let's wait outside for her," he said. "Till I've asked her a question or two. I don't want to even run the risk of being overheard."

Rhona came along in a car a few minutes later, and seeing the two men advanced to meet them. Matherfield lost no time in getting to business.

"Miss Hannaford," he said, with a cautious look round, and in a low voice, "just tell me—is Lady Riversreade up there at the Court? She is!" he continued, as Rhona nodded. "When did she come back, then?"

"Very early yesterday morning," answered Rhona promptly. "By the 7.45 from Victoria. She was up at the Court by 9.30."

Matherfield turned an utterly perplexed face on Hetherwick. Then he stared at Rhona.

"Up at Riversreade Court at 9.30 yesterday—Tuesday—morning!" he exclaimed. "Impossible! I saw her at Southampton at 9.30 yesterday morning with my own eyes."

"I'm quite sure you didn't!" replied Rhona, with a satirical laugh. "You're under some queer mistaken impression, Mr. Matherfield. Lady Riversreade was in her own house, here, with me at 9.30 yesterday morning. That's a fact that I can vouch for!"

The two men looked at each other. Each seemed to be asking the other a silent question. But Matherfield suddenly voiced his, in tones full of wonder and of chagrin.

"Then who on earth is that woman that I followed to Southampton?"

Matherfield's question went without answer. Rhona, who had no idea of what he was talking about, turned a surprised and inquiring look on Hetherwick. And Hetherwick saw that the time had come for a lot of explanation.

"Look here!" he said. "We've got to do some talking, and we can't keep Miss Hannaford standing in the street. Come into the hotel—we'll get a private room for lunch, and then we can discuss matters all to ourselves. You're a bit puzzled by all this," he continued a few minutes later, turning to Rhona when all three were safely closeted together, and lunch had been ordered. "And no wonder! But I'd better tell you what Matherfield and I were after on Monday night, and what Matherfield was doing all yesterday. You see," he concluded, after giving Rhona an epitomised account of the recent proceedings, "I was absolutely certain that the woman whom we saw coming out of Vivian's on Monday night was the woman you pointed out to me on Sunday morning at Victoria as Lady Riversreade—she was dressed in just the same things, I'm positive!—in short I'm convinced it was Lady Riversreade. Then, Matherfield and I are both equally sure that that was the same woman we saw coming out of St. Mary's Mansions shortly before five o'clock yesterday morning, and whom Matherfield followed to Southampton, Up to now, we've never had a doubt that it was Lady Riversreade—not a doubt!"

"Well," said Rhona, with an incredulous laugh, "I can't say, of course, that you didn't see Lady Riversreade come out of Vivian's on Monday night. Lady Riversreade was certainly in town from Sunday noon to yesterday morning, and she may have gone to Vivian's on Monday night for purposes of her own. I know nothing about that. But I do know that she was not in Southampton yesterday, for, as I told you, she was back home at Riversreade Court, about half-past nine in the morning, and she's never left the house since. That's plain fact!"

"It's beyond me, then!" exclaimed Matherfield. "And I say again, if that wasn't Lady Riversreade that I tracked to Southampton, who was it? I'll say more—if that really was Lady Riversreade that we saw coming out of Vivian's, and followed to Paddington, and if she wasn't the woman who came out of those flats yesterday morning, and that I went after, well, then, Lady Riversreade has a double—who lives in St. Mary's Mansions! That's about it!"

"As regards that," remarked Hetherwick. "I didn't tell you last night, Matherfield, that I went back yesterday to that house from which we watched, and made some cautious inquiries about the tall, handsome woman who has a flat opposite. I got some information. The woman whom we followed there, and whom you were running after yesterday is known there as a Madame Listorelle. She's very little at her flat, though punctual with its rent. She's sometimes away altogether for long periods—in fact, she's rarely seen there. And she's believed to be connected with the stage. The caretaker who supplied this information saw her at the flat on Monday."

Matherfield smacked one hand on the open palm of the other.

"It's an alias!" he exclaimed. "Bet your stars she's Lady Riversreade! Away from her flat for long periods? Of course—because she's down here, at her big house. Keeps that flat up for some purpose of her own, and calls herself—what is it?—sounds French."

