William Le Queux

"The Stolen Statesman"

"Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery"

Chapter One.

Concerning Sheila Monkton.

As the Right Honourable Reginald Monkton walked towards Charing Cross on that June morning his fifty-odd years appeared to weigh lightly upon him True, his hair was tinged with grey, yet that was but natural after over twenty years of political strife and Party bickering, of hard-fought divisions in the House, and of campaigns of various sorts up and down the country. His career had been a brilliantly outstanding one ever since he had graduated at Cambridge. He had risen to be a Bencher of the Inner Temple; had been, among other things, Quain Professor of Law at University College, London. In Parliament he had sat for North-West Manchester for ten years, afterwards for East Huntingdon, and later for the Govan Division of Glasgow. Among other political appointments he had held was that of a Junior Lord of the Treasury, afterwards that of Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Home Office, and now in the latest Administration he had been given the portfolio of Colonial Secretary.

His one regret was that while he loved the country, and more especially Fydinge, that fine old Elizabethan manor house in Leicestershire, not far from Melton Mowbray, yet he was compelled to live in London and endure the fevered political and social life of the metropolis.

That morning, as he turned from Charing Cross towards Pall Mall, he was in a pensive mood. True, that little knot of people had spontaneously expressed their approval, and perhaps he was secretly gratified. Whatever popular men may say to the contrary, it is always the small appreciations that please. Reginald Monkton was far more gratified by a schoolgirl asking for his autograph in her well-thumbed album, than by the roars of applause that greeted his open and fearless speeches in the huge halls of Manchester, Birmingham, or Glasgow.

The millions of Britain knew him. His portrait appeared regularly in the illustrated papers, sometimes in declamatory attitude with his mouth open, his right fist in the palm of his left hand, addressing a great audience. But that morning, as he passed the “Senior”—as the United Service Club is known to officialdom—his thoughts were serious. He had tasted most of the sweets of life, and all the delights of popularity. Yet that day, the eighth of June, was the fourth anniversary of the death of Sheila, his beloved wife, the fine, self-sacrificing helpmate of his early days, the woman who had moulded his career and seen him through many hours of disappointment and tribulation, and who, with her woman’s amazing intuition and tact, had at the crisis of his life given him that sound advice which had swept him high upon the crest of the wave of popularity.

He recollected that it was on a bright sunny June day—just as that was—when, in that little villa amid the feathery palms at Mentone, he had held his dear one’s wasted hard while her eyes had slowly closed in her last long sleep.

A lump arose in his throat as he turned into Cockspur Street, heedless of the busy bustle of London life, or that two honourable Members had nodded to him. So absorbed was he that he had only stared at them blankly and passed on.

Like many another man whose name is a household word in Britain to-day, all his popularity counted as nothing to him, and even though he led the busy life of a Cabinet Minister, yet he was very lonely at heart.

For a second he held his breath, then, setting his wide jaws in hard determination to put aside those bitter thoughts of the past, and still unaware that he was being followed, he crossed the road and entered the Carlton Hotel.

The young woman in plain navy blue who had followed him from Downing Street passed by, and continued until she reached the corner of Waterloo Place, when she turned, retraced her steps, and, entering the hotel by the door in Pall Mall, glanced into the palm-court with quick, furtive eyes. Then, apparently satisfying herself, she went along the narrow corridor and emerged into the Haymarket.

Again turning the corner into Pall Mall she drew out her handkerchief to dab her nose again, and afterwards hailed a taxi and drove away.

On the kerb opposite stood the thick-set young man, who, having seen her signal, watched her leave, and then crossed and entered the hotel.

Reginald Monkton, on entering the palm-court after leaving his hat and cane, found his daughter Sheila seated at one of the little tables with a spruce, well-set-up, refined young man, awaiting him.

The young man sprang up eagerly, and, putting out his hand, exclaimed:

“It’s awfully good of you to come, Mr Monkton! I know how terribly busy you must be.”

“Delighted, my dear Austin,” declared the statesman. “Delighted! The Cabinet was just over in time, so I’ve walked along. Well, Sheila,” he asked merrily, turning to his daughter, “what have you been doing this morning?”

“Oh!” replied the pretty, fair-haired girl, who was very daintily, yet not showily, dressed. “I’ve not been doing much, father. I went to Bond Street for you, and then I called on Cicely Wheeler. She and her husband are off to Dinard to-morrow. I’ve asked them to dine with us to-night.”

“Ah! Then you will have to entertain them, I fear, as I must be down at the House.”

“What a pity!” replied the girl in disappointment. “I thought you said you would dine at home to-night!”

“I intended to do so, but find it will be impossible,” declared her father as the trio made a move into the restaurant, filled as it was with a gay London throng who were lunching to the well-modulated strains of the Roumanian orchestra.

Of the many pretty girls seated at the tables certainly none could compare with Sheila Monkton. Indeed, more than one young man turned to admire her as she seated herself and drew off her gloves, and they envied the good-looking young fellow with whom she was laughing so happily. She had just turned twenty. Her clear-cut features were flawless; her healthy complexion, her clear hazel eyes, her soft fair hair, and her small mouth combined to impart to her sweetness and daintiness that were both peculiarly attractive. Her black velvet hat trimmed with saxe blue suited her soft countenance admirably, while the graceful poise of her head had often been admired by artists; indeed, she was at that very period sitting to Howe, the R.A., for her portrait for next year’s Academy.

As for Austin Wingate, her companion, he was about twenty-four, and if not exactly an Adonis he was handsome enough, clean-shaven, with black hair, eyes of a dark grey, and a mouth which needed no moustache to hide it. His figure was that of the young man of pre-war days whom you met by the dozen in the High at Oxford, broad-shouldered, muscular, and full of natural energy and grace.

Women who met Austin Wingate for the first time usually thought him an ordinary easy-going fellow of that type known as a “nut,” who was careless as long as he lived his own go-ahead town life, the centre of which was the Automobile Club. Yet they would soon discern a certain deep thoughtful expression in his eyes and a gravity about the lips which at once upset the first estimate they had made of his character.

It was true that young Wingate was a merry, careless young fellow. He lived in cosy chambers in Half Moon Street, and his circle of friends, young men of his own age, were a rather wild lot. Most of them were ardent motorists, and nearly all were habitués of that centre of motoring in Pall Mall.

Of late Monkton’s daughter had been seen about with him a good deal, and in the select little world of politicians’ wives there had been many whisperings over teacups.

That day, however, Monkton was lunching openly with the pair, and several people in the restaurant, recognising the trio, put together their heads and gossiped.

While the two young people chattered merrily, Monkton, who had tried to crush down those ghosts of the past that had obsessed him while he walked along Whitehall, glanced across at his pretty daughter and sighed as he commenced his meal. Ah! how complete was the image of his dead wife. It was as though she sat there before him in those long-ago days of over twenty-five years ago, when she was the daughter of a country vicar and he was on the threshold of his career.

He saw how happy Sheila was with the young man who had so recently come into her life. Sometimes he had resented their acquaintance, yet to resent it was, he reflected, only jealousy after all. He himself had but little to live for. As a member of the Cabinet he had gained his goal. He would, he knew, never fulfil the prophecy of his humble admirer standing in Downing Street. He could never become Premier. There were abler men than he, men with greater influence with the nation, men who had schemed for the office for half a lifetime. No. Death might come to him soon—how soon he knew not. And then Sheila should marry. Therefore, even though the wrench would be a great one, personally he, honest man that he was, felt that he should make a sacrifice, and promote a union between the pair.

Sheila was his only home companion and comfort. True, she scolded him severely sometimes. Sometimes she pouted, put on airs, and betrayed defiance. But do not all young girls? If they did not they would be devoid of that true spirit of independence which every woman should possess.

Again he glanced at her while she laughed happily with the young man who loved her, but who had never admitted it. Then he looked across the room, where sat Benyon, a well-known member of the Opposition, with his fat, opulent wife, who had, until recently, been his housekeeper. The eyes of the two men met, and the Cabinet Minister waved his hand in recognition, while the stout, over-dressed woman stared.

Half the people in the restaurant had, by this time, recognised Reginald Monkton by the many photographs which appeared almost daily, for was he not the popular idol of his Party, and did not the Court Circular inform the nation of the frequent audiences he had of His Majesty the King?

“Well, Austin?” asked the Minister, when the waiter had served an exquisitely cooked entrée. “How are things out at Hendon?”

“Oh! we are all very busy, sir. Wilcox is experimenting with his new airship. At last he has had some encouragement from the Government, and we are all delighted. My shops are busy. We sent three planes to Spain yesterday. King Alphonso ordered them when he was over in the early spring.”

“Austin has promised to take me up for a flight one day, dad!” exclaimed the girl enthusiastically. “He wants to ask you if he may.”

Her father did not reply for some moments. Then he said judiciously:

“Well, dear, we must see. Perhaps he might take you just a little way—once round the aerodrome—eh?”

“Of course not far,” said his daughter, glancing significantly at her lover.

“There is no risk, Mr Monkton, I assure you. Miss Sheila is very anxious to go up, and I shall be most delighted to take her—with your consent, of course,” Wingate said. “My suggestion is just a circuit or two around the aerodrome. We are completing a new machine this week, and after I’ve tried her to see all is safe. I’d like to take Sheila up.”

“We must see—we must see,” replied her indulgent father, assuming a non-committal attitude. He, however, knew that in all England no man knew more of aerial dynamics than Austin Wingate, and, further, that beneath his apparently careless exterior with his immaculate clothes and his perfectly-brushed hair was a keen and scientific mind, and that he was working night and day directing the young and rising firm of aeroplane makers at Hendon, of which he was already managing director.

Sheila’s meeting with him had been the outcome of one of his experiments. One afternoon in the previous summer he had been driving a new hydroplane along the Thames, over the Henley course, when he had accidentally collided with a punt which Sheila, in a white cotton dress, was manipulating with her pole.

In an instant the punt was smashed and sunk, and Miss Monkton and her two girl companions were flung into the water. After a few minutes of excitement all three were rescued, and the young inventor, on presenting himself to express his deep regret, found himself face to face with “Monkton’s daughter,” as Sheila was known in Society.

The girl with her two friends, after changing their clothes at the Red Lion, had had tea with the author of the disaster, who was unaware of their names, and who later on returned to London, his hydroplane being badly damaged by the collision.

Six months went past, yet the girl’s face did not fade from Austin Wingate’s memory. He had been a fool, he told himself, not to ascertain her name and address. He had given one of the girls his card, and she had told him her name was Norris. That was all he knew. On purpose to ascertain who they were he had been down to Henley a fortnight after the accident, but as the girls had not stayed at the Red Lion, but were evidently living in some riverside house or bungalow, farther up the river, he could obtain no knowledge or trace of her.

One bright Saturday afternoon in November the usual gay crowd had assembled at the aerodrome at Hendon to watch the aviation, a science not nearly so well developed in 1912 as it is to-day. At the Wingate works, on the farther side of the great open grass lands, Austin was busy in the long shed directing the final touches to a new machine, which was afterwards wheeled out, and in which he made an experimental flight around the aerodrome, which the public, many of them seated at tea-tables on the lawn, watched with interest.

After making several circles and performing a number of evolutions, he came to earth close to a row of smart motor-cars drawn up on the lawn reserved for subscribers, and unstrapping himself sprang gaily out.

As he did so he saw, seated in the driver’s seat of a fine limousine straight before him, a girl in motoring kit chatting with an elderly man who stood beside the car.

The girl’s eyes met his, and the recognition was instantly mutual. She smiled merrily across to him, whereupon he crossed to her, just as he was, in his mechanic’s rather greasy brown overalls, and bowing before her exclaimed:

“How fortunate! Fancy meeting again like this!” Whereupon, with her cheeks flushed with undisguised pleasure, she shook his hand, and then turning to the tall elderly man explained:

“This is the gentleman who smashed our punt at Henley, father! We have not met since.”

“I fear it was very careless of me, sir,” Wingate said. “But I offer a thousand apologies.”

“The accident might have been far worse,” declared the girl’s father, smiling. “So let it rest at that.”

“I had no idea that it was you in the air just now,” exclaimed the girl, and then for ten minutes or so the trio stood chatting, during which time he explained that his works were on the opposite side of the aerodrome, after which he shook hands and left them.

“Whose car is that big grey one, third in the row yonder?” he asked eagerly of one of the gatekeepers, a few moments later.

“Oh, that, sir? Why, that belongs to Mr Reginald Monkton, the Colonial Secretary. There he is—with his daughter.”

So his sweet, dainty friend of the river was daughter of the popular Cabinet Minister!

He drew a long breath and bit his lip. Then climbing back into his machine, he waved father and daughter adieu and was soon skimming across to the row of long sheds which comprised the Wingate Aeroplane Factory.

The young man was sensible enough to know that he could never aspire to the hand of the Cabinet Minister’s daughter, yet a true and close friendship had quickly sprung up between her father and himself, with the result that Wingate was now a frequent and welcome visitor to the cosy old-world house in Mayfair, and as proof the well-known statesman had accepted Austin’s invitation to lunch at the Carlton on that well-remembered day of the Cabinet meeting, the true importance of which is only known to those who were present at the deliberations in Downing Street that morning.

Curious, indeed, were the events that were to follow, events known only to a few, and here chronicled for the first time.

Chapter Two.

The Discovery in Chesterfield Street.

In the absence of her father, Sheila Monkton was compelled to entertain her guests at dinner alone. There were three: Sir Pemberton Wheeler and his young dark-haired wife Cicely, an old schoolfellow of Sheila’s, and Austin Wingate.

They were a merry quartette as they sat in the cosy dining-room in Chesterfield Street, a few doors from Curzon Street, waited on by Grant, the white-headed, smooth-faced old butler who had been in the service of Monkton’s father before him.

The house was an old-fashioned Georgian one. Upon the iron railings was a huge extinguisher, recalling the days of linkmen and coaches, while within was a long, rather narrow hall and a spiral staircase of stone worn hollow by the tread of five generations. The rooms were not large, but very tastefully, even luxuriously, furnished, with many fine paintings, pieces of beautiful statuary, and magnificent bronzes, while everywhere were soft carpets upon which one’s feet fell noiselessly. In that house, indeed in that very room wherein the four sat laughing in the June twilight, the pale-pink shades of the lamps shedding a soft glow over the table with its flowers and silver, many of the most prominent British statesmen had been entertained by the Colonial Secretary, and many a State secret had been discussed within those four dark-painted walls.

“The Prime Minister dined with us last Thursday,” Sheila remarked to Cicely Wheeler. “Lord Horsham came in later, and they had one of their private conferences.”

“Which meant that you were left to amuse yourself alone, eh?” laughed Sir Pemberton Wheeler, and he glanced mischievously towards Austin on the other side of the table.

“Yes. That is quite true.” Sheila laughed, instantly grasping his meaning. “Mr Wingate did not happen to be here. When father has a political dinner no ladies are invited. Some of those dinners are horribly boring, I can assure you,” declared the girl.

“Their eternal discussion of this measure and the other measure, and—oh! how they all intrigue, one Party against the other! Do you know that I’ve sat here and heard some most remarkable schemes.”

“Secrets, I suppose?” remarked Austin, twisting the stem of his windlass between his fingers.

“Yes—I’ve heard them discuss what they call matters of policy which, to me, appear merely to be the most ingenious methods of gulling the public.”

“Ah! my dear Miss Monkton, few politicians are so straight and open as your father. That is why the Opposition are so deadly in fear of him. His speech last week regarding the recent trouble in the Malay States was an eye-opener. He lifted the veil from a very disconcerting state of affairs, much to the chagrin and annoyance of those to whose advantage it was to hush-up the matter.”

“That is what father is always saying,” declared Sheila. “He often sighs when going through despatches which the messengers bring, and exclaims aloud ‘Ah! if the public only knew!—if they only knew! What would they think—what would they say?’”

“Then something is being concealed from the nation?” Austin remarked.

“Something!” echoed the girl. “Why, a very great deal. Of that I am quite certain.”

“You know nothing of its nature?” asked her friend Cicely, with her woman’s eagerness to inquire.

“Of course not, dear. Father never confides any secrets to me,” she replied. “He always says that women gossip too much, and that it is through the chattering wives of Members of the House, whom he calls the jays, that much mischief is done.”

“The jays!” laughed Sir Pemberton. “Very good! I suppose he has given them that name because of their fine feathers. Personally I shall be glad to get to Dinard out of it all for a while.”

“We always enjoy Dinard, Sheila,” declared his wife. “You really must get your father to bring you to the Royal this summer. We shall be there all the season. We sent the car over a week ago.”

Cicely, or Lady Wheeler to give her her title, was a giddy little woman who, after being a confirmed flirt and known in Mayfair as one of its prettiest butterflies, had married a man more than double her age, for Wheeler was fifty, interested in spinning-mills in Yorkshire, and sat in Parliament for the constituency in which his mills were situated. At the last moment she had jilted young Stenhouse, of the Grenadier Guards, for the more alluring prospect of Wheeler’s title and his money. Hence the Morning Post had one day announced to the world that her marriage with the good-looking young Captain would “not take place,” and a week later her photograph had appeared as the future Lady Wheeler.

She had joined that large circle of London society who are what is known in their own particular jargon as “spooky.” She attended séances, consulted mediums, and believed in the statements of those who pretended to have made psychic discoveries. Yet Sheila, who was far too level-headed to follow London’s latest craze, was devoted to her, and had been ever since they studied together at that fashionable school near Beachy Head.

“I spoke to father to-day about a little trip across to you,” Sheila replied, “and he thinks he may be able to do it when the House is up.”

“That’s good,” declared Sir Pemberton in his plethoric voice. “Get him to bring his car over too, and we’ll have a tour together through Brittany and down to Nantes and the Touraine.”

“I’d love to see the old châteaux there,” Sheila declared. “There’s a big illustrated book about them in the library—Blois, Chenonceaux, Chinon, Loches, and the rest.”

“Well, your father certainly requires a rest after all the stress of this session.”

“Certainly he does,” declared Cicely. “Get round dear old Macalister, the doctor, to order him a rest and suggest a motor-tour as relaxation.”

“Besides, it always delights the public to know that a Cabinet Minister has gone away on holiday. It shows that he is overworked in the interests of the nation,” laughed Austin, who was nothing if not matter-of-fact.

At last, the dinner having ended, Sheila and Cicely rose and left the men, after which Grant sedately served them with coffee, two glasses of triple-sec, and cigarettes.

For ten minutes or so they gossiped, after which they rejoined the ladies in the long, old-fashioned drawing-room upstairs.

At Wheeler’s suggestion Sheila went to the piano and sang one of those gay chansons of the Paris cafés which she had so often sung at charity concerts. She had begun to learn French at eight years of age, and after her school at Eastbourne had been at Neuilly for three years before coming out.

She chose “Mon p’tit Poylt,” that gay song to which Lasaigues had written the music and which was at the moment being sung at half the café concerts in France. Playing her own accompaniment in almost the professional style of the entertainer, she began to sing the merry tuneful song, with its catchy refrain:

“On s’aimait, on n’était pas rosse.
On s’frôlait gentiment l’museau;
On rigolait comme des gosses.
On s’bécotait comm’ des moineaux.”

