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I see, on looking for the exact date in my case-book, that it was on Wednesday, September 21st, 1927 that Chaney and I first heard of the theft, two days previously, of the Countess of Ellingshurst’s diamonds. I remember that Wednesday morning very well. Before settling down to my work at our office—indeed, before breakfast—I had been for a walk in the Park and had extended it into Kensington Gardens; that was such a fresh, crisp autumn morning that I hated to go indoors and longed to be off to the country with a gun and a couple of dogs. Partridges in swift, low-flying coveys—stubble fields with the dew glistening on the clover—hedgerows the gossamer on which would shine and twinkle like the glitter of a million diamonds—these were the things I was hankering after as I walked briskly back to Conduit Street and business. And the worst of it was that Chaney and I just then had precious little business; nothing, at any rate, of prime importance; he, I, and our model of a clerk, Chippendale, were at that time twiddling our thumbs and wondering what would come along next. It is at those moments that something always does come along; it came on this occasion very soon after I had sat down at my desk, to answer two or three utterly unimportant and uninteresting letters. And it came in a sudden ringing of my telephone bell.

“Is that the office of Messrs. Camberwell and Chaney?” inquired an unfamiliar voice.

“I am Lord Ellingshurst, Mr. Camberwell—speaking from my place in Kent, Ellingshurst Abbey. Do you know it?”

“I am very anxious to consult you, Mr. Camberwell—you or Mr. Chaney or both, and at once. Is it convenient?”

“No need, my Lord. We have a fast car of our own. My partner has not yet arrived, but he will be here at any moment, and within ten minutes of his arrival we will be off.”

“Thank you, Mr. Camberwell—very good of you. I will expect you, then, before lunch.”

“We shall be at Ellingshurst Abbey by eleven o’clock, my Lord. Is there anything your Lordship wishes to say before we start?”

“N-no, I think not, Mr. Camberwell. It will keep till you come, as you are coming at once. Eleven o’clock, then.”

I rang off and, turning to a shelf of reference books, took down the current Who’s Who. As I had said over the telephone, I knew Ellingshurst Abbey; it was a show place, in one of the most beautiful parts of Kent, and I had motored past its park boundaries often. But I was a bit hazy about Lord Ellingshurst; his name, of course, was familiar enough, but I was uncertain whether he was young, old, or middle-aged; all I was sure of was that there was such a person. So I turned to his record in the big book in which he figured in company with some—at least—thirty thousand other celebrities. And here was the entry:

Ellingshurst, 11th Earl of (cr. 1629), Arthur Charles Elling-Elling, M.A., D.L., J.P. Baron Elling, 1618. b. 10 May 1892. s. of 10th Earl and Margaretta, d. of the late Commendatore Busolini. S. father, 1915; m. 1914, Adela Constance, d. of Charles Welton. Educ. Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. Heir. b. H. C. V. Elling-Elling, q.v. Publications: History of Ellingshurst Abbey. Address: Ellingshurst Abbey, Maidstone, and 850 Grosvenor Square, W.1. Clubs: Athenæum, Wellington, Brooks’s.

One thing at once struck me about this account of Lord Ellingshurst—there was no record of any war service. I pointed this out to Chaney when he came in soon after, and after I had told him of Lord Ellingshurst’s wish to see us at once.

“Oh, I know all about that,” said Chaney. “I know a bit about Lord Ellingshurst—when I was at the Yard we had some dealings with him about a little affair at his town house. He’s lame—been lame since childhood as a result of a fall from his pony. Turned him to other things, that. Student—bookworm—fond of pottering about old ruins—that sort of thing. More or less of a hermit, I should say. Oddly enough, didn’t make the kind of marriage such a man would be expected to make, if such a man’s expected to make any marriage at all!”

“Oh?” I said. “And who was the Countess, then, Chaney? You’re always well up in these matters—I’m not.”

“Everybody knows who Lady Ellingshurst was,” replied Chaney, imperturbably. “She was Connie Welton, of the Hilarity Theatre. Dancer. Don’t suppose she ever spoke more than a line or two, at any time. But she could dance. And young Lord Ellingshurst—though he hadn’t succeeded then—married her.”

“They don’t seem to have had any children,” I remarked. “None put down in Who’s Who, anyway.”

“Haven’t they?” said Chaney, indifferently. “Didn’t want ’em, no doubt. Well, let’s be off. Made all arrangements with Chip?”