"But supposing that's so," remarked Hetherwick, with a sly glance at Rhona. "It's utterly impossible that Lady Riversreade could be at Riversreade Court yesterday, and in Southampton at the same time! Come, now!"

"Well, I tell you it beats me!" muttered Matherfield. "I know what I saw! If there's anything gone wrong, it's your fault, Mr. Hetherwick! I don't know this Lady Riversreade! All I know is that you said the woman we saw coming out of that club was Lady Riversreade. That, sir, is the woman I followed!"

"The woman I saw coming out of Vivian's was the woman pointed out to me by Miss Hannaford as Lady Riversreade," affirmed Hetherwick quietly. "That's certain! But——"

He was interrupted at this stage by the arrival of lunch. Nothing more was said until all three were seated, and the waiter had been sent away. Then Rhona looked at her companions and smiled.

"You both seem to have arrived at a very promising stage!" she said. "At first I thought it a regular impasse, but——"

"Isn't it?" asked Hetherwick. "At present I don't see any way through or over it."

"Oh, I think you're getting towards something!" she retorted. "All these things, puzzling as they are, are better than nothing. I've got some news, too—if you're sure there are no eavesdroppers about."

"Oh, we're all right!" said Hetherwick. "Good stout old doors, these—close-fitting. What next?"

Rhona leaned across the table a little, and lowered her voice.

"There was a sort of row at the Court; at least, at the Home, yesterday," she said. "With that man Baseverie!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "That's interesting! Tell about it."

"Well, I told you that Lady Riversreade arrived from London yesterday morning about nine-thirty," continued Rhona. "Major Penteney arrived with her."

"Who's Major Penteney?" demanded Matherfield.

"He's a retired Army man who's greatly interested in Lady Riversreade's Home, and looks after its affairs in London," replied Hetherwick. "And Miss Hannaford thinks he's in love with the foundress. I've seen him—saw him with Lady Riversreade on Sunday. Yes," he added, turning to Rhona, "Major Penteney came back with her? Go on."

"As soon as they arrived—I saw them come, from my office window—they came across to the Home," continued Rhona. "It struck me that they both looked unusually grave and serious. They talked to me for a few minutes on business matters: then they went into Lady Riversreade's private office. They were there for some little time; then Lady Riversreade came out and went away; I saw her cross to the Court. Presently Major Penteney came to me, and told me that he wanted to have a little private talk with me. He said—as near as I can remember—'Miss Featherstone——'"

Matherfield looked up quickly from his plate.

"Eh?" he said. "Miss—Featherstone?"

"That's the name Miss Hannaford's known by—there," said Hetherwick. "Her mother's name. I told you before, you know."

"True, true!" assented Matherfield, with a groan. "You did—I remember now. I'm muddled—with yesterday's affair."

"'Miss Featherstone,' Rhona went on—'I believe you're aware that Lady Riversreade has lately been visited—twice—by a man who called himself Dr. Cyprian Baseverie?'

"'Yes,' I answered, 'I am, Major Penteney. I saw Dr. Baseverie on both occasions.' 'Well,' he said—'I don't suppose you were at all impressed by him?' 'Not at all impressed, Major Penteney,' I replied, 'except very unfavourably.' 'Didn't like his looks, eh,' he asked with a smile. 'Do you?' I inquired. 'I've never seen the fellow,' he answered. 'But I expect to—this very morning. That's what I want to talk to you about. I believe he'll turn up about noon—as, I understand, he did before, wanting, of course, to see Lady Riversreade. I want you to tell the doorkeeper, Mitchell, to bring him straight in when he comes, and Mitchell is not to say that Lady Riversreade is not in—she won't be in—he's to admit him immediately; and you, if you please, are to show him straight into the private office. Instead of finding Lady Riversreade there, he'll find—me. Is that clear?' 'Perfectly clear, Major Penteney,' I replied. 'I'll see to it.' 'Well, there's something else,' he said. 'After I have had a little plain-spoken talk with this fellow, I shall ring the bell. I want you to come in, and to bring Mitchell with you. And—that's all, at present. You understand?' 'I understand, Major Penteney,' I answered. 'I'll see to it. But as you've never seen this man there's one thing I'd like to say to you—he's the sort of man who looks as if he might be dangerous.' He smiled at that. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I'm prepared for that, Miss Featherstone. You show him right in.'"