The trio listening laughed merrily, for she played and sang with all the verve of a Parisian chanteuse. Besides, both music and words were full of a gay abandon which was quite unexpected, and which charmed young Wingate, who knew that, though the Cabinet Minister held him in high esteem as a friend, yet to marry Sheila was entirely out of the question. He realised always that he was a mere designer of aeroplanes, “a glorified motor-mechanic” some jealous enemies had declared him to be. How could he ever aspire to the hand of “Monkton’s daughter?”

Level-headed and calm as he always was, he had from the first realised his position and retained it. Mr Monkton had admitted him to his friendship, and though always extremely polite and courteous to Sheila, he remained just a friend of her father.

At last she concluded, and, rising, made a mock bow to her three listeners, all of whom congratulated her, the mill-owner declaring:

“You really ought to give a turn at the Palace Theatre, Sheila! I’ve heard lots of worse songs there!”

”‘Tiny Tentoes, the Cabinet Minister’s daughter’ would certainly be a good draw!” declared Cicely.

“Oh! well, I know you all like French songs, so I sang it. That’s all,” answered their sprightly young hostess. “But look! it’s past eleven, and father said he would be back before ten to see you before you left. I’ll telephone to the House.”

And she descended to the small library on the ground floor, where she quickly “got on” to the House of Commons.

When she re-entered the drawing-room she exclaimed:

“He left the House more than an hour ago. I wonder where he is? He ought to have been back long before this.”

Then at her guests’ request she sang another French chanson—which, through the half-open window, could have been heard out in Curzon Street—greatly to the delight of the little party.

At last, just before midnight. Cicely, pleading that they had to leave by the Continental mail early next morning, excused herself and her husband, and left in a taxi, for which Grant had whistled, after which Sheila and Austin found themselves alone.

When two people of the opposite sex, and kindred spirits as they were, find themselves alone the usual thing happens. It did in their case. While Sheila looked over her music, in response to Austin’s request to sing another song while awaiting the return of her father, their hands touched. He grasped hers and gazed straight into her face.

In those hazel eyes he saw that love-look—that one expression which no woman can ever disguise, or make pretence; that look which most men know. It is seldom in their lives they see it, and when once it is observed it is never forgotten, even though the man may live to be a grandfather.

At that instant of the unconscious contact of the hands, so well-remembered afterwards by both of them, Sheila flushed, withdrew her hand forcibly, and rose, exclaiming with pretended resentment:

“Don’t, Austin—please.”

Meanwhile there had been what the newspapers term a “scene” in the House of Commons that evening. An important debate had taken place upon the policy of the Imperial Government towards Canada, a policy which the Opposition had severely criticised in an attempt to belittle the splendid statesmanship of the Colonial Secretary, who, having been absent during greater part of the debate, entered and took his seat just as it was concluding.

At last, before a crowded House, Reginald Monkton, who, his friends noticed, was looking unusually pale and worn, rose and replied in one of those brief, well-modulated, but caustic speeches of his in which he turned the arguments of the Opposition against themselves. He heaped coals of fire upon their heads, and denounced them as “enemies of Imperialism and destroyers of Empire.” The House listened enthralled.

He spoke for no more than a quarter of an hour, but it was one of the most brilliant oratorical efforts ever heard in the Lower Chamber, and when he reseated himself, amid a roar of applause from the Government benches, it was felt that the tide had been turned and the Opposition had once more been defeated.

Hardly had Monkton sat down when, remembering that he had guests at home, he rose and walked out.

He passed out into Palace Yard just before ten o’clock and turned his steps homeward, the night being bright and starlit and the air refreshing. So he decided to walk.

Half-an-hour after Cicely and her husband had left Chesterfield Street Sheila again rang up the House and made further inquiry, with the same result, namely, that the Colonial Minister had left Westminster just before ten o’clock. Monkton had been seen in St. Stephen’s Hall chatting for a moment with Horace Powell, the fiery Member for East Islington, whom he had wished “good-night” and then left.

So for still a further half-hour Sheila, though growing very uneasy, sat chatting with Austin, who, be it said, had made no further advances. He longed to grasp her slim white hand and press it to his lips. But he dared not.

“I can’t think where father can be!” exclaimed the girl presently, rising and handing her companion the glass box of cigarettes. “Look! it is already one o’clock, and he promised most faithfully he would be back to wish the Wheelers farewell.”

“Oh! he may have been delayed—met somebody and gone to the club perhaps,” Austin suggested. “You know how terribly busy he is.”

“I know, of course—but he always rings me up if he is delayed, so that I need not sit up for him, and Grant goes to bed.”

“Well, I don’t see any necessity for uneasiness,” declared the young man. “He’ll be here in a moment, no doubt. But if he is not here very soon I’ll have to be getting along to Half Moon Street.”

Through the next ten minutes the eyes of both were constantly upon the clock until, at a quarter-past one, Wingate rose, excusing himself, and saying:

“If I were you I shouldn’t wait up any longer. You’ve had a long day. Grant will wait up for your father.”

“The good old fellow is just as tired as I am—perhaps more so,” remarked the girl sympathetically. And then the pair descended to the hall, where Sheila helped him on with his coat.

“Well—good-night—and don’t worry,” Austin urged cheerfully as their hands met. The contact sent a thrill through him. Yes. No woman had ever stirred his soul in that manner before. He loved her—yes, loved her honestly, truly, devotedly, and at that instant he knew, by some strange intuition, that their lives were linked by some mysterious inexplicable bond. He could not account for it, but it was so. He knew it.

By this time Grant had arrived in the hall to let out Miss Sheila’s visitor, and indeed he had opened the door for him, when at that same moment a taxi, turning in from Curzon Street, slowly drew up at the kerb before the house.

The driver alighted quickly and, crossing hurriedly to Austin, said:

“I’ve got a gentleman inside what lives ’ere, sir. ’E ain’t very well, I think.”

Startled by the news Austin and Grant rushed to the cab, and with the assistance of the driver succeeded in getting out the unconscious form of the Colonial Secretary.

“I’d send the lady away, sir—if I were you,” whispered the taxi-driver to Wingate. “I fancy the gentleman ’as ’ad just a drop too much wine at dinner. ’E seems as if ’e ’as!”

Amazed at such a circumstance Sheila, overhearing the man’s words, stood horrified. Her father was one of the most temperate of men. Such a home-coming as that was astounding! The three men carried the prostrate statesman inside into the small sitting-room on the right, after which Austin, completely upset, handed the taxi-man five shillings, and with a brief word of thanks dismissed him.

Meanwhile Sheila had rushed into the dining-room to obtain a glass of water, hoping to revive her father. Old Grant, faithful servant that he was, had thrown himself upon his knees by the couch whereon his master had been placed.

He peered into his pale face, which was turned away from the silk-shaded electric light, and then suddenly gasped to Wingate: “Why! It isn’t Mr Reginald at all, sir! He’s wearing his clothes, his watch and chain—and everything! But he’s a stranger—it isn’t Mr Reginald! Look for yourself!”

Chapter Three.

The Whispered Name.

Austin Wingate approached the unconscious man, and scrutinised the white, drawn features closely. When Grant had uttered those words, he could hardly believe his ears. Had the shock been too much for the old man’s reason?

But as he gazed intently, the conviction grew upon him that Grant was right. There was a little resemblance between the Cabinet Minister and the insensible man lying there. Their figures were much the same, and in the half-light a mere cursory glance could not have detected them apart.

But to those who, like Grant and Austin, knew Reginald Monkton intimately, there were striking points of difference at once apparent.

Wingate drew a deep sigh of relief.

“You are right. Grant, it is not your master! He looks ghastly, doesn’t he? The driver said that he was drunk, but I don’t believe it. The man, whoever he is, seems to me as if he were dying.”

At that moment, Sheila, her cheeks pale, her hand trembling so that she spilled the glass of water she was carrying, came into the sitting-room.

Austin rushed towards her and, taking the glass from her, pressed her trembling hand. At a moment of acute tension like that, he knew she would not resent the action.

“Sheila, for God’s sake keep calm. It is not what we thought. The man we carried in here is not your father. He is a stranger, wearing your father’s clothes. Look for yourself, and you will see where the likeness ends.”

“Not my father?” she repeated mechanically, and flung herself down beside Grant. A moment’s inspection was enough to convince her. She rose from her knees.

“Thank God!” she cried, fervently. It had cut her to the heart to think that the father whom she so loved and revered should be brought home in such a condition. She was grateful that none but those three had been present.

But to her gratitude succeeded a sudden wave of fear, and her face went paler than before.

“But, Austin, there must be some terrible mystery behind this. Why is this man wearing father’s clothes? And why—” she broke suddenly into a low wail—“is father not home?”

Austin could make no answer; the same thought had occurred to him.

“My poor child, there is a mystery, but you must summon all your courage till we can discover more,” he murmured soothingly. “Now I must go and ’phone for the doctor. In my opinion, this man is not suffering from excess, as that driver led us to believe. He appears to be in a dying state.”

When he had gone to ring up the family doctor, who lived close by in Curzon Street, Sheila again knelt down beside the prostrate form.

Presently the man’s lips began to move and faint sounds issued from them. He seemed trying to utter a name, and stumbling over the first syllable.

They strained their ears, and thought they caught the word “Moly” repeated three times.

There was silence for a few seconds, and then the muttering grew louder and they thought they heard the name “Molyneux.”

“Oh, if only he could wake from his sleep or lethargy!” Sheila exclaimed impatiently. “If he could only throw some light upon this awful mystery?”

He relapsed into silence again, and then presently recommenced his mutterings. This time, he pronounced the syllables even less clearly than before. And now they fancied the name was more like “Mulliner.”

Would he come back to consciousness and be able to answer questions, or would those be his last words on earth? They could not tell. His form had relapsed into its previous rigidity and his face had grown more waxen in its hue.

What was the explanation of his being dressed in her father’s clothes? Sheila was sure they were the same Reginald Monkton had won on setting out that evening.

A sudden thought struck her. She inserted her hand gently in his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a gold watch. It was her father’s; she had given it to him on his last birthday. She felt in the breast pocket of his coat, but it was empty. That told her little, for she did not know if he had taken any papers with him.

She felt in his pockets one by one, but only discovered a little loose silver. It was her father’s habit always to carry a few banknotes in a leather case. If he had done so to-night these had been abstracted. But if the money had been taken, why not the watch? And then she recollected it was inscribed with his name.

While she was pondering these disturbing queries. Doctor Macalister entered the room with Austin, who had imparted to him the startling news in a few words.

He bent over the quiet form, murmuring as he did so: “He is dressed in Mr Monkton’s clothes, certainly. I might have been deceived at the first glance myself.”

He unbuttoned the waistcoat and shirt, and laid his stethoscope on the chest of the inanimate body.

“Dead!” he said briefly, when he had made his examination. “One cannot, of course, at present tell the cause of death, although the appearances point to heart-failure.”

Sheila looked up at him, her lovely eyes heavy with grief and foreboding.

“He spoke a little before you came in,” she said. “He seemed to utter two names, Molyneux and Mulliner. He repeated them three times.”

The kindly old doctor who had brought her into the world looked at her with compassionate eyes. “The part he bore in this mystery, whether he was a victim or accomplice, will never be revealed by him. He must have been near death when he was put into that taxi. I suppose you did not notice the number?”

No, neither Grant nor Austin had thought of it. They had been too much perturbed at the time.

“Well, I have no doubt the driver can be found. Now I must telephone for the police, and have the body removed.”

He drew young Wingate aside for a moment. “You say you have inquired at the House of Commons. Have you rung up Monkton’s clubs? He has only two. No; well, better do so. It is a forlorn hope; I knew the man so well. He would never keep Sheila waiting like this if he were with means of communication. There has been foul play—we can draw no other conclusion.”

It was the one Wingate had drawn himself, and he quite agreed it was a forlorn hope. Still, he would make sure. He rang up the Travellers’ and the Carlton. The answer was the same from both places. Mr Monkton had not been at either club since the previous day.

The police arrived in due course, and bore away the body of the man who wore the clothes of the well-known and popular Cabinet Minister.

And, at their heels, came the inspector of the division, accompanied by Mr Smeaton, the famous detective, one of the pillars of Scotland Yard, and the terror of every criminal.

Smeaton was a self-made man, risen from the ranks, but he had the manners of a gentleman and a diplomatist. He bowed gravely to the pale-faced girl, who was so bravely keeping back her tears. With Austin he had a slight acquaintance.

“I am more than grieved to distress you at such a time. Miss Monkton, but the sooner we get on the track of this mystery the better. Will you tell me, as briefly as you like, and in your own time, what you know of your father’s habits?”

In tones that broke now and then from her deep emotion, Sheila imparted the information he asked for. She laid especial emphasis on the fact that, before leaving home in the evening, he outlined to her the programme of his movements. If anything happened that altered his plans he invariably telephoned to her, or sent a letter by special messenger.

The keen-eyed detective listened attentively to her recital.

“Can you recall any occasion on which he failed to notify you?” he asked when she had finished.

“No,” she answered firmly. Then she recollected. “Stay! There was one occasion. He was walking home from the House on a foggy night, and was knocked down by a taxi, and slightly injured. They took him to a hospital, and I was telephoned from there, and went to him.”

A gleam of hope shone in Austin’s eyes.

“We never thought of that.”

The great detective shook his head.

“But we thought of it, Mr Wingate. My friend here has had every hospital in the radius rung up. No solution there.”

There was silence for a long time. It seemed that the last hope had vanished. Smeaton stood for a long time lost in thought. Then he roused himself from his reverie.

“It’s no use blinking the fact that we are confronted with a more than usually difficult case,” he said, at length. “Still, it is our business to solve problems, and we shall put our keenest wits to work. I wish it were possible, for Miss Monkton’s sake, to keep it from the Press.”

“But would that be impossible?” cried Wingate.

“I fear so. If a little servant-maid disappears from her native village, the newspaper-men get hold of it in twenty-four hours. Here, instead of an obscure little domestic, you have a man, popular, well-known to half the population of England, whose portrait has been in every illustrated paper in the three Kingdoms. I fear it would be impossible. But I will do my best. The Home Secretary may give certain instructions in this case.”

Then turning to Sheila he said:

“Good-night, Miss Monkton. Rely upon it, we will leave no stone unturned to find your father, and bring him back to you.”

He was gone with those comforting words. But with his departure, hope seemed to die away, and Sheila was left to confront the misery of the present.

The faithful Grant, who had been hovering in the background, came forward, and spoke to her in the coaxing tone he had used when she was a child.

“Now, Miss Sheila, you must go and rest.”

“Oh, no!” she cried wildly. “What is the use of resting? I could not sleep. I can never rest until father comes back to me.” She broke into a low wail of despair.

Grant looked at Wingate, with a glance that implored him to use his influence. The faithful old man feared for her reason.

“Sheila, Grant is right,” said Austin gravely. “You must rest, even if you cannot sleep. You will need all your strength for to-morrow, perhaps for many days yet, before we get to the heart of this mystery. Let the servants go back to bed. Grant and I will wait through the night, in case good news may come to us.”

There were times when, as the old butler remembered, she had been a very wilful Sheila, but she showed no signs of wilfulness now. The grave tones and words of Austin moved her to obedience.

“I will do as you tell me,” she said in a hushed and broken voice. “I will go and rest—not to sleep, till I have news of my darling father.”

Through the weary hours of the night, the two men watched and dozed by turns, waiting in the vain hope of word or sign of Reginald Monkton.

None came, and in the early morning Sheila stole down and joined them. Her bearing was more composed, and she had washed away the traces of her tears.

“I intend to be very brave,” she told them. “I have roused the maids, and I am going to give you breakfast directly, after your long vigil.”

Impulsively she stretched out a hand to each, the youthful lover and the aged servitor. “You are both dear, good friends, and my father will thank you for your care when he comes back to me.”

Moved by a common impulse the two men, the young and the old, bent and imprinted a reverent kiss on the slender hands she extended to them.

It was a moment of exquisite pathos, the fair, slim girl, resplendent yesterday in the full promise of her youth and beauty; to-day stricken with grief and consumed with the direst forebodings of the fate of a beloved father.

Chapter Four.

The Man who Knew.

Three days had gone by, and the mystery of Reginald Monkton’s disappearance remained as insoluble as ever. Well, it might be so, since there did not seem a single clue, with the exception of the name muttered by the dying man, which at first had sounded like Molyneux, and afterwards like Mulliner. Neither Sheila nor Grant, who had listened to those faint sounds issuing from the dying lips, could be certain which of the two was correct.

Wingate had seen Smeaton twice, and that astute person assured him that the keenest brains at Scotland Yard were working on the case. But he was very reticent, and from his manner the young man was forced to draw the conclusion that the prospects of success were very slight.

If it had been simply a case of disappearance, uncomplicated by other circumstances, many theories could have been formed. There were plenty of instances of men whose reason had become temporarily unhinged, and who had lost consciousness of their own identity.

Again, men have disappeared voluntarily because they have been threatened with exposure of some shameful secret of the past, and will willingly pay the penalty of separation from their own kith and kin to avoid it.

But no such theories seemed tenable in this instance. Monkton’s life, in the opinion of all who knew him, had been a well-ordered and blameless one. He had been a devoted husband; and he was a devoted father, wrapped up in his charming daughter, the sole legacy of that happy marriage.

In the case of such a man, with so stainless a record, it was unthinkable that anything could leap to light from the past which could shame him to such an extent that he would, of his own act, abandon his office, and isolate himself from his child.

Even granting such an hypothesis for a moment, and brushing aside all the evidences of his past life and all the knowledge of him gained through years by his relatives and intimate friends, how did such a theory fit in with the appearance on the scene of the stranger now dead?

“You fear the worst?” queried Wingate one day, as Smeaton sat with him in his cosy rooms in Half Moon Street.

“It is too early yet to give a decided opinion, if, in a case of such complexity, one could ever give a decided opinion at all,” was the detective’s answer. “But at present things point that way. What was the motive underlying the scheme? You can give the answer quickly—that all inquiries as to the real man are being stifled.”

“In other words, that Mr Monkton has been done away with, for motives we do not know, by the person or persons who put the man into the taxi?”

Smeaton nodded. “That’s what it seems to be at the moment, Mr Wingate. But we should be poor detectives if we pinned ourselves to any one theory, especially on such evidence—or rather want of evidence—as we have got at present. Cases as mysterious as this—and there was never one more mysterious—have been solved by unexpected means. If we can get hold of that driver who brought the dying man to Chesterfield Street, we may light upon something useful.”

“If he was an accomplice, as seems possible, he will never turn up,” said Wingate gloomily.

“Accomplice or not, I think the reward will tempt him,” replied Smeaton, “even if he has to make up his tale before he comes. I expected he would come forward before now. But one of two things may have happened. Either he may be cogitating over what he shall say when he does come, or he may be an ignorant sort of fellow, who hardly ever reads the newspapers.”

“Anyway,” resumed Smeaton, after a thoughtful pause, “if and when he does turn up, we shall know, with our long experience, what sort of a customer he is. You may rely upon it that if there is anything to be got out of him, we shall get it, whether it proves valuable or not.”

It was not a very cheering interview, certainly, but how could there be any chance of hopefulness at present?