All arrangements had been made with Chippendale, and in a few minutes we had said good-morning to that unimpressionable young gentleman and were making our way towards the south-east exits from London. Neither of us talked much until we were clear of the outskirts and had got into the Kentish lanes.

“No! He said he’d tell us when we got there—as we were going at once,” I replied. “I asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell then. There wasn’t—at least, he didn’t tell it.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if it’s the diamonds,” he said, just as suddenly. “Probably it is.”

“Great Scott!—have you never heard of the Ellingshurst diamonds?” he exclaimed.

“What about ’em? Finest—or one of the finest collections in the country,” he answered. “I thought everybody knew about them; they’ve been on show many a time. I’ve seen ’em three or four times.”

“Well, I haven’t, Chaney, and I don’t know that I’ve ever even heard of them,” I said. “I’m not such a walking encyclopædia of information about the personalities and possessions of the aristocracy as you are, you know.”

“Business!” he retorted, dryly. “Business! Our business, Camberwell, is to know, if not everything, at any rate as much as we can. The well-informed man—”

“Never mind copy-book maxims, Chaney,” I interrupted. “What about these Ellingshurst diamonds?”

“Magnificent collection, formed by the ninth Earl of Ellingshurst,” he said. “Reputed to be worth at least fifty thousand pounds—perhaps more. Heirlooms, of course. And that’s all I know.”

“Oh, they’re all right. Mayn’t be as well off as in the old days, now that landed property has gone down so, but too firmly established to be materially affected by temporary crises. This present holder has the reputation of a wealthy man, anyhow. Good business man, they say.”

“He’s got a fine old place in Ellingshurst,” I remarked. “I’ve envied him his possession of it more than once, Chaney.”

“Ay, well, that’s as may be,” replied Chaney. “But I’ve always heard that there’s a curse on it. It was, of course, a religious house once upon a time, and they say that the first Elling, when he got hold of it in the time of Henry VIII, did some dirty trick about it which earned him a malediction.”

“Perhaps that’s what his Lordship wants to see us about,” I suggested, slyly. “He’s no doubt heard of your reputation—”

“Not for curses of four hundred years ago,” said Chaney. “No—I’ll lay anything it’s those diamonds.”

We were now close to Ellingshurst Abbey, and just as the clock in one of its towers struck eleven, we came into full view of it—a marvellously beautiful pile of grey stone standing in the centre of a richly wooded, undulating park. Such a picture it made, seen in that brilliant autumn atmosphere and framed in such a setting, that I involuntarily pulled up the car, to stare and admire. But Chaney had no sentiment—except at the proper time.

“That’s eleven,” he remarked. “You said eleven. Punctuality, Camberwell—”

I drove along a winding drive to the great door. An elderly butler came out to greet us.

“His Lordship is awaiting you, gentlemen,” he said, when we had disposed of our car, “but first, as you have had a long ride from town, a little refreshment, now—?”

“Not till we’ve seen his Lordship, thank you,” replied Chaney. “Afterwards—”

The butler smiled comprehendingly and, bidding us follow him, led us into a hall lined with old armour, old furniture, and old folios, and from that by a stonewalled corridor to a door deeply inset in the masonry. Opening this, he stepped inside a small, book-lined room, at a desk in the centre of which a youngish man, dressed in a well-worn tweed suit, sat quietly writing.

The figure at the desk moved, rose, came forward with outstretched hand. I noticed at once a lameness and difficulty of movement. At the same time I took in a general impression of a quiet, gentle personality, and the next moment heard a voice which was in thorough keeping with that impression. Belted Earl though he was, and eleventh holder of his title, this was the sort of man who ought to have been found in some quiet backwater of Oxford or Cambridge, poring over old manuscripts or consulting ancient folios. . . .

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said Lord Ellingshurst. “Good of you to come so quickly—I hope Gadd asked you to have something after your journey?”

“He did, my Lord, thank you,” replied Chaney, “and we declined for the moment—wishing to see your Lordship first.”

“Oh, well, I don’t think it will take very long for me to tell you what I wanted to see you about,” said Lord Ellingshurst. “Sit down, please—here are cigarettes, if you’ll smoke. Now, which is Mr. Camberwell, and which Mr. Chaney? Thank you—now we shall know where we are. Of course, I’ve heard of your firm in connexion with several cases, and—the fact is, gentlemen, something has happened here respecting which most people would have made immediate application to the police. Perhaps I ought to have done so—I really don’t know. But—I don’t want to apply to the police, and I haven’t applied to them, whether I ought or not. I sent for you instead—I can talk to you, in confidence?”