Rhona paused for a moment, to attend to the contents of her plate. But Hetherwick's knife and fork had become idle; so had Matherfield's; each man, it was plain, was becoming absorbed. And Matherfield suddenly brightened, and gave Hetherwick an unmistakable wink.

"Good!—good!—good!" he muttered, with something like a chuckle. "I'm beginning to see a bit of daylight! Excellent!—when you're ready, Miss Featherstone——"

"Well," continued Rhona, after a few minutes' pause, "about noon, Dr. Cyprian Baseverie drove up. I had already given Mitchell his instructions, and he brought Baseverie straight into my office. Baseverie was evidently in the very best of spirits—he bowed and grimaced at sight of me as if he expected to find me dying to see him. I made no answer to his flowery greetings; I just got up, ushered him to the door of the private room, and closed it after him as he stepped across the threshold. Then I laughed—he wouldn't see who was awaiting him until he got right into the room, and I'd already gathered from Major Penteney that his reception couldn't be exactly pleasant or agreeable."

Matherfield rubbed his hands together.

"Good!—good!" he chuckled. "Wish I'd been in that room!"

"It wasn't long before I was there, Mr. Matherfield," said Rhona. "I was, of course, tremendously curious to know what was going on there, but the door fits closely, and I heard nothing—no angry voices or anything. However, in less than ten minutes the bell rang sharply. I called Mitchell—he's a big, strapping, very determined-looking ex-Guardsman—and in we went. I took everything in at a glance, Major Penteney sat at Lady Riversreade's desk. On the blotting-pad, his right hand close to it, lay a revolver——"

"Hah!" exclaimed Matherfield. "To be sure! Just so! Fine!"

"Opposite the desk stood Baseverie, staring first at Major Penteney, then at us. It's difficult for me to describe how he looked. I think the principal expression on his face was one of intense surprise."

"Surprise?" ejaculated Hetherwick.

"Surprise! Astonishment! He looked like a man who had just heard something that he has believed it impossible to hear. But there was also such a look of anger and rage—well, if Major Penteney hadn't had that revolver close to his finger-ends, and if Mitchell hadn't been there, I should have screamed and run. However, it was not I who was to do the running. As soon as Mitchell and I entered, Major Penteney spoke—very quietly. He nodded at Baseverie. 'Miss Featherstone and you, Mitchell—you see this man? If ever he comes here again, you, Mitchell, will deny him entrance, and you, Miss Featherstone, on hearing from Mitchell that he's here, will telephone for the police and, if he hangs about, will give him in charge.' Then he turned to Baseverie. 'Now, my man!' he continued, pointing to the door. 'You get out—quick! Go!' Of course, I looked at Baseverie. He stood staring almost incredulously at Major Penteney. It seemed to me that he could scarcely believe his ears—he gave me the impression of being unable to credit that he could be so treated. But he was also livid with anger. His fingers worked; his eyes blazed; it was dreadful to see his lips. He got out some words at last——'"

"Give me the exact ones, if you can," interrupted Matherfield.

"I can—I'm not likely to forget them," said Rhona. "He said—'What—you defy me, knowing what I know—knowing what I know!'"

"'Knowing what I know!'" muttered Matherfield. "Knowing what he knew! Um!—and then?"

"Then Major Penteney just pointed to the door. 'Get out, I tell you!' he said. 'And look in the papers to-night. Be off!'"

"'Look in the papers to-night,' eh?" said Matherfield. "Um—um! And then, I suppose, he went?"

"He went without another word then," assented Rhona. "Mitchell escorted him out and saw him off. Major Penteney looked at me when he'd gone. 'There, Miss Featherstone,' he said, 'you've seen one of the biggest scoundrels in London—or in Europe. Let's hope you'll never see him again, that that's the end of him here. I think he's had his lesson!' I made no answer, but I was jolly glad to see Baseverie's car scooting away down the drive!"