During the few days, however, the police had not been idle. They had made a few discoveries, although they were of a nature to intensify rather than tend to a solution of the mystery.

They had established one most important fact.

Monkton had excused himself from dining at home on the plea that he must be down at the House, the inference being that he would snatch a hasty meal there, in the pause of his Ministerial work.

Instead of that, he had dined about seven o’clock in an obscure little Italian restaurant in Soho. Luigi, the proprietor, had at once recognised him from his portraits in the illustrated papers, and from having seen him at the Ritz, where he had been a waiter.

He had entered the café a few minutes before seven, and had looked round, as if expecting to find somebody waiting for him. Luigi had taken him the menu, and he had said he would wait a few minutes before giving his order, as a guest would arrive.

On the stroke of seven a tall, bearded man, evidently a foreigner, who walked with a limp, joined him. Questioned by Smeaton as to the nationality of the man, the proprietor replied that he could not be sure. He would take him for a Russian. He was quite certain that he was neither French nor Italian. And he was equally certain that he was not a German.

The new arrival joined Mr Monkton, who at once ordered the dinner. Neither of the men ate much, but consumed a bottle of wine between them.

They talked earnestly, and in low tones, during the progress of the meal, which was finished in about half-an-hour. Cigars, coffee, and liqueurs were then ordered, and over these they sat till half-past eight, conversing in the same low tones all the time.

Luigi added that the Russian—if he was of that nationality, as he suspected—seemed to bear the chief burden of the conversation. Mr Monkton played the part of listener most of the time, interjecting remarks now and again.

Asked if he overheard any of the talk between them, he replied that he did not catch a syllable. When he approached the table they remained silent, and did not speak again until he was well out of earshot.

“And you are quite positive it was Mr Monkton?” Smeaton had questioned, when Luigi had finished his recital. It had struck him that Luigi might have been mistaken after all.

Luigi was quite sure. He reminded Smeaton that before taking on the little restaurant in Soho he had been a waiter at the Ritz, where he had often seen the Cabinet Minister. It was impossible he could be mistaken.

He added in his excellent English, for he was one of those foreigners who are very clever linguists. “Besides, there is one other thing that proves it, even supposing I was misled by a chance likeness—though Mr Monkton’s is not a face you would easily forget—as I helped him on with his light overcoat he remarked to his friend, ‘I must hurry on as fast as I can. I am overdue at the House.’”

That seemed to settle the point. There might be a dozen men walking about London with sufficient superficial resemblance to deceive an ordinary observer, but there was no Member of the House of Commons who could pass for Monkton.

It was evident, then, that he had gone to that little, out-of-the-way restaurant to keep an appointment. The man he met was his guest, as Monkton paid for the dinner. The excuse he made for not dining at home was a subterfuge. The appointment was therefore one that he wished to conceal from his daughter, unless he did not deem it a matter of sufficient importance to warrant an explanation.

Monkton’s secretary was also interrogated by the detective. He was a fat-faced, rather pompous young man, with a somewhat plausible and ingratiating manner. He had been with Monkton three years. Sheila had seen very little of him, but what little she had seen did not impress her in his favour. And her father had owned that he liked him least of any one of the numerous secretaries who had served him.

This young man, James Farloe by name, had very little to tell. He was at the House at eight o’clock, according to Monkton’s instructions, and expected, him at that hour. He did not come in till after half-past, and he noticed that his manner was strange and abrupt, as if he had been disturbed by something. At a few minutes before ten he left, presumably for home. When he bade Farloe good-night he still seemed preoccupied.

In these terrible days Austin Wingate’s business occupied but second place in his thoughts. He was prepared to devote every moment he could snatch to cheer and sustain the sorrowing Sheila.

A week had gone by, but thanks to certain instructions given by the authorities, at the instance of the Prime Minister, who deplored the loss of his valuable colleague, the matter was being carefully hushed-up.

Late one afternoon, while Smeaton was seated in his bare official room on the second floor at Scotland Yard, the window of which overlooked Westminster Bridge, a constable ushered in a taxi-driver, saying:

“This man has come to see you, sir, regarding a fare he drove to Chesterfield Street the other night.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Smeaton, lounging back in his chair, having been busy writing reports. “Sit down. What is your name?”

“Davies, sir—George Davies,” replied the man, twisting his cap awkwardly in his hands as he seated himself.

Smeaton could not sum him up. There was no apparent look of dishonesty about him, but he would not like to have said that he conveyed the idea of absolute honesty. There was something a little bit foxy in his expression, and he was decidedly nervous. But then Scotland Yard is an awe-inspiring place to the humbler classes, and nervousness is quite as often a symptom of innocence as of guilt.

“I only ’eard about this advertisement from a pal this morning. I never reads the papers,” the taxi-driver said.

“Well, now you have come, we want to hear all you can tell us. That gentleman died, you know!”

The man shifted uneasily, and then said in a deep, husky voice:

“I’ve come ’ere, sir, to tell you the truth. I’ll tell you all I know,” he added, “providing I’m not going to get into any trouble.”

“Not if you are not an accomplice,” Smeaton said, his keen eyes fixed upon his visitor.

The man paused and then with considerable apprehension said:

“Well—I don’t know ’ow I can be really an accomplice. All I know about it is that I was passin’ into Victoria Street goin’ towards the station, when three gentlemen standin’ under a lamp just opposite the entrance to Dean’s Yard hailed me. I pulls up when I sees that two of ’em ’ad got another gentleman by the arms. ‘Look ’ere, driver,’ says one of ’em, ‘this friend of ours ’as ’ad a drop too much wine, and we don’t want to go ’ome with ’im because of ’is wife. Will you take ’im? ’E lives in Chesterfield Street, just off Curzon Street,’ and ’e gives me the number.”

“Yes,” said Smeaton anxiously. “And what then?”

“Well, sir, ’e gives me five bob and puts the gentleman into my cab, and I drove ’im to the address, where ’is servant took charge of ’im. Did ’e really die afterwards?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes—unfortunately he did,” was the police official’s reply. “But tell me, Davies. Did you get a good look at the faces of the two men?”

“Yes, sir. They were all three under the lamp.”

“Do you think you could recognise both of them again—eh?”

“Of course I could. Why, one of ’em I’ve seen about lots o’ times. Indeed, only yesterday, about three o’clock, while I was waitin’ on the rank in the Strand, opposite the Savoy, I saw ’im come out with a lady, and drive away in a big grey car. If I’d a known then, sir, I could ’ave stopped ’im!”

Chapter Five.

Contains some Curious Facts.

At the beginning of the interview, the demeanour of the taxi-driver had betrayed signs of nervousness and trepidation. He had hesitated and stumbled in his speech, so much so that Smeaton, the detective, was still in doubt as to his honesty.

Smeaton, however, was a past-master in the art of dealing with a difficult witness. So reassuring was his manner that at the end of five minutes he had succeeded in inspiring the taxi-driver with confidence. His nervousness and hesitation were succeeded by loquacity.

Urged to give a description of the two men, he explained, with amplitude of detail, that the man who had come out of the Savoy was of medium height and clean-shaven, with angular features and piercing dark eyes. He was of striking appearance, the kind of man you would be sure to recognise anywhere. The lady with him was smartly dressed and appeared to be about thirty or under.

“Seems to me I’ve known ’im about London for years, although I can’t remember as I ever drove ’im,” he added.

The other man was, Davies said, tall and bearded, and certainly a foreigner, although he could not pretend to fix his nationality.

A tall, bearded man, and a foreigner! Smeaton pricked up his ears. The description tallied somewhat with that of the person who had dined with Monkton in the little restaurant in Soho.

Davies was dismissed with encouraging words and a liberal douceur. Given Smeaton the semblance of a clue, and he was on the track like a bloodhound.

Within twenty minutes of the taxi-driver’s departure, he was interviewing one of the hall-porters at the Savoy, an imposing functionary, and an old friend.

Smeaton had a large and extensive acquaintance among people who could be useful. He knew the hall-porters of all the big hotels. They were men of quick intelligence, keen powers of observation, and gathered much important information. He had unravelled many a mystery with their assistance.

The detective, standing aside in the hall, described the man as he had been featured by Davies. Did the hall-porter recognise him?

The answer was in the affirmative.

“He’s not a man you would be likely to forget, Mr Smeaton,” he said. “He is a pretty frequent visitor here. He lunches two or three times a week, and is popular with the waiters, through being pretty free with his tips. Most times he comes alone. Now and again he brings a guest, but nobody we know.”

“And his name?” questioned Smeaton eagerly.

“Well, that’s the funny part of it,” explained the other man. “We get to know the names of the habitués sooner or later, but none of us have ever heard his. He never seems to meet anybody here that he knows, and none of the waiters have ever heard one of his guests address him by name. The maître d’hôtel and I have often talked him over, and wondered who and what he was.”

Smeaton showed his disappointment. “That is unfortunate. Let us see if we can be more successful in another direction. Yesterday afternoon, about three o’clock, this man, whose name we don’t know, drove away from this place in a taxi, accompanied by a lady. My informant tells me she was smartly dressed, and he puts her age at about thirty, or perhaps less.”

The hall-porter indulged in a smile of satisfaction.

“I think I can help you there, Mr Smeaton. I was passing through the palm-court at the time, and saw them go out together. We all know the lady very well. She is here pretty often. Sometimes she comes with a big party, sometimes with a lady friend, sometimes with a gentleman. Her name is Saxton, and she has a flat in Hyde Park Mansions. One of her friends told me she is a widow.”

“What sort of a person is she? How would you class her? She seems to dress well, and is, I suppose, attractive.”

The hall-porter mused a moment before he replied. Like most of his class, he was an expert at social classification.

“Not one of the ‘nobs,’ certainly,” he answered at length, with a smile. “Semi-fashionable, I should say; moves in society with a small ‘s.’ Her friends seem of two sorts, high-class Bohemians—you know the sort I mean,—and rich middle-class who spend money like water.”

“I see,” said Smeaton. “And she lives in Hyde Park Mansions off the Edgware Road, or, to be more correct, Lisson Grove. She is evidently not rich.”

They bade each other a cordial good-day, Smeaton having first expressed his gratitude for the information, and left in the hall-porter’s capacious palm a more substantial proof of his satisfaction.

The next thing to be done was to interview the attractive widow. Before doing so, he looked in at Chesterfield Street, and, as he expected, found Wingate and Sheila together.

He told them of the visit of Davies, and his subsequent conversation with the hall-porter at the Savoy.

When he mentioned the name of Saxton, Sheila uttered an exclamation. “Why, Mr Farloe has a sister of the name of Saxton, a widow! He brought her once to one of our parties, and I remember she was very gushing. She begged me to go and see her at her flat, and I am pretty certain Hyde Park Mansions was the place she named, although I can’t be positive.”

“Did you go. Miss Monkton?”

“No. As I have told you, I never liked Mr Farloe, and I liked his sister less. She was pretty, and I think men would find her attractive. But there seemed to me an under-current of slyness and insincerity about her.”

It was rather a weakness of Wingate’s that he credited himself with great analytical powers, and believed he was eminently suited to detective work. So he broke in:

“Perhaps Miss Monkton and I could help you a bit, by keeping a watch on this woman. I have time to spare, and it would take her out of herself.”

Smeaton repressed a smile. Like most professionals, he had little faith in the amateur. But it would not be polite to say so.

“By all means, Mr Wingate. We can do with assistance. ’Phone me up or call at Scotland Yard whenever you have anything to communicate. Now, I think I will be off to Hyde Park Mansions and see what sort of a customer Mrs Saxton is.” A taxi bore him to his destination, and in a few moments he was ringing at the door of the flat.

A neat maid admitted him, and in answer to his inquiries said her mistress was at home.

“What name shall I say, please?” she asked in a hesitating voice. He produced his case and handed the girl a card.

“Of course, you know I am a stranger,” he explained. “Will you kindly take this to Mrs Saxton, and tell her that I will take up as little of her time as possible.”

After the delay of a few moments, he was shown into a pretty drawing-room, tastefully furnished. The lady was sitting at a tea-table, and alone.

“Please sit down,” she said; her tones were quite affable. She did not in the least appear to resent this sudden intrusion into her domestic life. “Lily, bring another cup. You will let me offer you some tea?”

She was certainly a most agreeable person—on the right side of thirty, he judged. Smeaton was somewhat susceptible to female influence, although, to do him justice, he never allowed this weakness to interfere with business.

He explained that tea was a meal of which he never partook. Mrs Saxton, it appeared, was a most hospitable person, and promptly suggested a whisky-and-soda. He must take something, she protested, or she would feel embarrassed.

The detective accepted, and felt that things had begun very smoothly. The velvet glove was very obvious, even if, later, he should catch a glimpse of the iron hand encased within.

“I must apologise for intruding upon you, Mrs Saxton, in this fashion. But I am in want of a little information, and I believe you can furnish me with it, if you are disposed to.”

Mrs Saxton smiled at him very sweetly, and regarded him with eyes of mild surprise. Very fine eyes they were, he thought. It was a pity that she had taken the trouble to enhance their brilliancy by the aid of art. She was quite good-looking enough to rely upon her attractions, without surreptitious assistance.

“How very interesting,” she said in a prettily modulated, but rather affected voice. “I am all curiosity.”

She was purring perhaps a little bit too much for absolute sincerity, but it was pleasant to be met with such apparent cordiality.

Smeaton came to the point at once. “I am at the present moment considerably interested in the gentleman with whom you left the Savoy yesterday afternoon in a taxi-cab.”

There was just a moment’s pause before she replied. But there were no signs of confusion about her. Her eyes never left his face, and there was no change in her voice when she spoke. She was either perfectly straightforward, or as cool a hand as he had ever met.

“You are interested in Mr Stent? How strange! Gentlemen of your profession do not generally interest themselves in other persons without some strong motive, I presume?”

“The motive is a pretty strong one. At present, other interests require that I do not divulge it,” replied Smeaton gravely. He was pleased with one thing, he had already got the name of the man; he preferred not to confess that he did not know it. And her frank allusion to him as Mr Stent seemed to show that she had nothing to hide. Unless, of course, it was a slip.

“I know I am asking something that you may consider an impertinence,” he went on. “But, if you are at liberty to do so, I should like you to tell me all you know of this gentleman; in short, who and what he is.”

She laughed quite naturally. “But I really fear I can tell you very little. I suppose going away together in a taxi appears to argue a certain amount of intimacy. But in this case it is not so. I know next to nothing of Mr Stent. He is not even a friend, only a man whose acquaintance I made in the most casual manner. And, apart from two occasions about which I will tell you presently, I don’t suppose I have been in his company a dozen times.”

It was a disappointment, certainly, and this time Smeaton did not believe she was speaking the truth. In spite of the silvery laugh and the apparently frank manner. But he must put up with what she chose to give him.

“Do you mind telling me how you first made his acquaintance, Mrs Saxton?”

“Not in the least,” she replied graciously. “Two years ago I was staying in the Hotel Royal at Dinard. Mr Stent was there too. He seemed a very reserved, silent sort of man, and kept himself very much aloof from the others, myself included, although, as I daresay you have guessed, I am of a gregarious and unconventional disposition.”

She gave him a flashing smile, and Smeaton bowed gallantly. “I should say you were immensely popular,” he observed judiciously.

“Thanks for the compliment; without vanity, I think I may say most people take to me. Well, one day Mr Stent and I found ourselves alone in the drawing-room, and the ice was broken. After that we talked together a good deal, and occasionally went to the Casino, and took walks together. He left before I did, and I did not meet him again till next year at Monte Carlo.”

“Did you learn anything about his private affairs, his profession or occupation?”

“Not a word. The conversation was always general. He was the last man in the world to talk about himself. He was at Monte Carlo about a week. I did not see very much of him then, as I was staying with a party in Mentone; he was by himself, as before.”

“Did he give you the impression of a man of means?”

“On the whole, I should say, yes. One night he lost a big sum in the Rooms, but appeared quite unconcerned. Since then I have met him about a dozen times, or perhaps less, at different places, mostly restaurants. Yesterday he came through the palm-court, as I was sitting there after lunch, and we exchanged a few words.”

“Did you not see him at lunch; you were both there?” questioned Smeaton quickly.

“I saw him at a table some distance from mine, but he did not see me. I mentioned that I was going back to Hyde Park Mansions. He said he was driving in the direction of St. John’s Wood, and would drop me on his way. He left me at the entrance to the flats.”

Smeaton rose. He knew that if he stopped there for another hour he would get nothing more out of her.

“Thanks very much, Mrs Saxton, for what you have told me. One last question, and I have done. Do you know where he lives?”

There was just a moment’s hesitation. Did she once know, and had she forgotten? Or was she debating whether she would feign ignorance? He fancied the latter was the correct reason.

“I don’t remember, if I ever knew, the exact address, but it is somewhere in the direction of St. Albans.”

Smeaton bowed himself out, and meditated deeply. “She’s an artful customer, for all her innocent air, and knows more than she will tell, till she’s forced,” was his inward comment. “Now for two things—one, to find out what there is to be found at St. Albans; two, to get on the track of the bearded man.”

Chapter Six.

Just Too Late.

Mr Smeaton was not a man to waste time. Within ten minutes of his arrival at Scotland Yard he had sent two sergeants of the C.I. Department to keep Mrs Saxton under close surveillance, and to note the coming and going of all visitors. As her flat was on the ground floor, observation would be rendered comparatively easy.

The evening’s report was barren of incident. Mrs Saxton had remained at home. The only visitor had been a young man, answering to the description of James Farloe, her brother. He had called about dinner-time, and left a couple of hours later.

For the moment Smeaton did not take Farloe very seriously into his calculations. Mrs Saxton would tell her brother all about his visit, and to interrogate him would be a waste of time. He would tell him nothing more about Stent than he had already learned.

He had noticed, with his trained powers of observation which took in every detail at a glance, that there was a telephone in a corner of the small hall.

If her connection with the mysterious Stent were less innocent than she had led him to believe, she would have plenty of time to communicate with this gentleman by means of that useful little instrument.

Later, he instructed a third skilled subordinate to proceed the next morning in a car to St. Albans, and institute discreet inquiries on the way. Afterwards, he thought of the two amateur detectives in Chesterfield Street, and smiled. Sheila was a charming girl, pathetically beautiful in her distress, and Wingate was a pleasant young fellow. So he would give them some encouragement.

He wrote a charming little note, explaining what he had done with regard to Mrs Saxton. He suggested they should establish their headquarters at a small restaurant close by, lunch and dine there as often as they could. If occasion arose, they could co-operate with his own men, who would recognise them from his description. He concluded his letter with a brief résumé of his conversation with Mrs Saxton.

Poor souls, he thought, nothing was likely to come out of their zeal. But it would please them to think they were at least doing something towards the unravelling of the mystery.

In this supposition he was destined to be agreeably disappointed in the next few hours.

Wingate, after reading the letter, escorted Sheila on a small shopping expedition in the West End. They were going to lunch afterwards at the restaurant in close proximity to Hyde Park Mansions.

The shopping finished, Wingate suddenly recollected he must send a wire to the works at Hendon, and they proceeded to the nearest post-office in Edgware Road.

It was now a quarter to one, and they had settled to lunch at one o’clock, so they walked along quickly. When within a few yards of the post-office, Sheila laid her hand upon his arm.