“Your Lordship can depend on that,” said Chaney. “Whatever you tell us, my Lord, will be regarded as being absolutely confidential.”

“Thank you,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “I quite understand that. Well, now, to get to business. Have you ever heard of the Ellingshurst diamonds?”

So it was the diamonds! I contrived to show no sign, and Chaney merely nodded . . . and then spoke.

“Yes, my Lord,” he said. “I know all about them, and I’ve seen them. I was telling my partner about them as we came along. I thought,” he added, “that it might be the diamonds that you wanted to see us about.”

“Did you, really?” said Lord Ellingshurst. “Well, you were right, Mr. Chaney. The fact is, the Ellingshurst diamonds have been stolen.”

“Night before last,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “I’ll explain the circumstances, briefly. To begin with, I had better tell you something of the history of the diamonds. The collection was begun by my great-grandfather and was originally formed out of stones he had bought during a two years’ residence in India, while in the service of the old East India Company. My grandfather made additions to it; further additions were made by my father; I have not made any additions. When I succeeded to the title and the properties, I had the diamonds valued by an expert. He estimated their value at about fifty-five thousand pounds. They are insured for fifty thousand pounds. As a rule, they are never kept here, nor at the town house in London. It has been our practice to keep them at our bankers’—the Westminster Bank in St. James’s Square. Do I go too fast for you?”

Chaney had produced his note-book and was jotting things down in his own particular shorthand. He shook his head.

“Not at all, my Lord,” he answered. “So far, I was only making a memorandum of the date on which the diamonds were stolen. Night before last, you say? That’s Monday, September 19th. Yes, my Lord?”

“Well, to continue—on the evening of Monday, day before yesterday, there was to be—and there was—a great county function at Maidstone, a dinner to a local celebrity, followed by a reception. It was a very grand affair, and we invited a few friends as guests, all of them having some more or less intimate connexion with the county, though, as a matter of fact, none are resident within its borders. As this was a very special occasion, my wife suggested that she should wear the Ellingshurst diamonds. I agreed, and I sent to town for them. Now I must explain our procedure in that detail. It has always been the practice whenever the diamonds were wanted for me to send a written order to the bank requesting their delivery. They are then sent down here, or, as the case might be, to our town house in Grosvenor Square, in charge of two clerks who deliver them personally to me, or to the Countess, taking a receipt for them from one or the other. And next day, or whenever they are to be returned, the same two clerks reassume possession and give a receipt on behalf of the bank. This procedure was duly carried out on Monday—that is, so far as delivering the diamonds here was concerned. Yesterday, when they should have been restored to the bank’s representatives, that could not be done, for in the mean time they had—disappeared.”

“Let us begin with Monday, my Lord,” said Chaney. “The diamonds were brought here by two clerks of the St. James’s Square branch of the Westminster Bank?”

“Well, now, my Lord, I want to ask a very particular question. Did your Lordship see the diamonds?”

“The diamonds?” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “No. I saw the case in which they are always kept.”

“Of course. The diamonds were kept in a black morocco case or box—a square box. This again was enclosed in a steel case or box, with a patent lock, of which there are two keys—one was kept by the bank, the other by myself. This again was enclosed in a stout, waterproofed cover, with a strong handle attached, for convenience in carrying.”

“Your Lordship, then, saw the case—but you don’t know that the diamonds were actually inside it?” said Chaney. “You could not swear they were.”

“I could not swear—no,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “But I know they were—for this reason. Before even the diamonds leave the bank, they are checked by the manager in the presence of the two clerks to whom their safe conduct is entrusted. A note to that effect is sent with the case.”

“Well—what became of the case after your Lordship had given the formal receipt for it?” inquired Chaney.

“What always becomes of it—or became of it—under similar circumstances. I took it in my own hands to the butler’s pantry, where there is a small safe built into a very solid wall, of which safe I have the only key. I locked the case up in that safe. At six o’clock in the evening I took the case out of the safe and handed it over to Lady Ellingshurst, who carried it off to her room with her own hands. And within ten minutes of Lady Ellingshurst’s entering her room the case had disappeared. As to the circumstances of the disappearance you shall hear them from Lady Ellingshurst herself. Shall I send for her?”

“A moment, my Lord,” he said. “We shall no doubt have to interview a good many people in this house. I want to ask your Lordship a plain question—and I should like a plain and frank reply. Does your Lordship suspect anyone?”