Matherfield picked up the tankard of ale at his side and took a hearty pull at its contents. He set the tankard down again with an emphatic bang.

"I know what this job is!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Blackmail!"

"Just so!" agreed Hetherwick. "I've been thinking that for the last ten minutes. Baseverie has been endeavouring to blackmail Lady Riversreade. But that's not our affair, you know. What we're after is the solving of the mystery surrounding Hannaford's death. And—does this look likely to fit in anywhere?"

"I should say it decidedly does look likely!" answered Matherfield. "In my opinion it's all of a piece; at least, it's a piece out of a piece, one of many pieces, like a puzzle. The thing is to put these pieces together. And there are two things we can try to do at once. First, find out more about this man Baseverie; the other, get hold of more information about the lady in St. Mary's Mansions."

"What about approaching Lady Riversreade for information—or Major Penteney?" suggested Hetherwick.

"Yes—why don't you?" said Rhona, almost eagerly. "Do! I'm a bit tired of being there as Miss Featherstone. I want to tell Lady Riversreade the truth, and all the whys and wherefores of it."

But Matherfield shook his head. The time for that was not yet, he declared; let them wait awhile. And after more conversation he and Hetherwick returned to London.

CHAPTER XV

REVELATIONS

The late afternoon edition of the evening papers were just out when Hetherwick and Matherfield reached Victoria. Matherfield snatched one up; a moment later he thrust it before Hetherwick, pointing to some big black capitals.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "Look at that!"

Hetherwick looked, and gasped his astonishment at what he read.

MURDER OF ROBERT HANNAFORD.
FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS REWARD.

Hetherwick turned on his companion with a look that was both questioning and surprised.

"This is probably—no, certainly!—what Penteney referred to when he told Baseverie to look in the newspapers!" he said. "That was yesterday; it must have been in last night's papers, and this morning's. I saw neither."

"Wait!" said Matherfield. He hurried back to the bookstall and returned with an armful of papers, turning the topmost over as he came. "It's here—and here!" he continued. "Let's get a quiet corner somewhere and look this thing carefully over!"

"Come into a waiting-room, then," said Hetherwick. "Odd!" he muttered, as they turned away. "Who should offer a reward—like that, too!—who isn't concerned in the case?"

"How do we know who isn't concerned in the case?" exclaimed Matherfield. "Somebody evidently is!—somebody who can not only afford to offer five thousand pounds, but isn't afraid to spend no end in advertising. Look at that—and that—and that," he went on, turning over his purchases rapidly. "It's in every paper in London!"

"Let's read it carefully," said Hetherwick. He spread out one of the newspapers on the waiting-room table and muttered the wording of the advertisement while Matherfield looked over his shoulder. "Mysterious, very!" he concluded. "What's it mean?"

But Matherfield was re-reading the advertisement.

Whereas Robert Hannaford, formerly Superintendent of Police at Sellithwaite, Yorkshire, died suddenly in an Underground Railway train, near Charing Cross (Embankment) Station about 1.15 a.m. on March 19th last, and expert medical investigation has proved that he was poisoned, and there is evidence to warrant the belief that the poison was administered by some person or persons with intent to cause his death, this is to give notice that the above-mentioned sum of Five Thousand Pounds will be paid to anyone first giving information which will lead to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons concerned in administering the said poison and that such information should be given to the undersigned, who will pay the said reward in accordance with the above-stated conditions.

PENTENEY, BLENKINSOP & PENTENEY,
Solicitors.

April 22nd, 1920.
853, Lincoln's Inn Fields,
London, W.C.

Matherfield pointed to the names of the signatories.

"Penteney," he remarked. "That's the name of the man Miss Hannaford mentioned as having given Baseverie his dismissal."

"Of course—Major Penteney," said Hetherwick. "Probably a junior partner in the firm. I know their names, but not much about them."

"I thought he was a soldier," said Matherfield. "Major, she called him."