“Stop a second!” she said in an excited voice. “You see that woman getting out of a taxi. It is Mrs Saxton. Let her get in before we go on.”

He obeyed. The elegant, fashionably-attired young woman paid the driver, and disappeared within the door. The pair of amateur detectives followed on her heels.

Sheila’s quick eyes picked her out at once, although the office was full of people. Mrs Saxton was already in one of the little pens, writing a telegram.

Unobserved by the woman so busily engaged, Sheila stepped softly behind her, and waited till she had finished. She had splendid eyesight, and she read the words distinctly. They ran as follows:

“Herbert. Poste Restante, Brighton. Exercise discretion. Maude.”

Then she glided away, and, with Wingate, hid herself behind a group of people. She had only met the woman once, but it was just possible she might remember her if their glances met.

Mrs Saxton took the telegram to the counter, and they heard her ask how long it would take to get to Brighton. Then, having received an answer to the query, which they could not catch, she went out.

They looked at each other eagerly. They had made a discovery, but what were they to do with it?

“Ring up Smeaton at once, and tell him,” suggested Sheila. “He will know what to do.”

After a moment’s reflection, Wingate agreed that this was the proper course. While they were discussing the point, the man himself hurried in. His quick eye detected them at once, and he joined them.

“I’ve just missed Mrs Saxton—eh?” he queried.

Sheila explained to him how they had arrived there by accident, and had seen her stepping out of the taxi. Smeaton went on to explain.

“I looked round this morning to see how my men were getting on, and found a taxi waiting before the door. I had to hide when she came out, but one of my men heard her give the address of this office. I picked up another taxi, and drove as hard as I could. My fellow kept the other well in sight, but just as we were gaining on her, I was blocked, and lost three minutes. She came here, of course, to send a wire. But it is only a little delay. I can get hold of that wire very shortly.”

“But there is no need,” cried Sheila triumphantly. “At any rate, for the present. I looked over her shoulder, and read every word of it. I will tell it you.”

She repeated the words. He had showed obvious signs of vexation at having just missed the woman he was hunting, and now his brow cleared.

“Very clever of you. Miss Monkton—very clever,” he said in appreciative tones. “Now, who is Herbert, that’s the question?”

“Stent, no doubt,” suggested Wingate, with a certain amount of rashness.

The detective regarded him with his kindly but somewhat quizzical smile. “I very much doubt if it is Stent, Mr Wingate. I sent a man down early this morning to St. Albans, where I believe he lives. I should say Herbert is another man altogether.” The young people readily accepted the professional’s theory. They recognised that they were only amateurs.

There was a long pause. They stood humbly waiting for the great man to speak, this man of lightning intuition and strategic resource.

It seemed an interminable time to the expectant listeners before he again opened his lips. Before he did speak, he pulled out his watch and noted the time.

“This may be important, and we cannot afford to lose a moment,” he said at length. “How do you stand, Mr Wingate, as regards time? Can you spare me the whole of the day?”

“The whole of to-day, to-morrow, and the next day, if it will help,” cried the young man fervently.

“There is a fairly fast train from Victoria in forty minutes from now. You have plenty of time to catch it. I want you to go to the post-office in Brighton, and get hold of that telegram.”

“But it is addressed to the name of Herbert.”

“No matter,” said Smeaton, a little impatiently. “If the real Herbert has not been before you—and I should guess it is an unexpected message—they will hand it to you; they are too busy to be particular. If he has already been, trump up a tale that he is a friend of yours, and not being sure that he would be able to call himself, had asked you to look in for it, so as to make sure.”

“I see,” said Wingate. He felt an increased admiration for the professional detective. He was not quite sure that he would have been ready with this glib explanation.

“I should love to go too,” said Sheila, looking wistfully at the ever-resourceful Smeaton, whom she now frankly accepted as the disposer of their destinies.

“Forgive me if I oppose you this once, my dear Miss Monkton,” he said in his kindest and most diplomatic manner. “Two are not always company in detective business, unless they’ve been trained to work together. Besides, I shall want Mr Wingate to keep in close touch with me on the ’phone, and he will have no time to look after a lady.”

Having settled that matter, he turned to Wingate. “First of all, here are a couple of my cards; one to show the post-office if there is anything awkward—this for the chief constable of Brighton if you have need of his assistance. I will scribble an introduction on it.” He suited the action to the word. “Now, the sooner you are off the better. I will put Miss Monkton into a taxi. You be off, and try to get hold of that wire.”

There was no resisting his powerful personality. He controlled the situation like an autocrat.

“Stay, just one thing more. I shall be at Scotland Yard till seven, and at home about eight. Here is my private ’phone number, if unseen developments arise.”

He thought of everything, he foresaw the improbable. They were lost in admiration. At the moment of departing, he rather damped their enthusiasm by muttering, almost to himself:

“If I could put my hand on one of my own men, I wouldn’t trouble you, but there is no time, and delay is dangerous.”

A hasty hand-shake to Sheila, a fond lover’s look into her eyes, and Wingate was out of the post-office, and into a taxi, en route for Victoria.

He thought of her all the time he was travelling to Brighton. In these last few days her great sorrow had brought her very near to him. He had read her disappointment when Smeaton had forbidden her to accompany him. But she would not resent that on him; she knew he was working in her interests, that his one thought was to help in solving the tragic mystery that was clouding her young life.

The train arrived at Brighton punctual to the minute, and mindful of Smeaton’s remark that delay was dangerous, he drove straight to the post-office.

He was, in a certain sense, elated with the mission that had been entrusted him, through the mere accident of Smeaton not having had time to put his hand on an experienced man. But he felt some trepidation as he walked through the swing-doors. Surely people who set forth on detective work must have nerves of steel and foreheads of triple brass.

He bought some stamps first, not because he wanted them, but in order to screw up his courage to sticking-point.

A sharp-featured, not too amiable-looking young woman served him. When he had completed his purchase, he asked in as cordial a voice as he could assume:

“Are there any letters or telegrams for the name of Herbert?”

The young woman regarded him with a suspicious glance.

“Is your name Herbert, may I ask?”

At that moment, he blessed Smeaton for the lie which he had made him a present of at starting. He proceeded to retail it for the young woman’s benefit.

She smiled a sour smile, and he felt his face flush. Decidedly he wanted more experience.

“Nothing doing this time,” she said insolently, in a rasping cockney voice. “You’d better hurry up next time. The real owner of the telegram took it away half-an-hour ago!”

Chapter Seven.

The Mysterious Mrs Saxton.

After Wingate’s hurried departure, Smeaton put Sheila into a taxi, and quickly took his way back to Scotland Yard. Here he found a note awaiting him from the Home Secretary, requesting him to step round to the Home Office.

They knew each other well, these two men, and had been brought together several times on affairs of public importance. Before he had thrown all his energies into politics Mr Carlingford had been one of the most successful barristers of the day. His intellect was of the keen and subtle order.

He was, of course, profoundly interested in the mysterious disappearance of his colleague, the Colonial Secretary, and had sent for the detective to talk over the matter.

“Sit down, Smeaton. Have you any news? I know you are not a man to let the grass grow under your feet.”

Smeaton explained the situation as it stood at present.

“We have partly identified one, and in my opinion the more important, of the two men who put him in the taxi. His name is given to me as Stent, and he is supposed to have a house somewhere in the neighbourhood of St. Albans. One of my best sergeants is down there to-day, making inquiries. I fancy we are also on the track of the second man.”

He added that it was to Farloe’s sister, Mrs Saxton, that he was indebted for the somewhat scanty information he possessed.

“I met that lady last winter at Mentone,” remarked the Home Secretary. “She was an attractive young woman, with ingratiating manners. I remember she introduced herself to me, telling me that her brother was Monkton’s secretary. My impression at the time, although I don’t know that I had any particular evidence to go on, was that there was just a little touch of the adventuress about her.”

“Precisely my impression,” agreed the man from “over the way.”

“I never took to that fellow, Farloe, either,” continued the statesman. “I don’t think Monkton was particularly attached to him, although he admitted he was the best secretary he ever had. I always thought there was something shifty and underhand about him.”

They talked for a few moments longer, exchanging probable and possible theories, and then Smeaton rose to take his leave.

“Well, Mr Carlingford, thanks to your kind help we have been able to keep it out of the Press so far. I hope our inquiries will soon bear some fruit,” he said, and then left the room.

Sheila had gone home feeling very sad and lonely. All her plans for the day had been upset by Wingate’s sudden journey to Brighton.

She had looked forward to spending some hours in the society of her lover. The excitement of the detective business in which they proposed to engage for the rest of the day would have taken her out of herself, and kept alive the courage which flagged sorely now and again, as she confronted the apparently insoluble problem of her beloved father’s disappearance.

Her luncheon finished, she went into her own dainty little sitting-room and tried to read. But she could not focus her attention. Her thoughts strayed away from the printed page, and at last she flung down the book impatiently.

“I wish that I had insisted on going down to Brighton with Austin,” she said to herself. “I think I must get out. I shall go mad if I stop within these four walls.”

As she was making up her mind, the door opened, and old Grant entered.

“A lady would like to see you. Miss,” he said. “She says her name is Saxton and that you know her, as she is Mr Farloe’s sister. She says she has been here once, but I don’t seem to remember her.”

Sheila was immediately interested. Their acquaintance was of the slightest. She recalled the incident at the post-office, and wondered what was the object of the visit.

“Yes, she came once to a big party. Grant. You have shown her into the drawing-room, I suppose? I will see her.”

She went at once to the drawing-room. Mrs Saxton rose as she entered, and advanced towards her with outstretched hand, her pretty, rather hard features subdued to an expression of deep sympathy.

“My dear Miss Monkton, I do hope you will not regard my visit as an intrusion,” she exclaimed fussily. “But, owing to my brother’s connection with your family, I was bound to know something of what has happened. And I feel so deeply for you.”

Sheila replied with some conventional phrase, but her manner was constrained and cold. Mrs Saxton was acting, no doubt to the best of her capacity, but there was an absence of sincerity in voice and glance.

She had come, not out of sympathy, but for her own ends. Sheila remembered what Smeaton had said, namely, that she knew a good deal more than she chose to tell. She also remembered the telegram which had been despatched a few hours ago. Was it possible Mrs Saxton had caught sight of her at the post-office in Edgware Road after all, and had come with the intention of pumping her?

Whatever the motives might be, Sheila made up her mind to one thing—that she would say as little as possible, and ask questions rather than answer them.

“What has Mr Farloe told you?”

“Oh, as little as he possibly could. But although it has been very cleverly kept from the Press, rumours are flying about at the clubs, in the House of Commons, everywhere. Your father has not been seen for several days, and he is much too important a man not to be missed.”

Sheila made no answer. She was resolved to take a very passive röle in this interview which had been thrust upon her. She looked steadily at Mrs Saxton, who bore the scrutiny of those candid young eyes with absolute composure, and waited for her to resume the conversation.

“A rather strange thing happened the other day,” went on her visitor, after a somewhat lengthy pause. “I had a visit from a Scotland Yard official, of the name of Smeaton. He told me he was very much interested in a Mr Stent, whose acquaintance I happened to make abroad a couple of years ago. I wonder if this Mr Stent happens to be a friend of yours, or your father’s?” This time Sheila felt she could make a direct answer without committing herself. “I certainly do not know the man myself. For my father I cannot, of course, speak positively. In his position he must have known heaps of people, more or less intimately. But, as I have never seen him in this house, he could not have been a friend.”

Mrs Saxton spoke again in her well-bred, but somewhat artificial voice:

“I hope you will excuse me for having put the question. But it struck me after he had left that his visit might have been connected with the sad events that have happened here, and that he believed Mr Stent to have been mixed up with them.”

“Were you able to give him any information?” asked Sheila quickly. She thought it was her turn to question now.

“Nothing, I am afraid, of any value. I had simply met him abroad at an hotel, in the first place, and came across him about a dozen times afterwards. You know what a lot of people one picks up in that casual sort of way, people you know absolutely nothing about.”

Sheila agreed that this was a common experience, and after the interchange of a few commonplaces, Mrs Saxton took leave. She renewed her expressions of sympathy, and begged Miss Monkton to make use of her in any way, if she thought she could render assistance.

What had been the motive of her visit? To reiterate the slenderness of her knowledge of the man Stent, so that the fact would be communicated to Smeaton? Or had she hoped to find an artless and impressionable girl, who would confide to her all that had been done, up to the present, to unravel the mystery of Monkton’s disappearance?

If so, she had signally failed. She had gone away, having learned nothing. And Sheila had put no questions herself, although she was burning to ask her: “Who is that man at Brighton to whom you sent the telegram of warning?”

It had been a day of surprises, and events proceeded very rapidly, mostly in the direction of disappointments.

In the first place, Smeaton was rung up from Brighton by Wingate, who reported the failure of his attempt to get hold of the telegram, and asked for further instructions.

The detective mused a few moments before replying. He placed little or no reliance on the efforts of amateurs, however full of zeal. Still, the young man was there, and he might as well make use of him.

“Would it be inconveniencing you to spend a few more hours down there?” he asked at length over the wire from his room at Scotland Yard.

The reply was what might be expected. Wingate would be only too happy to place himself entirely at Smeaton’s disposal.

“Thanks. In that case, I would ask you to keep a watch on the post-office for as long as you think worth while. This fellow will be pretty certain to call again in an hour or two for another wire. You may depend their correspondence has not finished with that first telegram.”

So that was settled; it was a toss-up whether or not anything would result from Wingate’s observations.

A little later one of the two men who were watching Hyde Park Mansions reported that Mrs Saxton had driven to Chesterfield Street, and remained in Monkton’s house for some twenty minutes.

Smeaton at once rang up Sheila Monkton, and obtained particulars of the brief interview, which confirmed his opinion that Farloe’s attractive sister was engaged in some deep game.

This opinion was further corroborated by the arrival of the detective he had sent down to St. Albans at an early hour that morning.

This man had scoured the neighbourhood on his motor-cycle within a radius of twelve miles from the city of St. Albans. Nobody of the name of Stent was known, and so far as his information went, which he had picked up at various shops and local inns, nobody of that name had ever been a resident, at any rate within the last four or five or six years.

Smeaton cursed Mrs Saxton heartily. A really innocent woman might have made a mistake. But he was sure in his own mind that this innocent-looking young person with the charming manners and the well-bred voice had deliberately put him on a wrong scent.

And for what motive? Perhaps in order to gain time. Well, he had lost a few hours, but he intended to run Mr Stent to earth yet, without her assistance.

Chapter Eight.

The Man from Boundary Road.

Austin Wingate’s feelings as he left the post-office in Brighton can easily be imagined. He had failed ignominiously in his mission, and the sarcastic young woman who had spoken so insolently to him was laughing at his discomfiture.

It was some moments before he could sufficiently recover his composure to go to the nearest telephone—he did not dare to re-enter the post-office so soon—and communicate with Smeaton.

He was fortified by the detective’s request to remain at his post for some time longer, in the hope of turning a failure into something of a partial success. He lit a big cigar and prepared for a long vigil.

He began to think there were certain discomforts attached to detective work. He found himself commiserating the two unfortunate creatures who had been appointed to keep watch at Hyde Park Mansions.

He was better off than they in one important particular. They only worked for pay, not, probably, of a very munificent description. If he succeeded, he would not only earn the praises of Smeaton, but he would be rewarded with the tender light of gratitude in the beautiful eyes of his beloved Sheila.

So he kept resolutely at his post, lounging up and down the street, with his glance ever alert for any likely stranger who should come along.

An hour passed, and then the minutes went very slowly. He kept looking at his watch. Smeaton was sure the strange man would come back for a further communication. Putting himself in the man’s place, he reasoned that he had wired a reply to Mrs Saxton, and that he would allow himself a certain time for his wire to reach London, and the return wire to get to Brighton.

Calculating on this basis—and he felt rather proud of the process—Austin reckoned that the man would be back in a couple of hours from when he left the post-office. The insolent young woman had told him that the wire had been fetched away half-an-hour before Wingate’s arrival.

If this reasoning was correct, the man he was in search of would make his appearance in about another ten minutes from the last time Austin had looked at his watch.

He felt his nerves quivering as the moment drew near and then passed. The street was very busy, many people entering and leaving the post-office.

Another ten minutes had elapsed, and then a tall, bearded man came along. There was something peculiar in his gait: he seemed to walk stiffly with one leg.

He proceeded slowly in the direction of the post-office, and entered the swing-doors. A chill came over the ardent Wingate as he recognised that the man might be merely going in to buy stamps, or send a wire—not to receive one.

He stole across from the opposite side of the street, where he had been marching up and down for such an interminable time, and peered through the glass door.

A thrill of exultation swept through him as he saw the young woman hand the stranger a telegram, which he opened, read rapidly, and then thrust in his breast pocket. Wingate at once darted back to his previous post.

At a respectful distance he followed the stranger with the peculiar limping walk. They came on to the sea front, and his quarry finally disappeared into that well-known hostelry, “The Old Ship.”

It was now much more than an even chance, taking all the circumstances into consideration, that this was the man who was in communication with Mrs Saxton, and that the telegram he had seen him read was from her.

The man, further, answered to the description given by Davies of one of the two men who had hailed his taxi at Dean’s Yard. The taxi-driver had said nothing about the peculiarity in his walk, which had impressed Wingate at once, probably for the obvious reason that Davies had not had an opportunity of observing it. He had only seen him for a couple of minutes, during which time he was occupied in taking instructions for the disposal of his fare.

“The Old Ship” had been a favourite resort of Wingate’s for some years. In fact, until within the last few months, when his business occupations had permitted less leisure, there was hardly a week in which he had not motored down there.

The manager he knew well, also the head-waiter, and two or three of his subordinates. If the man he was tracking was staying there, it would be the easiest thing in the world to make a few judicious inquiries ere he again ’phoned Smeaton. The first person he met, as he stepped into the hall, was Bayfield, the portly and rubicund head-waiter himself.

“Good-day, Mr Wingate. Very pleased to see you, sir. We were saying only the other day that you had quite deserted us.”

“Been awfully busy, Bayfield; couldn’t get away. But it was such a lovely day that I made up my mind I would rush down for a breath of fresh air.”

“Quite right, sir,” cried the cheerful Bayfield, in an approving voice. “It will do you good. All work and no play—you know the old proverb, sir—eh? You are staying the night, I hope?”

Wingate hesitated. “I didn’t intend to when I started from town. Anyway, I will have dinner, and make plans afterwards. Have you many people stopping here?”

“Never knew the house so empty, although, of course, we don’t expect to have many this time of year. A lot of people come in to the table d’hôte, but at the moment, in the house itself, we’ve only an elderly couple, a few stray people, and a foreign gentleman, who has been a visitor, on and off, for the last few months.”

It was a fine opportunity to engage Bayfield in conversation upon the subject of the “foreign” gentleman, and pick up what he could. Bayfield was a chatty, old-fashioned creature nearly seventy, and could be trusted not to exhibit undue reticence when unfolding himself to a customer whom he had known for some years.

But Wingate made up his mind not to press matters too much. He would prospect a little on his own account first, before he availed himself of the head-waiter’s loquacity.