"Very likely a Territorial officer," replied Hetherwick. "Anyway, it's very plain what this is, Matherfield, considering all we know. This advertisement has been issued on behalf of Lady Riversreade. Penteney, Blenkinsop & Penteney are no doubt her solicitors. But—why?"

"Aye, why?" exclaimed Matherfield. "That's just what beats me! What interest has she in Hannaford's murder? Why should she want to bring his murderer to justice? If his granddaughter had offered, say, a hundred pounds for information, I could understand it—she's his flesh and blood. But Lady Riversreade! Why, if she's really the woman who was once Mrs. Whittingham, you'd have thought she'd have been rather glad that Hannaford was out of the way! And, after all, this mayn't come from her."

"I'm absolutely certain it does," asserted Hetherwick. "Putting everything together, what other conclusion can we come to? It comes from Lady Riversreade—and her adviser—Major Penteney, and it's something to do with that man Baseverie. But—what?"

"It ought to be looked into," muttered Matherfield. "They've never approached us on the matter. It's a purely voluntary offer on their part. They've left the police clean out."

"Well, I make a suggestion," said Hetherwick. "I think you and I had better call at Penteney's to-morrow morning. We can tell them something—perhaps they'll tell us something. Anyway, it's a foolish thing to divide forces; we'd far better unite in a common effort."

"Um!" replied Matherfield doubtfully. "But these lawyer chaps—they've generally got something up their sleeves—some card that they want to play at their own moment. However, we can try 'em."

"Meet me at the south-east corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields at half-past ten to-morrow morning," said Hetherwick. "Penteney's offices are close by. We'll go together—and ask them straight out what this advertisement means."

"All right—but if they won't tell?" suggested Matherfield.

"Then, in that case, we'll introduce Lady Riversreade's name, and ask them if Lady Riversreade of Riversreade Court and Mrs. Whittingham, formerly of Sellithwaite, are one and the same person," replied Hetherwick. "Come! I think we can show them that we already know a good deal."

"We have certainly a card or two to play," admitted Matherfield. "All right, Mr. Hetherwick! To-morrow morning, then, as you suggest."

He was waiting at the appointed place when Hetherwick hurried up next morning. Hetherwick immediately turned him down the lower side of the Fields.

"I've found out something about these people we're going to see," he said. "My clerk, Mapperley, told me a bit; he's a sort of walking encyclopædia. Old, highly respectable firm this. Penteney, senior, is retired; the firm is now really Blenkinsop & Penteney, junior. And Penteney, junior, is the Major Penteney who takes such an interest in Lady Riversreade's Home—and in Lady Riversreade. As I suggested last night, he was a Territorial officer—so now he's back at his own job. Now then, Matherfield, let's arrange our plan of campaign. You, of course, have your official credentials—I'm a deeply interested person, the man who chanced to witness Hannaford's death. I think you'd better be spokesman."

"Well, you'll come in when wanted?" suggested Matherfield. "You're better used to lawyers than I am, being one yourself."

"I fear my acquaintance with solicitors is, so far, extremely limited, Matherfield," replied Hetherwick with a laugh. "I have seen a brief!—but only occasionally. However, here we are at 853, and a solid and sombre old house it is."

The two callers had to wait for some time before any apparent notice was taken of their cards by the persons to whom they had been sent in. Matherfield was beginning to chafe when, at last, an elderly clerk conducted them up to an inner room wherein one cold-eyed, immobile-faced man sat at a desk, while another, scarcely less stern in appearance, in whom Hetherwick immediately recognised the Major Penteney pointed out by Rhona, stood, hands in pockets, on the hearthrug. Each stared silently at the two callers; the man at the desk pointed to chairs on either side of his fortress. He looked at Matherfield.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Mr. Blenkinsop, I presume?" began Matherfield, with a polite bow to the desk. "And Mr. Penteney?" with another to the hearthrug.

"Just so," agreed Blenkinsop. "Precisely! Yes?"

"You have my card, gentlemen, and so you know who I am," continued Matherfield. "The police——"

"A moment," interrupted Blenkinsop. He picked up Hetherwick's card and glanced from it to its presenter. "Mr. Guy Hetherwick," he remarked. "Does Mr. Hetherwick also call on behalf of the police? Because," he added, with a dry smile, "I think I've seen Mr. Hetherwick in wig and gown."