A minute later he entered the smoking-room, lit another cigar, and prepared to cogitate over matters. At the moment of his entrance there was nobody else in the apartment. A few seconds later the bearded stranger came in, rang the bell, ordered something, and seated himself before a small writing-table in the corner of the room. Then he pulled from his breast pocket a bundle of papers.

He read through some of them, various letters and memoranda they seemed to be, slowly and carefully, and laid them aside after perusal, making notes meanwhile.

Then, almost, but not quite, at the end of the packet, came the telegram which he had received at the post-office. He placed this on the top of the little pile, and went on with what remained.

It was a tantalising moment for Austin. There was the telegram within six feet of him. Wild thoughts coursed through his brain. An idea occurred to him. He stumped his cigar upon the ash-tray, till it failed to emit the feeblest glow. He had already observed that, through carelessness, nearly every match-box in the room was empty.

Noiselessly he stole across the few feet of space that divided him from the stranger, and stood on his right hand. Another document had been laid upon the pile, and only the corner of the telegram was peeping forth. A second or two sooner, and he could have read it. He was full of chagrin.

“Excuse me, sir, but can you oblige me with a match? They don’t seem to provide them in this establishment.”

The visitor turned, and for a moment regarded him keenly. What he saw seemed to impress him favourably: an open, honest English face, perfectly candid eyes that looked into his own, without a suspicion of guile in their direct gaze.

“With pleasure, sir. They seem very remiss.”

He spoke with a slight foreign accent, but his tones were cultivated, and his manner was courtesy itself. He held out his match-box. Wingate fancied his glance travelled uneasily to the pile of papers upon the table.

The young man turned half round to strike the match. There was hardly anything of the telegram to read, so obscured was it by the letter lying on the top of it, in which he was not interested.

But what he could see, with his abnormally quick vision, was sufficient. The signature showed distinctly, the same that had appeared on the previous wire—the name MAUDE!

He bowed and withdrew. The foreigner finished his examination of the pile of correspondence he had produced, gathered it up, and transferred it to his breast pocket. Then, with a courteous smile to Wingate, he quitted the room.

The young man breathed a sigh of relief. He was both astonished and delighted at his own resource, at the extent of his discovery. The contents of the telegram could be obtained by Smeaton at his leisure.

What he, Austin Wingate, amateur detective, had proved was that the mysterious man who was staying there was the same person who was in communication with Maude, otherwise Mrs Saxton, of Hyde Park Mansions.

He had done good spade work. Of that he was sure. It was now half-past seven. Plenty of time to ’phone Smeaton, tell him what he had discovered, and inquire how he was to proceed.

The detective decided on his campaign without a moment’s hesitation.

“Well done, Mr Wingate, an excellent result,” he said over the wire. “Stay the night and keep the fellow under observation. We must have him identified. I will send Davies down by the first train to-morrow morning. I will ’phone you full instructions, say, in a couple of hours. Meet him at the station in the morning, smuggle him into the hotel as quickly as you can; I leave the details to you. Let him see our foreign friend, and say if he is the man we think him to be.” He paused a moment, then added:

“You say the manager and Bayfield are well-known to you. They are also old friends of mine. I have unearthed more than one mystery with their help. Mention my name, show them my card, if you think it will ease matters. They will give you any assistance you want. Once again, bravo, and well-done. I’ll ring you up as soon as I have fixed Davies.”

Wingate felt he was walking on air as he returned to the hotel. With his new-born cunning he had not ’phoned from “The Old Ship,” but from the post-office.

The dining-room was not at all full. The elderly couple and the foreigner sat at their respective tables. A few other people were dotted about.

At the end of an hour Wingate had the room to himself, with the head-waiter, his old friend, hovering around, ready for a prolonged chat.

“I’m rather interested in that foreign chap, Bayfield,” he said carelessly. “What do you know about him? Is he a quiet sort of Anarchist, or what?”

Bayfield was quite ready to communicate all he knew, in confidential whispers, for Wingate was always very popular with his inferiors. He gave himself no airs, and he was more than liberal with tips.

“He’s a bit of a mystery, sir, but he’s a very quiet sort of a gentleman. He began coming here about three months ago. I should say, since he started, he has stayed two or three days out of every week. He has heaps of letters. Sometimes he goes off at a minute’s notice, and then we have to send his letters after him.”

“Where does he live, and what’s his name?”

“He lives in the Boundary Road, St. John’s Wood, and his name is Bolinski; a Russian, I suppose. All their names seem to end in ‘ski’ or ‘off.’”

So his name was Bolinski, and he lived in Boundary Road, St. John’s Wood. Here was valuable information for Smeaton. Wingate chatted a little longer with Bayfield, and then went for a walk along the front, returning in time to receive the detective’s message ’phoned to the hotel.

At this juncture he thought it was wise policy to take both the manager and Bayfield into his confidence. He showed them Smeaton’s card, and explained that for reasons he was not at liberty to disclose, he wanted to identify Bolinski. A man was coming down for that purpose by an early train to-morrow morning, and he wanted to smuggle him into the hotel as early as possible.

The manager smiled. “That’s all right, Mr Wingate. Inspector Smeaton is an old friend of mine, and I have helped him a bit here, and more in London. Our friend breakfasts on the stroke of half-past nine. Get your man in here a little before nine, and Bayfield will take him in charge, and give him a glimpse of the distinguished foreigner.”

Next morning the taxi-driver Davies arrived, attired in a brand new suit, and looking eminently respectable in mufti.

Wingate met him at the station, piloted him to “The Old Ship,” and handed him over to the careful guardianship of the astute Bayfield.

At nine-thirty, Bolinski, fresh and smart, came down to his breakfast, seating himself at his usual table. Davies crept in, and took a good look at him, unobserved by the object of his scrutiny.

Wingate was waiting in the hall, with the manager. The face of Davies was purple with emotion and the pleasurable anticipation of further and substantial reward.

“That’s the man, right enough, sir!” he said in an excited whisper. “I’d swear to him out of a thousand if they was all standin’ before me.”

Chapter Nine.

Rumours in London.

Some few days had elapsed, and the Monkton mystery remained in the same deep obscurity. The inquest had been resumed, and an “open verdict” was returned by the jury. But nothing as yet had been published in the Press. All that the public knew was by an obscure paragraph which stated that the Colonial Secretary had been suffering from ill-health, and, having been ordered complete rest by his doctor, he had gone abroad.

The body of the dead man had not been identified. There was nothing to prove conclusively the cause of death, so the matter was left in the hands of the police for investigation.

Some little progress had been made in the direction of Bolinski. Luigi, the proprietor of the restaurant in Soho, had been taken to the Boundary Road in St. John’s Wood, and had waited for the mysterious foreigner to come out of the house.

When he appeared, limping along with that peculiar gait of his, Luigi unhesitatingly declared that he was the man who had dined on the eventful night with the missing Mr Monkton. He could have identified him anyway by his features and figure, but the dragging walk left no room for doubt. Luigi, like Wingate, had noticed it at once.

A few facts about him were established. He was either a bachelor or a widower, as the only other occupants of the house were a married couple, also foreigners, who looked after the establishment. Inquiries in the neighbourhood proved that he spent about half the week there, going up to business every morning.

They tracked him to his office in the city, a couple of rooms on the second floor of a big block of recently erected buildings in the vicinity of Liverpool Street Station. His staff was small, consisting of a young clerk of about eighteen, and a woman of about thirty-five, by her appearance a Jewess of foreign, probably Polish, nationality.

The name Bolinski was inscribed in large latters on a plate outside the door. No business or profession was stated. Patient investigation revealed the fact that he was supposed to be a financial agent, was connected with certain small, but more or less profitable, enterprises abroad, and had a banking account at the head office of one of the biggest banks in England.

Such facts as these rather deepened the mystery. What circumstances had produced an even momentary association between Reginald Monkton, a statesman of more than ordinary eminence, a man of considerable fortune, with a financier of fifth or sixth rate standing, who lived in a small house in St. John’s Wood.

While the Russian was being subjected to these investigations, the other man. Stent, had suddenly absented himself from the Savoy. This was annoying, as Smeaton had sworn to hunt him to his lair, with the aid of his old ally, the hall-porter.

Mrs Saxton was still being kept under strict surveillance, but she, too, was lying very low. She left the flat very seldom, and her movements had in them nothing suspicious. Her brother, James Farloe, went there every day, but she did not appear to be in further communication with Bolinski. Nothing had come to light since those two telegrams despatched to Brighton.

In the meantime rumour was growing in every direction, more especially in political and club circles. What had become of Monkton? Why was he no longer in his place in the House of Commons? Why had his name disappeared from the Parliamentary reports? Was he really ill and abroad?

At no place was the subject discussed with greater interest than at that celebrated resort of intellectual Bohemianism, the Savage Club. Here were gathered together the brightest spirits of the stage, the Bar, and modern journalism with its insatiable appetite for sensational news and thrilling headlines.

Prominent amongst the journalistic section was Roderick Varney, a brilliant young man of twenty-eight, of whom his friends predicted great things. After a most successful career at Oxford, he had entered the Middle Temple, and in due course been called to the Bar.

Having no connection among solicitors, briefs did not flow in, and he turned his attention to the Press. Here he speedily found his true vocation. He was now on the staff of a powerful syndicate which controlled an important group of daily and weekly newspapers.

The bent of his mind lay in the direction of criminal investigation. On behalf of one of the syndicated newspapers, he had helped to solve a mystery which had puzzled the trained detectives of Scotland Yard.

Thinking over the Monkton matter, he had come to the conclusion that there might be a great “scoop” in it.

Unfortunately, he knew so little of the actual facts; there were such slender premises to start from. Rumours, more or less exaggerated, were not of much use to him, and those were all that he had at his disposal.

And then, as he sat in the smoking-room of the Savage, overlooking the Thames, a big idea occurred to him. He would go to headquarters at once, to Chesterfield Street, and ask for Miss Monkton. He would send in a brief note first, explaining his errand.

He had dined, and it was getting on for half-past eight. No time to lose. In under ten minutes from the time the idea had struck him, he was at the door of Reginald Monkton’s house.

Grant showed him into the library, and took in the note. Sheila and Wingate had dined together, and were sitting in the drawing-room.

The sad events had drawn them so closely together that they might now be said to be acknowledged lovers. Austin had never made any pretence of his regard for her, and Sheila was no longer reserved or elusive.

She handed him the letter, and Wingate read it carefully.

“I know the man a little,” he said, when he had gathered the contents. “I belong to the Savage, and go there occasionally. He has the reputation of a brilliant journalist, and has written one or two quite good books on the subject of criminology. Suppose we have him in, and see what he wants. Smeaton is a first-class man, no doubt, but this chap unearthed the Balham mystery that baffled Scotland Yard; all London rang with it, at the time. A fresh brain might help us.”

Sheila yielded to her lover’s suggestion. Privately, she thought etiquette demanded that they should first ring up to consult Smeaton as to whether the newcomer should be shown the door or not. But Wingate had been so good, so tender to her in her hour of trial, that she did not like to oppose him.

Varney came in and at once made a good impression upon her. He was quite a gentleman; his voice and manner showed unmistakable signs of cultivation.

He plunged at once into the matter without insincere apologies.

Plenty of rumours were flying about, he explained, many of them, no doubt, quite baseless; most, or all of them, exaggerated. He had a faculty for this kind of investigation, and had been successful in a very complicated and baffling case at Balham. If they would give him first-hand information he would be pleased to place his services at their disposal.

“You know, of course, that nothing will be allowed to appear in the Press,” said Wingate, when the young journalist had finished. “The Home Secretary has given instructions to that effect.”

Varney admitted he was under the impression something of the kind had occurred. Otherwise his chief would have sent for him at once.

“So you see I am not out for immediate kudos,” he said, with a very frank smile. “Under different circumstances I daresay I should act very much like any other enterprising journalist anxious to establish a reputation.”

There was a moment’s pause. Wingate looked at Sheila, and she returned his glance of inquiry. Should they trust this singular young man, who spoke with such apparent frankness? Or should they refer him to the detective-inspector who had the case in hand?

Varney perceived their natural hesitation, and hastened to turn it in his favour.

“Let us make a bargain,” he said, in a voice of real heartiness. “Forget for the moment that I am a predatory journalist, on the prowl for sensational news. Just consider me as a man who has a bent for this particular form of investigation, and takes a delight in it. Treat me as a friend, and I will prove myself worthy of your confidence, and help you as far as my brains and resources will permit.”

It was Sheila who spoke first, with her woman’s impulse. “Austin,” she said, “I think we may trust Mr Varney.”

The journalist bowed. “Many thanks. Miss Monkton,” He smiled a little as he added: “Ring up my old friend Smeaton, who, I know, has charge of the case, and get his permission if you like. You know, that was your first thought—was it not?”

Sheila blushed. “Yes, you are quite right, it was. How did you guess?”

“Very easily. By putting myself in your place, and imagining how I should think and act under similar circumstances.”

Then Wingate followed his sweetheart’s lead.

“Well, Mr Varney, I agree with Miss Monkton. We accept you as an ally, without reference to Smeaton. What do you want us to do?”

“I want you to tell me, as fully as you can, everything that has happened, in the minutest detail, from the night of Mr Monkton’s strange disappearance until the present moment.”

It was a long recital. Varney listened attentively and made notes from time to time, as some point struck him. But he did not make many. He seemed to possess a marvellous and retentive memory.

The narrative finished, Varney rose.

“Thanks, I have got it all clear. Now, all this will want thinking over, and it will take me some hours. As soon as I have established something to work upon I will communicate with you. We don’t often see you at the Savage, Mr Wingate, or we might meet there.”

“I have not much leisure,” was Wingate’s reply, “and all I have at my disposal is at Miss Monkton’s service for the present.”

“I quite understand.” He could not fail to read in the slight glow on Sheila’s cheek that the pair were lovers. “Well, good-night. Many thanks for the cordial reception you have given me. I shall do my best. I shall hope to earn the compliments of my old friend Smeaton once again.”

It was close upon ten o’clock when he left the house in Chesterfield Street. Though it was summer time, the night was a dark one. There was no moon, and heavy clouds obscured the stars.

A man stepped out from under the street lamp nearly opposite, and walked quickly in the direction of Curzon Street. Varney had seen him many times in the House of Commons, and recognised him at once. It was James Farloe, the secretary.

Varney followed him up Curzon Street, through the narrow passage that runs past Lansdowne House. For a moment Farloe halted, as if undecided which direction to take. Then, his mind made up, he turned northward, and made his way into Oxford Street.

He walked along there for a little while, then crossed over to the north side, and, turning up one of the numerous side streets, took a devious route into Edgware Road.

It immediately struck Varney that he was going to visit Mrs Saxton at Hyde Park Mansions. In that case, he would have had his hunt for nothing. Smeaton had his men stationed there, and he was not wanted.

However, he would make sure, before he gave up the chase, and he was afterwards glad that he had not jumped too readily at conclusions.

It soon became apparent that this was not Farloe’s destination, for he passed Chapel Street, and continued straight along the Edgware Road till he came to where it joins on to Maida Vale. Here he turned to the right, and was immediately in the St. John’s Wood district.

Varney was now pretty certain in his own mind as to the secretary’s goal, and a few moments more confirmed his conjectures. He halted at a house in the Boundary Road, and knocked gently at the door. It was opened by a tall man, whom Varney at once recognised as Bolinski, from the description given of him by Wingate.

He waited about for an hour, but Farloe did not come out. Theirs was evidently a long conference. The secretary was apparently the channel of communication between the Russian and Mrs Saxton. This accounted for the sudden cessation of telegrams. The astute lady had found out she was being watched.

Varney walked back to Baker Street Station, where he took a ticket for Charing Cross, the nearest halting-place for the Savage Club in the Adelphi.

“I wonder if Smeaton has left Farloe altogether out of his calculations,” was his inward comment on the night’s proceedings. “But it can’t be; he is too old a bird for that. Well, it’s evident he is in with the gang, whoever they are—as well as his sister.”

Chapter Ten.

In the Lobby of the House.

The weeks had slipped by. Smeaton was not at all satisfied with the progress he was making. His inquiries had led him into a cul-de-sac. The absence of the man Stent from the Savoy worried him. It looked as though the man had received a hint from Mrs Saxton, and taken the alarm. In addition, he had constant inquiries from the Home Secretary as to what progress he was making.

He paid a visit to Chesterfield Street to talk over matters. Before he left, Sheila screwed up her courage to tell him of Varney’s visit, and their acquiescence in his proposal to investigate on his own account.

She had expected that he would display resentment at their having taken such a step before consulting him. But, to her relief, he did nothing of the kind.

“Varney is a rather clever young chap,” he admitted, “and if he devoted himself entirely to detective work, and acquired plenty of experience, I believe he would be as good as, if not better than, many of us. In the Caxley mystery he certainly got on the right track, while we went blundering on wrong lines altogether. And the revelations in the Balham affair were entirely due to him.”

“He spoke very highly of you,” said Sheila, with woman’s finesse. “I am glad you don’t think we did wrong.”

“Not at all, my dear young lady. Tell him not to hesitate to come to me—if he is in need of any special facilities that I can give.”

“No news of Mrs Saxton, I suppose?” asked Sheila, as Smeaton was on the point of leaving the drawing-room.

“None at all. She is at home, and nobody seems to go near her but her brother. I told you how she put me on the wrong scent about Stent. Once or twice I have thought of going there again and taxing her with it. But what would be the good? She would still stick to her story that she knew next to nothing about him. In giving me the St. Albans clue she would swear she had mixed him up with somebody else. My men seem cooling their heels to no purpose. She knows she is being watched, and she won’t give us a chance. I expect she does all her necessary work on the telephone, and we must attend to that point at once.”

Next morning Mrs Saxton aroused herself from her apparent inactivity, and gave her watchers a big surprise, which added to Smeaton’s growing dissatisfaction with the state of affairs.

At about eleven o’clock her maid whistled up a taxi. Mason, the head detective on duty, immediately communicated with his own taxi-driver, waiting in readiness round the corner, and entered the cab, giving instructions to follow the other when it started.

She came out without any luggage, simply carrying a small vanity bag. She might be going shopping, to pay a visit, to send a telegram, or a hundred-and-one things. His duty was to follow her.

The woman’s cab drove down the Edgware Road, crossed the Park, and stopped at the Hyde Park Tube Station. Here Mrs Saxton paid the fare, and went into the booking-office. Mason at her heels. She took a ticket to Piccadilly Circus, and Mason did the same. They went down together in the same lift, Mrs Saxton near the door of exit, he at the other end of the lift.

He was puzzled as to her movements. If she wanted to get to Piccadilly Circus, why had she taken this roundabout route? The taxi would have taken her there direct.

The train was full. For a few seconds he was separated from her by a surging and struggling crowd blocking the entrances to the long cars. By dint of hard fighting he managed to get in the same carriage.

So far, luck seemed in his favour. It was a non-stop train, and went past Down Street. At the next station, Dover Street, he saw her turn half round, and cast a furtive glance in his direction. She was evidently debating within herself if she would chance getting out there.

While thus deliberating, the train re-started. At Piccadilly Circus there was a considerable exodus, as there always is. The process of disembarking was slow, owing to the number of passengers.