"I am the man who was present at Robert Hannaford's death," said Hetherwick. "If you are conversant with the case——"

"Quite!—every detail!" said Blenkinsop.

"Then you know what I saw, and what evidence I gave at the inquest," continued Hetherwick. "I have followed up the case ever since—and that's why I am here."

"Not as amicus curiæ, then?" remarked Blenkinsop with a still dryer smile. "You're not a disinterested adviser. I see! And Mr. Matherfield—why is he here?"

"I was saying, Mr. Blenkinsop, that the police have seen the advertisement signed by your firm, offering five thousand pounds reward—etcetera," answered Matherfield. "Now, I have this Hannaford case in hand, and I can assure you I've done a lot of work at it. So, in his way, has Mr. Hetherwick. We're convinced that Hannaford was murdered by poison, and that whoever poisoned him also poisoned the man Granett at the same time. Now, as either you or some person—a client, I suppose—behind you is so much concerned in bringing Hannaford's murderer to justice as to offer a big sum for necessary information, we think you must know a great deal, and I suggest to you, gentlemen, that you ought to place your knowledge at our disposal. I hope my suggestion is welcome, gentlemen."

Blenkinsop drummed the blotting-pad before him with the tips of his fingers, and his face became more inscrutable than ever. As for Penteney, he maintained the same attitude which he had preserved ever since the visitors entered the room, lounging against the mantelpiece, hands in pockets, and his eyes alternately fixed on either Hetherwick or Matherfield. There was a brief silence; at last Blenkinsop spoke abruptly.

"I don't think we have anything to say," he said. "What we have to say has been said already in the advertisement. We shall pay the offered reward to the person who gives satisfactory information. I don't think that interferes with the police work."

"That doesn't help me much, Mr. Blenkinsop," protested Matherfield. "You, or your client, must know more than that! There must be good reasons why your client should offer such a big sum as reward. I think we ought to know—more."

"I am not prepared to tell you more," answered Blenkinsop. "Except that if we get the information which we think we shall get, we shall not be slow to hand it over to the police authorities."

"That might be too late," urged Matherfield. "This is an intricate case—there are a good many wheels within wheels." Then, interpreting a glance which he had just received from Hetherwick as a signal to go further, he added: "We know what a lot of wheels there are—no one better! For example, gentlemen, there is the curious fashion in which this affair is mixed up with Lady Riversreade!"

In spite of their evidently habitual practice of self-control, the two solicitors could not repress signs of astonishment. Blenkinsop's face fell; Penteney started out of his lounging attitude and stood upright. And for the first time he spoke.

"What do you know about Lady Riversreade?" he demanded.

"A good deal, sir, but not so much as I intend to know," answered Matherfield firmly. "But I do know this—that Hannaford, just previous to his sudden death, was in possession of a portrait of Lady Riversreade, and believed her to be identical with a certain Mrs. Whittingham who was through his hands on a charge of fraud, ten years ago, at Sellithwaite, in Yorkshire. I, too, believe that this Mrs. Whittingham is now Lady Riversreade, and I may tell you that I'm in full possession of all the facts relating to the Sellithwaite affair—an affair of obtaining a diamond necklace, worth about four thousand pounds, by means of a worthless cheque, and——"

Blenkinsop suddenly rose from his chair, holding up a hand.

"A moment, if you please!" he said. "Penteney," he continued, turning to his partner, "a word with you in your room."

Matherfield glanced triumphantly after the retreating pair, and laughed when a door had closed on them.

"That's got 'em, Mr. Hetherwick!" he exclaimed. "They see that we know more than they reckoned for. In some way or other, it strikes me, this advertisement is a piece of bluff!"

"Bluff!" said Hetherwick. "What do you mean?"

"What I say," answered Matherfield. "Bluff! Done to prevent somebody from bringing up that old Sellithwaite affair. Lay you a thousand to one it is. You'll see these two lawyers will be more communicative when they come back. Now they shall talk—and we'll listen!"