They both emerged into Jermyn Street, and went along to the Haymarket. Here she looked round, apparently for a taxi, but there was not one in sight. It struck him, as he caught a side glimpse of her features, that she was looking worried and harassed. Evidently his persistent dogging had shaken her nerves.

She walked slowly, with the deliberate gait of a person who was perturbed, and thinking hard. She entered a big drapery shop, where Mason was compelled to follow her for reasons.

Had it been an ordinary kind of shop, he would have waited outside, till she came out. This particular establishment, however, had two entrances, one in Regent Street and one in Piccadilly. She knew this, of course, and would slip out of the one he was not watching. So he followed her in.

Having bought a pair of long cream gloves she glanced furtively around, and then left the shop, passing into Regent Street. Afterwards she spent some time looking into the shop windows up and down that busy thoroughfare, ultimately returning to the Piccadilly Tube Station, where she took a ticket for Knightsbridge, Mason following all the while.

Her face was wan and haggard with the relentless chase, but her eyes expressed indomitable resolution. They seemed to flash across at him as they sat in the same car the unspoken message: “I will outwit you yet.”

At Knightsbridge both watcher and watched ascended in the same lift, with its clanging lattice gate, and it was quite plain that Mrs Saxton was now in a quandary how to escape. In a careless attitude she passed from the street back into the booking-hall, where she pretended to idle up and down, as though awaiting someone. Now and then she looked up at the clock as though anxious and impatient.

Mason believed her anxiety to be merely a ruse, but was both surprised and interested when a small ragged urchin entering the place suddenly recognised her, and handed her a note.

She took it eagerly, and without examining it crushed it hurriedly into her little black silk bag, giving the little fellow a shilling, whereupon he thanked her and ran merrily out.

Next instant Mason slipped forth after the lad in order to question him, leaving the woman safely in the booking-hall. In a few seconds he stopped the boy and asked good-humouredly who had given him the letter.

“A gentleman in Notting ’Ill,” was the urchin’s prompt reply. “I don’t know ’im. ’E only said that a lady in a big black ’at, and dressed all in black and carryin’ a bag, would be waitin’ for me, and that I were to give the note to ’er.”

“Is that all you know, my good lad?” Mason inquired quickly, giving him another shilling.

“Yus. That’s all I knows, sir,” he replied.

While speaking, the detective had kept his eye upon the booking-hall, and swiftly returned to it, only, however, to find that the woman was not there.

The descending lift was full, the lattice gates were closed and it had just started down when he peered within.

In the lift was Mrs Saxton, who, with a smile of triumph, disappeared from his view.

Mason, in a sorry and chastened frame of mind, took the next lift, which, as always happens under such circumstances, was unusually long in arriving. To him, it seemed an eternity.

He got down to the platform, in time to see the tail of a departing train. Mrs Saxton had not waited in the booking-hall in vain. She had two minutes’ start of him, and he might hunt London over before he would again find her.

Only one thing was certain: Mrs Saxton was certainly a very clever woman, who, no doubt, had prepared that very clever ruse of the arrival of the letter, well-knowing that the messenger must draw off the detective’s attention, and thus give her time to slip away.

That same evening James Farloe, who had been chatting in the Lobby of the House of Commons with a couple of Members of the Opposition, was suddenly called aside by Sir Archibald Turtrell, Member for North Canterbury, who, in a low, mysterious whisper, asked:

“Look here, Farloe, is this rumour true?”

“What rumour?” inquired the private secretary, who was a well-known figure about the House, as are those of all secretaries to Ministers of the Crown.

“Why, that Mr Monkton is missing, and that he is not at Cannes as the papers say. Everyone is discussing it.”

The sleek, well-dressed young man in a morning suit with a white slip within his waistcoat, laughed sarcastically, as he replied:

“I wonder. Sir Archibald, who it is who spreads such ridiculous rumours. I had a letter from Mr Monkton only this morning from Cannes. That’s all I know.”

“And yet a telegram that I sent to the Beau Site yesterday has been returned to-night undelivered!”

For a second Farloe held his breath. Serious inquiry was apparently being made by Members of the House, in spite of all the precautions of the Home Secretary.

“Oh,” he replied, with well-feigned carelessness. “The Colonial Secretary left the Beau Site over a fortnight ago. People were worrying him, so his doctor sent him to a furnished villa.”

“What is his address?”

“I’m very sorry. Sir Archibald, but I am unable to give it. I have instructions to that effect,” was the secretary’s cautious reply. “If you give me your note, or write to his club, I will see that it is attended to. Doctor Monier wrote me three days ago asking me not to send his patient any matters concerning public affairs that might worry him.”

“But his daughter still remains in Chesterfield Street,” observed the Baronet. “It is strange she is not with him. The rumour is growing that Monkton has disappeared, and that the police are searching for him.”

“I know,” laughed the other. “I have heard so. It is all too ridiculous. The truth has already been published in the Press. Mr Monkton has had a very serious nervous breakdown, and is on the Riviera—even though it is summer.”

“You are quite certain of that—eh, Farloe?”

“Why should I tell you an untruth?” asked the secretary blandly.

They were standing near the Members’ post-office, and the Baronet, having exchanged a nod with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who was just passing into the House itself, gazed full into the secretary’s eyes.

“Tell me, Farloe—tell me in strict confidence,” he urged. “I’ll not whisper a word, but—well, do you happen to know anyone of the name of Stent?”

The young man hesitated, though he preserved the most complete and remarkable control.

“Stent? Stent?” he repeated. “No. The name is quite unfamiliar to me.”

“Are you quite certain? Think.”

“I have already thought. I have never heard that name,” was the reply.

“You are quite positive that he is not acquainted with Mr Monkton in some peculiar and mysterious way?”

“How should I possibly know? All the Colonial Minister’s friends are not known to me. Mr Monkton is a very popular man, remember. But why,” he added, “do you ask about this man Stent?”

“Because it is told to me that he is a mysterious friend of Monkton’s.”

“Not as far as I am aware,” declared Farloe. “I certainly have no knowledge of their friendship, and the name is so unusual that one would certainly recollect it.”

The Baronet smiled. Farloe, seeing that he was unconvinced, was eager to escape from any further awkward cross-examination.

“I really wish that you would be frank with me,” said Sir Archibald, who was one of Britain’s business magnates and a great friend of Monkton’s. “I am informed that this person Stent is in possession of the true and actual facts concerning the Minister’s curious disappearance.”

Farloe realised that something was leaking out, yet he maintained a firm attitude of pretended resentment.

“Well, Sir Archibald,” he protested. “I cannot well see how I can be more frank with you. I’ve never heard of this mysterious person.”

“H’m!” grunted the Baronet, unconvinced. “Perhaps one day, my dear Farloe, you will regret this attempt to wriggle out of a very awkward situation.” Then, after a pause, he added: “You know quite as well as I, with others, know, that my friend Monkton is missing!” and the Baronet turned abruptly, leaving Farloe standing in the Lobby. He passed the two police constables and the idling detective, and entered the House itself.

Farloe, utterly aghast at Sir Archibald’s remarks and the knowledge he evidently possessed, walked blindly out of St. Stephen’s full of grave thoughts.

Not only were the police hot upon the trail which might lead them to the astounding truth concerning the death of the man who, dressed in the Colonial Minister’s clothes, had expired in the house in Chesterfield Street, but the facts were being rumoured that night in the world of politics, and to-morrow the chattering little world which revolves in the square mile around Piccadilly and calls itself Society, would also be agog with the sinister story.

At the corner of Dean’s Yard, not a hundred yards from where the taxi-man Davies had been hailed and the unidentified stranger had been put into his cab, Farloe found a passing taxi and in it drove to his rooms, a cosy little first-floor flat in Ryder Street, St. James’s.

So eager was he that, without taking off his hat, he went at once to the telephone on his writing-table and asked for “trunk.” Ten minutes later he spoke to somebody.

“Get in your car, and come here at once!” he said. “There’s not an instant to be lost. I’ll wait up for you, but don’t delay a moment. I can’t talk over the ’phone, but the situation is very serious. Bring a suit-case. You may have to go to the Continent by the nine o’clock train in the morning.”

He listened attentively to the reply.

“Eh—what? Oh!—yes. I sent a boy with a letter to Knightsbridge station. She’s got away all right. Do get here as quickly as you can—won’t you? Leave your car in some garage, and walk here. Don’t stop the car outside. I’ll leave the hall-door ajar for you. No—I can’t tell you anything more over the ’phone—I really can’t.”

Chapter Eleven.

Mainly Concerns Mr Stent.

James Farloe hung up the telephone receiver, and, lighting a cigar, sat down to think, while wailing for his visitor.

He was rather a good-looking young fellow, but, examined closely, his face was not prepossessing. There was a certain furtive expression about him, as of a man continually on the watch lest he should betray himself, and the eyes were shifty. His sister was probably as insincere as himself, but, on the whole, she made a better impression.

He was too perturbed to sit for long, for, truth to tell, his thoughts were not pleasant company. Two or three times he got up and paced the room, with a noiseless stealthy tread that was characteristic of him. Then, tired of the monotony of waiting, he selected a book from the limited store in a small revolving bookcase, and tried to read.

But the words danced before his unquiet eyes, and conveyed no meaning. Again and again he had to resort to his noiseless pacings of the thickly-carpeted room, to allay the tedium of waiting.

But the slow minutes passed at last. He drew out his watch, noted the time, and drew a sigh of relief. It was one-thirty a.m.

“He can’t be long now,” he muttered. “At this hour of the night he can put on any speed he likes. He’s an obstinate devil, but he would be pretty sure to start straight away, after my urgent summons.”

Even as he spoke, the figure of a man in a motor-cap and heavy overcoat was stealing quietly along Ryder Street. A moment more, and footsteps were heard on the stairs.

Farloe hastened to open the hall-door of his cosy little suite, and closed it noiselessly after the entrance of his visitor. They nodded to each other. The man advanced, and stood under the electric light suspended from the middle of the ceiling.

He was of medium height, well-dressed, and of gentlemanly appearance. He had aquiline features, and piercing dark eyes.

He was the man who had been identified by Davies the driver as one of the two who had put the dying man in his taxi at Dean’s Yard, with instructions to drive him to Chesterfield Street—the man known to the police, through the information given by Mrs Saxton, by the name of Stent.

They did not waste time in preliminary remarks or greetings; they were probably too old acquaintances to indulge in such trivial formalities, but proceeded to business at once.

“So she got clear away?” remarked the man known as Stent. “I always said she was one of the smartest women in England. How did she outwit the detective?”

Farloe smiled. “It was beautifully simple,” he replied. “She ’phoned me up in the morning to say she was starting in a few moments, and that she was sure this fellow would hang on to her as long as he could. She asked me if I could suggest any way of outwitting him. At the moment I couldn’t.”

Stent darted a glance at his companion which was not exactly one of appreciation. “Your sister is quicker at that sort of thing than you,” he said briefly.

Farloe did not appear to notice the slight conveyed in the words and tone, and went on in his smooth voice:

“I expect so. Anyway, she had it cut and dried. She was going to lead him a nice little dance till it was time to get rid of him. She would take him down to Piccadilly Circus, trot him about there for some little time, and then get back to the Knightsbridge Tube Station.”

“Yes—and then?”

“I was to send a boy with a note to the Tube station at a certain time. I picked up a boy, giving him a full description of her, and packed him off. All happened as she expected. The man was tempted away by the boy, out of whom he could get nothing that would be of any use to him, and for a few moments left her unwatched. Hers was a bold stroke. While he was interviewing the urchin, she slipped into a descending lift, and left Mr Detective glaring at her from outside.”

Stent laughed appreciatively. “Well done!” he remarked. “But I have no doubt she would have hit upon something else had that failed.”

Farloe assented briefly. He was very fond of his sister, but it had always been rather a sore point with him to know that she had impressed everybody with the fact that she was much the cleverer and subtler of the two.

There was a brief pause. Then Farloe pointed to the table, upon which stood glasses, a decanter of whisky, and a syphon of soda-water.

“Help yourself, and sit down while we chat,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sorry to have brought you out so late.”

Stent helped himself liberally to the spirit, took a long draught, and sat down in one of the two big saddle-bag chairs. When he had entered the room, Farloe had noticed certain signs of irritation. Perhaps the soothing influence of the whisky helped to restore him to a more equable frame of mind. Anyway, when he answered Farloe his voice was quite smooth and amiable.

“Yes, I was deucedly put out at having to start off at a minute’s notice. If I hadn’t said good-bye to nerves long ago, you would have made me feel quite jumpy, with your talk about bringing a suit-case with me, and having to cross the Channel. Now let me know the meaning of it all. I’ve brought the suit-case in the car. Tell me,” he urged, fixing the younger man with his keen piercing gaze. Farloe shifted a little uneasily under that intense glance. Somehow, he never felt quite at his ease in Stent’s presence.

“I haven’t your nerves, or, rather the want of them, that I admit. And perhaps I take fright a little too easily. Still, I think you ought to be informed of this: that certain people are beginning to know—well—a bit too much.”

Stent’s hard, resolute mouth curved in a smile that was half incredulous, half contemptuous.

“Certain people always know too much—or too little. In this case, I should say it was the latter.”

But Farloe stuck to his guns. “I was tackled to-night at the House by Sir Archibald Turtrell. You know of him, of course?”

The other nodded. There was vindictiveness in his tone, as he replied: “A regular old cackler and bore.”

“I don’t dispute he is both, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he pushed me very hard with some searching questions. I parried them as best I could, but from his last remarks I could see he didn’t believe a word I was saying.”

Stent shifted uneasily in his chair; his ill-humour was evidently returning.

“My dear Farloe, you must excuse me for saying that you don’t always act with the greatest discretion. Why the devil do you want to go to the House at all for, laying yourself open to be cross-examined by anybody and everybody you meet? Look how differently your sister has acted; she has lain as low as possible, and finally shown them a clean pair of heels. I don’t advise you to do exactly the same, for obvious reasons, but it would be advisable to keep very much out of the way till things have blown over.”

The younger man was evidently not thin-skinned, or he would have indulged in some outburst at those very candid remarks. Stent went on, in his hard, but not altogether unpleasant voice:

“It has often struck me that this sort of thing is not quite suitable to a man of your temperament. But now you are in it, you must cultivate the art of keeping your nerves in better order, as I have done. Don’t start at shadows. What you have told me doesn’t disturb me in the least; it is just what might be expected.”

“You haven’t forgotten that young beggar Varney is on the track?” put in Farloe quietly. “I saw him go into Monkton’s house as late as yesterday. He is more to be feared than Smeaton, in my opinion.”

“I don’t care a snap of the finger for the young pup,” cried the other, in his most obstinate voice, and a tightening of the resolute jaw that was so well-matched with the dark, piercing eyes.

Farloe waited till his companion’s momentary irritation had subsided, then he put a question.

“You are quite sure that the police have not traced you yet?”

“Absolutely,” came Stent’s reply. He added, in his grimmest manner; “I’ve not given them a chance.”

They talked on for a long time, the elder man combating sometimes half humorously, sometimes with ill-concealed irritation, the pessimism of the other. At length when he rose it was nearly three o’clock.

“You will let me put you up for the night,” urged Farloe.

“To be in time for the Paris train in the morning?” laughed the other. “No, thanks, my friend. I want to be somewhere else about that time.”

He had drunk a good deal during the interview, and Farloe knew that he was getting into one of those dare-devil moods, in which it was rather dangerous to play with him, or to cross him.

“As you please,” he said, a little sullenly. “I hope you are quite right in your confidence that they have not got on our tracks yet.”

“Make your mind easy, my dear chap. Your sister took care of that by putting our friend Smeaton on a wrong scent. I have often laughed when I thought of them hunting every nook and corner around St. Albans for the gentleman with whom she had only a casual acquaintance.”

Farloe made no reply. Stent held out one hand, and with the other clapped the young man on the shoulder with rough good humour.

“Good-night, old man. Go to bed and sleep soundly, for I’m going. And, I say, don’t bring me out again on a midnight ride like this unless there is very strong reason. Now, just a last word—and I say it in all seriousness—I am not a bit discouraged by what you have told me. Let them smell about, but they’ll find nothing.”

He turned to the door, and fired a parting shot:

“Now, you follow my advice not to give way to idle fancies, and you’ll turn out as well as any of us. And we shall all be proud of you. Once again, good-night.”

As he spoke the last word, the telephone bell rang, and he paused, and turned round.

Farloe looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Past three, by Jove! There’s only one person would ring me up at this time of night. It’s Maude. Perhaps it is important; you had better stay a moment,” he said.

Stent stayed. Farloe took off the receiver, and listened for a little time to the voice at the other end. Although Stent could not distinguish the words, now and then he caught an inflection that he recognised. Farloe’s conjecture was right. It was Mrs Saxton who had rung him up.

Then Stent heard the young man’s reply.

“Hold on a minute, he is here. He was just going when you rang.”

He beckoned to Stent. “She wanted me to send you word that she wished to meet you. You can arrange it with her yourself.”

They talked for a few seconds. At one of her remarks Stent laughed heartily. He turned to Farloe.

“She is suggesting that we don’t make it the Knightsbridge Tube Station.” Then he turned again to the instrument.

“That was a capital move of yours; your brother has just been telling me about it. Really, I think just now it might be as convenient a place as any; they would never think you would have the cheek to go there again so soon. Let us meet at the old spot. That’s safe enough. To-morrow then. All right. Good-bye.”

Chapter Twelve.

The Occupier of Forest View.

When Mason, Detective-Sergeant, C.I.D., with crestfallen air narrated the history of his adventures with the elusive Mrs Saxton, he had expected his chief to indulge in a few sarcastic comments. But Smeaton only shrugged his shoulders expressively. After all, he had come off only second best in his encounter with her himself.

“A very clever woman, Mason,” he said, after some hesitation. “I found that out at the start. It means she has made a bolt of it. It will be some time before Hyde Park Mansions sees her again.”

He was right. Three days elapsed, and the fugitive did not return. On the fourth, Mason, acting in accordance with instructions, went boldly up to the flat and rang the bell.

The neat-looking maid told him that her mistress had gone abroad.

Mason affected to be very much put out. “Dear me, it’s very annoying. I wanted to see her on most urgent business. Can you oblige me with her address?”

“She didn’t leave one, sir. She said she would be back in a month or six weeks, and would be travelling about from place to place all the time. She told us that any letters could wait till her return.”

Mason observed her sharply while she gave this information in quite a natural manner. She seemed a simple, innocent kind of girl. Of course, she might be in league with the escaped woman, but he was rather inclined to believe she was telling the truth.

Mrs Saxton had begun to find the atmosphere a trifle uncomfortable, and had duped her servants with this story of going abroad, he reasoned with himself. She might give London itself a wide berth, but she was somewhere near where she could be in pretty close touch with her friends. Of that he was certain.

Things, therefore, were at a deadlock as concerned Stent and this woman.

Meanwhile, young Varney, confident that Farloe was a mysterious and important connecting link, kept a steady watch upon the chambers in Ryder Street.

For the first three days his exertions went unrewarded. But on the fourth he followed Farloe in a taxi to the Great Eastern Hotel, in Liverpool Street, where he was joined by a man whom, by his strongly marked aquiline features and piercing eyes, he suspected to be the elusive Stent.

When the pair left the hotel, he followed them. It was the luncheon hour, and the city streets were crowded. For full five minutes he kept them in sight, and then he became separated and lost them.

On the second occasion he was more fortunate. About three o’clock one afternoon the pair came forth from Farloe’s chambers, and together walked leisurely, talking earnestly the while.

As far as Victoria Station they went together to the Brighton line. There they parted. The elder man entered the booking-hall of the London and Brighton line, and asked for a ticket to Horsham. Varney did the same.

It was a slow train, and half-empty. When Horsham was reached, only three passengers alighted: himself, the man he was watching, and a young woman.

He inquired of the ticket-collector if at any place near he could hire a cycle, as he thought of coming down for a week’s holiday, and would like to explore the country for an hour or so.

The man directed him to a shop close by. He seemed a very civil young fellow, and Varney chatted with him for a few seconds.

“By the way,” he said, as he moved away. “That gentleman who went out just now—isn’t he Mr Emerson, the well-known barrister?”

The young man shook his head. “No, sir. Mr Strange has recently come to live here, about five months ago. He’s taken Forest View, an old-fashioned house a mile and a half away.”

“Curious,” remarked the amateur detective, in a voice of well-feigned surprise. “Really, how very easily one may be mistaken. I see Mr Emerson three or four times each week, and I could have sworn it was he.”

The ticket-collector smiled civilly, but made no reply. He was not interested in this sudden creation of Varney’s lively imagination.

The journalist crossed to the cycle shop and there hired a machine, paying down the usual deposit. He wheeled it until he met a small boy, from whom he inquired the whereabouts of Forest View.

He was on the right road, the boy informed him. The house with green iron gates lay on the left-hand side. His machine would take him there in a few minutes.

However, he did not mount it, as in that case he would quickly overtake Mr Strange, who was proceeding there on foot. He preferred that this gentleman should get there first, so as to give him an opportunity of having a good look round.

Twenty minutes’ easy walking brought him to the big iron gates of Forest View. He had seen the man disappear within, about a couple of hundred yards in front of him. There was not a soul in sight; he could reconnoitre at his leisure.

The house, old-fashioned, low and rather rambling, lay well back from the white high road, at right angles to it. A thick hedge led up to within a few feet of the entrance. It seemed to boast a fair piece of ground, at least three acres. The entrance to some rather dilapidated stabling was lower down the road.

He felt a sense of triumph. Smeaton, he knew, was still searching for Stent, and he, the amateur, had forestalled him. Was he right, after all, in his surmise that by some curious lapse the man of wider experience had left Farloe out of his calculations, and the man Stent was identical with the man Strange?

His survey finished, he mounted his machine, and rode along, thinking out his plans.

“Find a nice comfortable inn somewhere near, but not too close, pose as an artist out for a brief holiday, and find out all there is to be found about the mysterious Mr Strange,” was the result of his meditations.

A mile lower down the road he came upon a small, old-fashioned inn, with a swinging sign, and trailing roses over the porch and walls. There he entered, and called for some refreshment.

“Thirsty with your ride—eh, sir?” asked the landlord pleasantly.

“A bit, although I haven’t ridden very far yet. I hired a machine in the town in order to have a look round. I want a week’s holiday badly, and I should like to hit upon some quiet quarters about here. It seems a nice piece of country.”

The landlord pricked up his ears. “Perhaps it’s the George in Horsham you might prefer.”

“Oh dear no! I want an old-fashioned inn, like this. But I suppose you don’t take guests?”

The fat landlord glanced at him hesitatingly. Varney was attired in a well-cut Norfolk suit, and his plush Homburg hat must have hailed from Bond Street. He looked the sort of man for a fashionable hotel, not an obscure bacon-and-egg inn.

“Well, sir, we do now and again. We don’t pretend to do you like the big places with French dishes and that sort of thing. But my wife is a good plain cook, and you won’t get better meat and chickens than we have.”

Terms were soon arranged. Varney—or Mr Franks as he announced himself to the landlord—would come down to-morrow, bringing with him a few sketching materials.

Next day Varney returned with a portable easel, and other paraphernalia appertaining to his supposed art. He had not been in the house half-an-hour before he engaged the landlord in a conversation about the local gentry. And it was soon deftly focussed upon the owner of Forest View.

Mr Peter Chawley was by nature a gregarious and communicative soul. He was only reticent when policy or prudence counselled such a course of action.

“Mr Strange has been here about five months,” he informed young Varney, in his fat, somewhat wheezy voice, “but we don’t know very much about him. When he first came, he used to go up to London pretty often, but for some time he has hardly stirred out of the house.”

“Has he any acquaintances in the place?”

Mr Chawley shook his head. “Doesn’t want any, so he told the Vicar when he called upon him. Said he had come here for a quiet life, and wanted to get away from his business in London and the friends he had already. Of course, that was a pretty broad hint—so nobody called. He doesn’t deal with anybody here for a pennyworth of matches. Gets everything from London.”

“What household has he? And is he a widower, or bachelor, or married?”

“Told the Vicar he was a widower. He has three maids: the cook, a middle-aged woman, housemaid, and parlourmaid—all three he brought with him. The gardener’s a local man, a young chap, and comes in here once in a while; but he knows no more than the rest of us. He hardly ever enters the house, and the maids don’t chatter.”

Forest View was a household that evidently kept its own secrets. The maids did not chatter, even to the young local gardener. Mystery here, thought Varney, without a doubt. It was his business to fathom it. Was he really Stent? That was the point.

“He got the house pretty cheap,” went on Mr Chawley, who was not easily stopped when he indulged in reminiscence, “because it had been unlet for five years. It’s a funny old place, all nooks and corners, without any modern convenience. Some people say it’s haunted, and I’ve heard that there is a secret room in it, like what they used to hide the priests in in the old days.”

A mysterious house, with a mysterious owner, truly, thought Varney, as the landlord rambled on.

“Does he have anybody to see him?”

“He never seems to have had but one visitor, a gentleman rather older than himself. He used to run down for two or three days at a time. For some time now he’s been staying with him altogether.”

Varney pricked up his ears. Was he going to discover anything useful?

“Do you know his friend’s name?” he asked eagerly.

“No, sir. The gardener has never heard it, but then, as I say, he hardly ever goes inside the house.”

The next day, and the day after, Varney watched Forest View closely. From the roadway he had a fairly clear view of the sloping lawn. But neither its occupier nor his visitor were tempted out by the beautiful weather. They were certainly an extraordinary pair to shut themselves up in a gloomy house on these bright sunshiny days.

On the third day, however, both emerged from their seclusion, and sauntered on to the lawn. The visitor seemed to stoop slightly, and walk with the languid air of a man who had recently recovered from an illness.

They walked about only for a little while, and, as they went back into the house, Varney, from his hiding-place behind the hedge, heard Mr Strange say:

“Well, if you think you feel fit enough, we will walk into Horsham after lunch. We can drive back. It may do you good.”

An idea had formed itself in Varney’s brain, fitting in with one of the theories he had formed about this remarkable case.

A little after one o’clock the supposed artist stole through the door of the inn, a basket in one hand, a good-sized bag in the other.

A few yards down the road he disappeared up a side road, crossed a field, and advanced towards an old disused barn which he had noted on the previous day, and slipped inside.

A few moments later there issued a strange and shabbily dressed figure, with a slouching walk. On his left arm hung a basket, full of roses, which had been bought a short time ago from Mrs Chawley. They were so beautiful, Varney told her, that he must paint them.

In the guise of a decrepit flower-seller he limped along to the narrow main street of Horsham, and hung about till the pair from Forest View arrived, when he faced them and advancing towards them with his basket before him, he whined when he had got up to them:

“Buy a bunch of roses, sir. Threepence a bunch. All fresh picked, sir.”

“No,” said Strange gruffly, “we don’t want any, got lots of them,” and the pair turned away in ignorance that within that basket, concealed by the flowers, was a small detective camera by which a snapshot of both of them had already been cleverly secured in secret.

Varney made his way back at once to the old barn, where he discarded his shabby jacket and cap.

Early next morning he was on his way to Smeaton. He had a hope that his investigations had been fruitful, but he could not be sure. Certainly the face and figure of the man Strange answered to the description of the person named Stent whom Scotland Yard had been unable to trace.

Having developed and printed the photograph at his own rooms, he was shown into Smeaton’s bare official sanctum which overlooked Westminster Bridge, when the celebrated official rose and gripped his hand.

“Well, Varney?” he asked, “have you done anything in the Monkton mystery—eh?”

“Yes. A bit. Look here. Is this Stent—or not? If it is. I’ve found him.”

The detective took the damp print and examined it curiously in the light by the window.

“Well—the only man who can really identify it is our friend at the Savoy Hotel. Let’s take a taxi and go and see him.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Contains Further Discoveries.

They found the hall-porter at the Savoy hotel, and showed him the print. It was not a very wonderful specimen of the photographer’s art, but it was enough for Smeaton’s old friend.

“That’s him—right enough!” the man in uniform exclaimed. “And you say that you were told his name was Stent by the lady we spoke about, and this gentleman has discovered him under another name. Well, I always thought there was something mysterious about him.”

After such confirmation it could no longer be doubted that Varney had run the supposed Stent to earth. He felt a distinct sense of triumph. He had hoped his exertions might have produced some startling results, but still, he had done something.

Smeaton was not an envious man, and congratulated him heartily. “It’s really a feather in your cap, my dear Varney,” he said amiably. “You got on the right track this time.”

Varney thanked him for his encouraging words. “Now, what’s the next move? I leave it to you.”

Smeaton thought a few seconds before he answered. When he spoke, he voiced the man’s inmost thoughts.

“I think the best thing you can do is to go back and keep up the sketching business. We want to find out all we can about that house and its mysterious inmates. And we especially want to know something about that invalid visitor. There is just a chance, of course, that you may find Mrs Saxton popping up there.”

As all this exactly coincided with his own theory, Varney acquiesced readily. He would go back to Horsham the next day, and resume his watch on Forest View.

“You can’t be watching in two places at once,” added Smeaton presently. “So we will take up Farloe.”

So it was decided. Mrs Saxton having disappeared, with small likelihood of her return, there remained three people to be shadowed: the secretary, Bolinski, and the man who went by the name of Strange, and who, for reasons of his own, was keeping away from the Savoy, and coming to London as seldom as possible.

Varney’s discovery, of which he was not a little proud, was duly reported to Sheila by the young man himself, who called upon her as soon as he had left Smeaton.

She could not but admire his energy and determination, and she told him so, in no measured terms. But when he had gone, she could not help thinking how futile it all seemed.

“They all find a little something, and then they seem to come up against a dead end,” she said to Wingate, when he paid her his usual daily visit. “Weeks have gone by, and the mystery is as deep as ever. How can it be otherwise? What have they got to go upon?”

And Wingate, taking her slender hand in his and pressing it, agreed that it was so. He felt, as she did, that anything would be better than this horrible uncertainty.

They had grown very dear to each other in these dark and dismal days. She had liked him from the first, and recognised in him one of those straight, clean-living young Englishmen to whom a girl might safely entrust her life and happiness. He was so tender, so chivalrous, so sympathetic.

If, for a few moments, she threw off the heavy load of sorrow weighing upon her, and showed some semblance of her former bright spirit, he fell at once into her mood. And if she preferred silence, her sorrow-laden eyes filled with tears, he sat silent too, only evincing by a glance, or the pressure of her hand, that he understood and sympathised.

It was not a time for ardent love-making. But for this tragedy in her life, he might never have summoned courage to make love to her at all. The daughter of Reginald Monkton, the rich and popular statesman, seemed so far out of his reach. With her beauty and her advantages, she could aspire to a brilliant match.

Her position now, that of a lonely and orphaned girl, had altered everything, and swept away social barriers. Insensibly, she had been drawn to him, till it seemed he was part of her life.

And a time came when he could tell her of the desire of his heart. One evening, when they had been saying good-bye, she had suddenly broken down, and burst into bitter sobbing.

He had taken her in his arms, and whispered soothing words, while his pulses beat at the contact of her slender form. She had lain in the big chair, crying more quietly as he strove to comfort her. And then she had lifted up her pitiful face to his, and said:

“Oh! Austin, how good and gentle you are with me. How could I have borne it without you?”

He took heart of grace at those tender words. His clasp round her tightened.

“I have been of some help to you, then, dearest?”

“The greatest,” she answered fervently. “If you did not come to me every day, I think I should go mad.”

He bent down and laid his lips upon her bowed head.

“Dearest, if I have been able to comfort you now, could you let me comfort and cherish you all my life? It is hardly a time to speak of such things, but I have loved you from the first moment we met—do you remember that day on the river, and afterwards, when I saw you at Hendon, and you asked me to call?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said in a low whisper.

“Well, dearest, even if the worst should befall, you will want somebody to share your grief with you till time heals your sorrow. I shall not press you till the first bitterness has passed. Then, when you feel you can take up your life again, may I come to you, and repeat what I have said to-night?”

“Yes. Come again some day when my tears have had time to dry, and I will answer as you wish.”

Reverently he kissed the lips that were still trembling from her recent emotion. That night he seemed to walk on air when he left the house, where he had spent so many happy hours before this terrible tragedy had overtaken them.

He had loved her in the bloom and brightness of her youthful beauty, courted and caressed by all who knew her, the idol of her father, the light of his home, moving like a young princess among her subjects. But he loved her ten times more now—pale and sad, with sorrow for her companion day and night.

Meanwhile, down at Forest View things were going very quietly. Varney had long chats with the landlord, and of an evening he picked up a few acquaintances in the inn, and talked with them, always leading the conversation round to the subject of Mr Strange.

But he could discover nothing of any value. Nobody knew anything of the man’s antecedents. As a matter of fact, he did not seem to interest anybody in the place. They simply regarded him as an eccentric sort of person who wished to have nothing to do with his neighbours.

He learned that, immediately on his arrival. Strange had ordered a telephone to be installed. He also gathered from the local postman, whose acquaintance he cultivated, that very few letters were received. Further, that most of them were in a feminine hand. And these had been coming rather more frequently of late.

He at once jumped to the conclusion that the female correspondent was Mrs Saxton. But that did not help him much. They knew already that Strange and she were closely connected.

The two maids walked down to Horsham occasionally. So far he had not set eyes upon the cook, who, apparently, did not require any change of scene.

He was a presentable young fellow enough, and he imagined it would not be difficult to scrape up an acquaintance with the young women. The one whom he took to be the parlourmaid, by her superior bearing, was a good-looking girl.

He tried her first. He opened his campaign by overtaking her on the road, and remarking on the pleasantness of the weather. If she resembled the majority of her class, she would not object to exchanging a few remarks with a decent-looking member of the other sex.

For himself, he was quite prepared to indulge in a flirtation, even a little mild love-making, if it would enable him to worm something out of her about the mysterious inmates of Forest View.

But the parlourmaid was one too many for him. She made no answer to his remark, and when he continued to walk along beside her, in the hope that her silence was only meant for coquetry, she stopped suddenly and faced him.

“Look here, young man,” she said, regarding him with a distinctly hostile countenance; “I’ll thank you not to address any more remarks to me. I suppose you think yourself a gentleman, and because I’m in service I shall be flattered by your taking notice of me. Well, just understand I’m not that sort. When you meet me again, perhaps you’ll remember it.”

She quickened her footsteps, and left Varney feeling very foolish. It was a rebuff alike to the man and the amateur detective. Yes, he had blundered.

She had a good figure, and she carried herself well, walking with a light springy step. She was dressed plainly in neat but evidently inexpensive clothes, such as were suitable to her class. If she had been attired in proper garments, she would have been taken for a young lady immediately.

The thing that puzzled him most was her voice. She had addressed him as “young man,” and there was a certain blunt insolence in her remarks which negatived the idea of refinement.

But even if her speech had been absolutely vulgar, the voice was unmistakably high-bred and cultivated; in a word, the voice of a lady. How came it that Mr Strange’s parlourmaid wore the clothes of a servant, and spoke in the tones of a highly educated young woman? It was one more mystery.

Nothing daunted, he pursued the same tactics with the housemaid when he met her walking alone. She was a plain girl, evidently of a different class. At the start she was more civil, but after a minute or two, during which she had given the briefest answers to his ingratiating questions, she had turned upon him like the other, only in a less hostile manner, and explained to him that she did not desire either his conversation or his company.

She was a little more polite than the parlourmaid, but that was all. She addressed him respectfully but firmly.

“Excuse me, sir, but if it’s the same to you, I’d rather walk alone. I’m not fond of making the acquaintance of gentlemen I know nothing about.”

Poor Varney felt he was not a success with the fair sex. Or did they suspect him?

A further piece of information, however, he got from his friend the postman. He had asked Wingate and Sheila to occasionally put a blank sheet of paper in an envelope, and address it to him under the name of Franks, to keep up appearances.

He met the man one morning outside Forest View and asked if there were any letters for him.

“None by this post, sir. Never had such a light round. This is the last; it’s for Mr Gregory, at Forest View, the gentleman what’s staying there.”

So Gregory was the name of the invalid, who kept so closely to the house.

But Gregory, no doubt, was an assumed name, like Stent alias Strange.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Cipher of the Two C’s.

“I am going to ask you a question, dearest; I fear it is a painful one, but I think it ought to be put.”

It was Austin Wingate who spoke. He had dined with Sheila at Chesterfield Street, and after dinner the lovers had gone to her own sitting-room, which was on the first floor.

She looked at him steadfastly. “Painful or not, Austin, please put it. You would not hurt me, I know, unless you felt it was absolutely necessary.”

“Of course not, Sheila,” answered the young man fervently. “In our anxiety to solve this mystery concerning your father we must shrink from nothing. The question I am going to ask you, dear, is this: Have you ever had any cause to suspect there was some hidden mystery in your father’s life? Do not be offended—will you?”

She smiled faintly. “What is called a skeleton in the cupboard, you mean—eh? It seems impossible when one comes to consider the kind of man he was. In political matters he was reserved; that was natural. I have heard him laugh often over the efforts of people to draw him. But, in every other respect he seemed as frank and open as the day.”

“He gave me that impression certainly,” assented Wingate. “During my mother’s lifetime I don’t know that I counted greatly in his life. He was so wrapped up in her that he seemed to have no room for anybody else,” went on the girl, in a musing voice. “Then, after her death, and when his first passionate grief died down, he listened to me. I could not hope to fill her place, but I became very necessary to him. He has told me many times that but for me he would have been the most miserable man on earth. I gave him new interests, and weaned him away from his sad thoughts.”

Wingate leaned forward, and kissed her tenderly upon the brow. “You were born for the rôle of ministering angel, my darling,” he declared.

She thanked him with a grateful glance for the pretty compliment. “You ask me if I ever had cause to suspect that there was some hidden mystery in his life. I can only answer, none. His life seemed to me like an open book, that all who ran might read.”

Wingate was silent for a little time. This was the impression made upon his daughter, an only child, who would have the most intimate opportunity of judging him. It was the impression he had made upon close friends and casual acquaintances alike.

And yet who could be sure? A man trained to the law, versed in public affairs, was he likely to wear his heart upon his sleeve?