"If you have to do any more talking, Matherfield," said Hetherwick, "keep Miss Hannaford's name out of it. She's in a rather awkward position. She went there, of course, to find out what she could, and the result's been that she's taken a fancy to Lady Riversreade, got a genuine interest in the work there, and wants to stop. Bit of a bother, all that, and it'll need some straightening out. Anyway, keep her name out of it here."

"As I say, sir, when these chaps come back to us, they'll do the talking!" answered Matherfield, with a chuckle. "You'll see! If you want to keep Miss Hannaford's name out, so do they want to keep Lady Riversreade's name out—I know the signs!"

Blenkinsop and Penteney suddenly came back and seated themselves, Blenkinsop at his desk and Penteney close by. And Blenkinsop immediately turned to his callers. His manner had changed; he looked now like a man who is anxious to get a settlement of a difficult question.

"We have decided to talk freely to you," he said at once. "That means, to tell you everything we know about this matter. You, Mr. Matherfield, as representing the police, will, of course, treat our communication confidentially. I needn't ask you, Mr. Hetherwick, to regard all that's said here, as—you know! Now, to begin with—just get one fact, an absolutely irrefutable fact, into your minds at once. Lady Riversreade is not the woman who was known as Mrs. Whittingham at Sellithwaite ten years ago, nor did Hannaford believe that she was either!"

"What?" exclaimed Matherfield. "But——" he turned to Hetherwick. "You hear that?" he went on. "Why, we know——"

"Let Mr. Blenkinsop go on," said Hetherwick quietly. "He's explaining, I think."

"Just so," agreed Blenkinsop. "And I'm beginning by endeavouring to clear away a few mistaken ideas from your minds. Lady Riversreade is not Mrs. Whittingham. Hannaford did not think she was Mrs. Whittingham. It was not Lady Riversreade's portrait that Hannaford cut out of the paper."

Hetherwick could not repress a start at that.

"Whose was it, then?" he demanded. "For I certainly believed it was!"

Blenkinsop stooped and drew out a drawer from his desk. From a bundle of documents he produced a newspaper, carefully folded and labelled. Opening this, he laid it before the two visitors, pointing to a picture marked with blue pencil. And Hetherwick at once saw that here was a duplicate of the portrait in his own pocket-book. But there was this important difference—while Hannaford had cut away the lettering under his picture, it was there in the one which Blenkinsop exhibited. He started again as he read it—Madame Anita Listorelle.

"That's the picture which Hannaford cut out of the paper," said Blenkinsop. "It is not that of Lady Riversreade."

"Then it's that of a woman who's her double!" exclaimed Matherfield. "I'll lay anything that if you asked a hundred men who've seen Lady Riversreade if that's her picture, they'd swear it is!"

"I see," said Hetherwick, disregarding his companion's outburst, "that this purports to be a portrait of a Madame Listorelle, who is described in the accompanying letterpress as a famous connoisseur of precious stones. Now, in relation to what we're discussing, may I ask a plain question? Who is Madame Listorelle?"

Blenkinsop smiled—oracularly.

"Madame Listorelle," he replied, "is the twin sister of Lady Riversreade!"

CHAPTER XVI

STILL MORE

Blenkinsop's sudden announcement, not altogether unexpected by Hetherwick as a result of the last few minutes' proceedings, seemed to strike Matherfield with all the force of a lightning-like illumination. His mouth opened; his eyes widened; he turned on Hetherwick as if, having been lost for a while in a baffling maze, he had suddenly seen a way pointed out to him.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he exclaimed. "A twin sister, eh? Then—but go on, Mr. Blenkinsop; I'm beginning to see things."

"The matter is doubtless puzzling—to outsiders," responded Blenkinsop. "To clear it up, I shall have to go into some family history. Lady Riversreade and Madame Listorelle are, I repeat, twin sisters. They are the daughters of a man who in his time was captain of various merchant ships—the old sailing ships—and who knocked about the world a good deal. He married an American woman, and his two daughters were born in Galveston, Texas. They were educated in America—but there's no need to go into the particulars of their early lives——"