When he spoke, it was in a hesitating voice: “I agree that intuition is a very safe guide in many instances. And I believe with you that your father’s life was a blameless one. Still, there is one little thing we must not overlook.”

“And that little thing?” she questioned in a low voice.

“What was the connection between him and the man whom they have identified as Bolinski? Why does a man in his position make an appointment with a person so evidently not of his own world, unless to discuss something of a secret and mysterious nature? Remember where they met, in a little hole-and-corner restaurant in Soho.”

“It has puzzled me, I admit,” replied Sheila. “It is strange, too, that he told me nothing of the appointment, for he used to inform me of his most trivial movements. Thinking over it, as I have over every other incident, I believe it was connected with politics—there are plenty of under-currents in them, as we know. He would not say anything to me about this meeting for fear I might drop an incautious word to some of our friends.”

“It is evident that he apprehended no treachery from this man,” was Wingate’s next remark, “or he would have taken some means to safeguard himself. I mean, for one thing, he would not have left the House of Commons alone. It may be, as you suggest, that this curious meeting, in an out-of-the-way and obscure restaurant, may have had some political motive. But I can hardly bring myself to believe it. I am sure that what brought such a strangely assorted couple together was a private and personal matter.”

“And that we have no means of knowing,” said Sheila sadly.

He was glad that she had not resented his question, and the suggestions that arose from it. It emboldened him to proceed.

“As I have said, it is our duty to leave no stone unturned, to look even in unlikely places for any fresh evidence which might afford a clue. There must be a mass of papers in this house I think you ought to go through them, darling.”

She gave a little cry. “Oh!” she said in a tearful voice. “It seems almost like sacrilege.”

“If such a search were conducted by other hands, it might be so, but assuredly not in your case.”

She thought a little, and her common-sense came to her aid.

“You are quite right, Austin, as you always are. It will be a terrible task, but, as you say, we must leave no stone unturned. I will begin to-morrow, and keep on till I have finished.”

He called late next day, and found that she had got about half-way through the various piles. But so far she had found nothing of importance.

“I came across a few diaries. He seems to have kept them for the best part of five years, and then dropped the practice. They contain records of appointments, whom he met, and political events, but there’s not a single entry that throws any light upon this affair.”

“I wonder if Farloe has any of his papers, or, more likely still, has abstracted any?” said Wingate in a musing voice.

Sheila shuddered at the name. “No wonder that I always hated him,” she cried vehemently. “Shall we ever learn the part he played in this mystery?”

It took her a few days to go through her task, for she was fearful of missing a line in those carefully docketed piles of papers. But it was all to no purpose.

If there had been a secret in Reginald Monkton’s life, no evidence had been preserved in these documents.

“Newsom-Perry is pretty sure to have some papers in his possession,” said Wingate, when she had finished her futile task. “I want to spare you everything I can, dear. Will you give me a note to him, and I will ask him to hand them over to you?”

Mr Newsom-Perry was Monkton’s solicitor, the head of the firm which had acted for the missing statesman, and his father before him.

Wingate presented himself at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and sent in his sweetheart’s note.

The solicitor, a genial, kindly-looking man of fifty or thereabouts, welcomed the young man cordially.

“Pleased to see you, Mr Wingate,” he said, as they shook hands. “Poor Monkton has spoken to me several times of you, in warm terms. I understand that you were a frequent visitor at the house before the sad event.”

Wingate explained that he was with Sheila awaiting her father, on the night when the dying man was brought to Chesterfield Street.

The shrewd, kindly eyes watched him as he made the explanation. Mr Newsom-Perry had his own ideas as to how matters stood between the young couple.

“And what can I do for you, Mr Wingate?”

“We thought it pretty certain that you would have some papers of Mr Monkton’s here. If that is the case, would you let his daughter look through them, in the hope of finding something that might throw a light upon the case?”

“Under the circumstances, by all means, Mr Wingate. Of course, we have got all his business documents, leases, and that kind of thing. Those would be useless for your purpose?”

“I should say, quite useless.”

“But I have a couple of boxes of private papers which he brought about two years ago. He had been sorting out, he said, and his own house was as full as it could hold. Knowing we had plenty of room, he thought we would not mind storing them. I will send them round some time to-day. When she has gone through them perhaps Miss Monkton will let me have them back until, until—” He laughed, and did not finish the sentence.

“I quite understand. Now I will take up as little time as possible, but there are one or two questions I should like to ask you, if I may.”

The solicitor nodded genially. “Go on, sir.”

“I take it that, having known Mr Monkton all your life, and your firm having acted for his father, you were entirely in your client’s confidence.”

“That is so. Monkton and I were personal friends, as well as solicitor and client. We were at Cambridge together, before either of us commenced our respective careers.”

“Has he, to your knowledge, ever made any active enemies?”

“Not that I know of. Political enemies, no doubt, he has by the score—myself included. But you know what English politics are. It’s a fair stand-up fight, and the loser grumbles a bit, but bears no rancour. Men abuse each other across the floor of the House, and are good friends again in the smoking-room.”

“One other question, a somewhat delicate one, and I have done. Had he ever an entanglement of any kind, the effects of which might pursue him in later life?”

The solicitor rubbed his chin, and quite frankly replied:

“Not to my knowledge. That does not, however, conclusively prove a negative.”

“But you were close personal friends, in addition to your business relation. Would it not be natural that, under such circumstances, he would come to you for advice?”

There seemed an extra gleam of shrewdness in the solicitor’s eyes as he answered:

“In such circumstances as you suggest it is by no means easy to predict what course a man would take. If Monkton had got into some entanglement that, to put it bluntly—although, mind you, I don’t believe such a thing occurred—reflected some doubt either on his character or on his intelligence, it is just as likely as not that his old friend would be the last person to whom he would care to expose himself. He would be equally likely to go to a stranger.”

Wingate was fain to admit the force of the argument.

“One can never be sure of any man, even if you have known him all your life,” he added, as they shook hands. “Nobody knows that better than our profession. But I would stake my existence that there were no skeletons in Monkton’s cupboard. The man was as straight as a die, and he was passionately attached to his beautiful wife. Well, Mr Wingate, give my best regards to dear Miss Sheila. I will send those boxes round to-day.”

He was as good as his word. Late in the afternoon they arrived, and Sheila at once set to work reading the various papers, not, it must be confessed, in a very hopeful spirit.

But when Wingate came round in the evening he found her in a state of greatest excitement.

She took from an envelope a letter containing only a few words and passed it to him. “Read that, and tell me what you make of it,” she said. “There is no formal beginning, and no signature. But you see it is addressed to my father, and was evidently delivered by hand.”

Upon the flap of the faded envelope Wingate saw some initials, two C’s in a cipher scroll embossed in black, an old-fashioned monogram such as was in vogue in the early “sixties.”

Then he read upon the half-sheet of notepaper, traced in a bold hand in ink that was brown, as follows:

“You have ruined and disgraced me, and forced me to fly the country and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. Well, I will be even with you. I will wait, if necessary all my life, till my turn comes. Then, when it does, I will strike you at the zenith of your career, and mete out to you the suffering you have dealt to me.”

Chapter Fifteen.

In which Smeaton Makes a Discovery.

Wingate laid down the letter and looked at Sheila, who was regarding him expectantly.

“What do you make of it?” she repeated.

“It is evident that he had an enemy, and a very bitter one,” answered her lover. “The sentences are deliberate, but they appear to have been written by a man who was in a white heat of passion when he penned them.”

“Smeaton ought to see that letter, without loss of time, dear,” she said.

“I quite agree. His trained intelligence may get more out of it than we can. I will make an appointment with him for to-morrow morning, and I will be here when he comes.”

Smeaton arrived next morning, hoping that at last he might discover a substantial clue. He read the brief note carefully and deliberately.

“Is it important, do you think?” inquired Sheila eagerly.

“In my opinion it is of very considerable importance. Miss Monkton,” he replied. “I think it will help us.”

“It certainly proves that he had a secret enemy,” interjected Wingate, “and one who would hesitate at nothing that would secure him revenge.”

“I quite agree, sir. The letter breathes the most intense hatred in every line. The motive of that hatred we have got to discover.”

Then the detective, turning to Sheila, said: “Now, Miss Monkton, there is a little information that I am sure you will be able to give us. I am not so well posted in your father’s biography as I ought to be. But, before he became a prominent politician, I understand that he was a barrister with an extensive and lucrative practice.”

“That is so,” corroborated Sheila. “He did not often talk about those times, but I have always understood that he made quite a big income at the Bar.”

“And when did he retire from his profession?”

“About fifteen years ago.”

“And he resolved to say good-bye to the Bar and devote himself entirely to politics?”

Sheila nodded. “That is quite true. He had a very firm opinion that a man could not serve two masters.”

“Was he on the Chancery or the Common Law side?” was Smeaton’s next question.

“On the Common Law,” replied Sheila. “But why do you ask that question?”

“You shall know in good time. Miss Monkton. Well, we may take it, then, that this vindictive letter was written more than fifteen years ago.”

“While he was still at the Bar,” interrupted Wingate, who was beginning to realise the point of the detective’s reasoning. “You are assuming that this venomous epistle did not come from a political enemy.”

“It is an assumption for which I have reasonable grounds,” was Smeaton’s answer. “There has been no bitterness in party politics ever since Mr Monkton became a conspicuous figure in the House. And we know that, while he was most popular with his own side, he was respected and liked by his political opponents.”

“Is it too much to ask you to give us the benefit of any theory you have formed, Mr Smeaton?” suggested Sheila, in her pretty, gracious way.

“With all the pleasure in life, my dear young lady. This letter goes back, in my opinion, to your father’s barrister days, when he was one of the foremost counsel in England. I asked you just now whether he was on the Equity or the Common Law side, and you wondered why I asked the question.”

“I am still wondering,” said Sheila simply.

“On the Equity side they try all sorts of cases concerned with points of law, the majority of them of a very dry and uninteresting character. I should not look in an Equity case for a defeated litigant who would turn into a vindictive enemy of the type of the writer of this letter.”

The young people began to see, as yet very dimly, whither he was leading them.

“On the Common Law side, on the contrary, we are brought into the world of human passion and emotion; one in which the issues of life or death are at stake. We will suppose that your father, in the plenitude of his powers, is retained as counsel against some adroit rogue, some swindling company promoter, for example, who up to that moment had managed to keep himself well on the right side of the law.”

They began to see light, and listened with the closest attention.

“We will say this swindler, a more than usually clever rascal, is living in luxury with his ill-gotten gains, when he makes a slip that brings him within reach of the long arm of justice. One of his victims (or perhaps several in combination) brings an action against him for the return of the money he has inveigled out of him by his lying prospectuses. He employs big counsel to defend him, but your father wins his case. The wealthy rogue is forced to disgorge, finds his occupation gone, and is reduced to penury.”

Sheila nodded to show that she was following his argument.

“I am assuming for a moment that it is a civil action, and that it disclosed sufficient evidence to justify his arrest on a criminal charge later on. I deduce that from the fact that he was not a convicted felon at the time of writing that letter, otherwise he would not have been able to write and send it to your father. The meaning of the words ‘forced me to fly the country’ indicate, in my opinion, that he was in hourly fear of arrest.”

“It seems a very feasible theory,” remarked Wingate.

“The rest is easy to understand. He nourishes a morbid hatred for the man who has been the means of menacing his liberty, and driving him from the society he polluted. He regards him as a personal enemy, not merely the instrument of the justice he has defied. While smarting under this, to his distorted ideas, sense of wrong, he pens the letter and has it conveyed to your father by some trusted confederate. As there is no stamp or postmark on it, it was conveyed by hand.”

Wingate looked at Sheila, and she returned his glance. They were both greatly impressed by the detective’s clear reasoning.

Smeaton took up the half-sheet of notepaper, and submitted it to a close observation.

“The man who wrote it is, I should judge, a keen business man of methodical habits, inclined to neatness, of a strong but not impulsive character. An impulsive man would have torn the sheet across, leaving a rough and jagged edge. It has been pressed down with the finger and thumb, and then carefully cut.”

He held the small sheet up to the light, and made further observations.

“A peculiar paper, peculiar, I mean, as to the texture. The watermark, in its entirety, is, fortunately for us, on this half-sheet. That enables us to trace where it comes from. Come here for a moment and stand beside me.”

They did so, followed his pointing finger, and saw a shield bearing a coat-of-arms, and beneath, the words: “Westford Mill.”

“That will help you,” cried Sheila eagerly.

“I hope so. It is, as I said, a paper of peculiar texture, and doubtless many tons of it have been sold. If, as I guess, it is now off the market, I shall be compelled to fix a date. If I do that, it would considerably narrow the field of my inquiries.”

After a little further conversation, Smeaton took his leave with the letter in his possession. Sheila and Wingate, when they were alone, indulged in mutual admiration of his powers of analysis and deduction.

The detective, an hour later, looked in upon Mr Newsom-Perry, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and handed him the document.

“We found this amongst the papers you sent to Miss Monkton,” he explained. “I called on the chance of finding that your client had spoken to you, at one time or another, of some man who sent him a threatening letter. I may say that we have found no allusion to it amongst the other papers.”

“Which seems to show that Monkton did not attach any importance to it himself, I should say,” remarked the solicitor. “No, so far as I am concerned he never alluded to the matter. You attach some importance to it—eh?”

“Some,” replied Smeaton guardedly.

“Of course, you have a wider experience of these things than I, and you are wise to neglect no possible clue. Still, I should think that any big counsel in extensive practice has many letters of this kind from impulsive and angry litigants, who regard him as the author of their ruin.”

Smeaton rose. “It may be so,” he said quietly. “This man was angry, but he was not impulsive; the handwriting alone proves that. He wrote the letter at white heat, but he is of a resolute and determined character.”

Even though the writer of the anonymous threat had overlooked the fact that a watermark was on the paper, the latter point was not half so easy to clear up as Sheila and Wingate expected.

To the chief firms of paper makers and paper agents in the City Smeaton, through the following days, showed a tracing of the watermark, but without result.

Nobody could identify it.

The managing director of one firm of paper agents in Queen Victoria Street declared it to be a foreign paper, even though it was marked “Westford Mill.”

“The vogue for English notepaper on the Continent has led French and German mills to produce so-called ‘English writing paper’,” he added. “And if I am not mistaken this is a specimen.”

For nearly a week Smeaton prosecuted his inquiries of stationers, wholesale and retail, in all parts of the metropolis, taking with him always the tracing of the watermark. He did not carry the letter, for obvious reasons.

One day at a small retail stationer’s in the Tottenham Court Road, when he showed the tracing to the elderly shopkeeper, the man exclaimed:

“Oh, yes! I’ve seen that before. It’s foreign. When I was an assistant at Grimmel and Grice’s in Bond Street, Mr Grice bought a quantity of it from Paris because of its unusual colour and texture. It was quite in vogue for a time, and it could only be obtained from us.”

“Then all of this particular paper came from Grimmel and Grice’s?”

“Certainly, sir, I recollect the ‘Westford Mill’ well. We supplied it to half the aristocracy of London.”

Smeaton, much pleased with his discovery, took a taxi to Bond Street, and entering the fashionable stationers’ addressed himself to the first person he saw, a young man of about twenty-five.

“Do you make this paper nowadays?” he asked.

The shopman examined it, and shook his head. “No, sir, that paper has not been sold here since I’ve been in the business.”

“And how long would that be?”

“A matter of six years or so.”

“I am anxious to make some further inquiries,” said Smeaton, after a moment’s pause. “Who is the oldest assistant in the shop?”

“Mr Morgan, sir. He’s been with Grimmel and Grice a matter of nearly fifty years, man and boy. He’s on the other side. I will take you to him.”

Smeaton was introduced to the veteran Mr Morgan, an alert-looking man, in spite of his years. Smeaton explained his name and errand, adding that he was from Scotland Yard. Morgan at once became interested. He looked at the watermark.

“I remember that paper well,” he said at length. “It had a tremendous vogue for a little time; we couldn’t get it over from Paris fast enough. Then it went as suddenly out of fashion.”

“I suppose you can’t help me with any dates?”

“Oh, but indeed I can, Mr Smeaton. I have a wonderful memory for everything connected with the business. Old Mr Grice used to say that my memory was as good as the firm’s books. The paper started just twenty-five years ago, and it ran for five years. After that, no more was made.”

Smeaton expressed his gratitude. Mr Morgan’s excellent memory would shorten his labours considerably.

“Can you give me any clue to these letters on the envelope, I wonder?”

But here Mr Morgan was at fault. “We supplied hundreds upon hundreds of customers at the time. And all our old ledgers were burnt in our fire fifteen years ago. But I think I recognise the workmanship of the cipher. I should say that stamp was cut by Millingtons in Clerkenwell Road. They made a speciality of that kind of thing years ago. If you go there, they may have some record. They’re new people there now; old Mr Millington is my senior by ten years or more. He sold the business about fifteen years ago. But he is still alive, and lives somewhere in the Camberwell direction.”

Smeaton entered the address in his notebook, and shook Mr Morgan cordially by the hand. He would go to the Clerkenwell Road, and, if necessary, hunt up the ancient Mr Millington. If he possessed as good a memory as his friend some very useful information might be gathered.

Chapter Sixteen.

Who was Monkton’s Enemy?

At the dingy little shop in Clerkenwell Smeaton received a check. The proprietor was out, and a stupid-looking youth who was in charge could give no information. He turned the envelope listlessly in his fingers, handed it back to the detective, and suggested that he should call later in the day, when his master would be in.

The business bore the appearance of decay, Smeaton thought, and if the master should prove no more intelligent than his assistant, it would only be a waste of time to question him.

Subsequently he called and saw the head of the declining firm, and from him learnt that the last he had heard of old Mr Millington was that he was living in New Church Road, Camberwell.

He at once took a taxi there, but on arrival was sadly disappointed to see that the house was to let, and that inquiries were to be made of a firm of house-agents.

He was soon at their office, and here he found an intelligent clerk, to whom he explained that he wished to make a few inquiries.

“I seem to remember the name,” said the clerk at length. “I believe he was the tenant when I first came into this business; a nice, quiet old man, who paid his rent on the day. The house has been let to two people since then.”

“Do you know where Millington went when he left?”

But the clerk’s mind was a blank on the subject. A bright idea, however, struck him, which, in a moment, would have occurred to Smeaton.

“Look here, sir. Why don’t you go and see the landlord, Mr Clarke? His house is in the Camberwell Road, only five minutes’ walk from here.”

The detective thanked him, and armed with the address set forth on a fresh pilgrimage. In a few moments he was interviewing the landlord, a retired builder who had invested his savings in small property.

“Pleased to give you any help I can,” he said heartily, when the detective had explained the object of his visit. “I remember Millington well; very decent old chap he was too; paid his rent punctually. He moved away some years ago. I don’t know where he went. But I don’t think it matters much. I heard about twelve months ago that the old man was dead.”

Smeaton’s face clouded. So all his inquiries had been waste of time. Millington would never throw any light upon the anonymous and threatening letter.

He went back to Bond Street and saw Mr Morgan.

“I am told that Mr Millington is dead,” he said to him. “I suppose you had not heard of it?”

Morgan looked surprised. “When did he die, sir?”