“Yes,” he said, at last, “I do, I suspect two women. One is my own wife, and the other is her bosom friend, Mrs. Vansidine.”

There was something so assured, so matter-of-fact, so coldly certain in this definite statement of belief that—whether I showed it or not I don’t know—I felt a strange, repelling sense of something sinister running all over me. But Chaney showed no surprise, and when he spoke, after looking up from his little book, his voice was innocent of any astonishment.

“Oh, of course,” assented Lord Ellingshurst. “Naturally!—or I shouldn’t have it.”

“Well, before we go into those grounds,” continued Chaney, “I should like to hear, from your Lordship, some account of how the case containing the diamonds was stolen. We shall, of course, get a first-hand account from her Ladyship, I suppose, but I want to hear, first, what she told your Lordship, for I presume that she gave you an account of what happened to the case after she received it from your Lordship’s hands?”

“Just as you wish, Mr. Chaney,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “I can only repeat—but I can repeat correctly—exactly what her Ladyship told me. She went straight up to her room after I had handed her the case, carrying it with her. On entering her room, she set down the case on a small table which flanks a larger table, a dressing-table. She then—”

“A moment, my Lord,” interrupted Chaney. “Your Lordship has already told us that there are only two keys to the steel box—one in the hands of your bankers, one in your own. When Lady Ellingshurst took the case from you, had you unlocked the steel box for her?”

“Oh, yes, of course!” answered Lord Ellingshurst. “I unlocked it for her when I took the case out of the safe in the butler’s pantry. Otherwise she couldn’t have got at the contents.”

“Well—what followed?” asked Chaney. “Lady Ellingshurst set down the case in her room, the morocco box inside the steel box being, I presume, without a lock?”

“The morocco case has no lock—it has merely a snap catch,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “The steel box is, of course, the real protection. Well, within a minute or two of entering her room, Lady Ellingshurst went into another room, opening out of her own, to speak to her maid, Mercer, who was sewing there. She was with Mercer some few minutes; when she returned to her own room, the case was not there.”

“Clean gone,” remarked Chaney, musingly. “Quick work! Can your Lordship give me an exact description of Lady Ellingshurst’s apartments? We shall see them, of course, presently, but I’m forming a mind-picture—”

“Oh, I can tell you all that,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “Lady Ellingshurst has a suite of rooms on the first floor, looking out on the south side of the house, over the gardens. It is what they would call in a modern hotel a self-contained suite. There is a large bedroom, a sitting-room, a bathroom, a dressing-room, and another room, used as a sewing-room for the maid.”

“It was in the bedroom that her Ladyship set down the case?” suggested Chaney.

“From the main corridor—running all along the first floor of the house, from east to west.”

“And I suppose Lady Ellingshurst’s theory is that someone walked in from the corridor while she was in the sewing-room with her maid, picked up the case, and went off with it?”

“I have never asked my wife what her theory is,” replied Lord Ellingshurst, coldly. “I suppose that would be her theory.”

Chaney suddenly closed his note-book, slipped it into his pocket, and looking up with a peculiarly searching glance on Lord Ellingshurst, snapped out a sharp question.

“Now, my Lord,” he said, “tell us!—why do you suspect your wife and her friend Mrs. Vansidine of this theft?”

“I am about to tell you that, Mr. Chaney,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “We are talking in strict confidence, and I am one of those unfortunate people who believe in telling the plain truth, however ugly it may be. My wife is my wife—but I’m by no means blind to her faults and imperfections. Lady Ellingshurst, never having had any money of her own before her marriage, has never learnt the value of money. She is—I was going to say incurably—extravagant, but that is perhaps too strong a word, for I still have hopes that she will be cured—probably by one or two little lessons. Then she is a gambler—not merely at cards, but on the turf. And I have reason to believe that at the present moment she is heavily in debt not only to her dressmaker but also to her bookmaker, euphemistically called turf commission agent, and also to some of her card-playing associates, of whom Mrs. Vansidine is one. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that Mrs. Vansidine wants a lot of money from her—that Mrs. Vansidine has some hold on her I’ve not a shadow of doubt. Then—”

“Pardon me, my Lord,” interrupted Chaney, “but—who is Mrs. Vansidine?”

“Can’t tell you more than that she’s an old friend of my wife’s, since girlhood, a society woman of a type that I loathe and detest, and that for years I have been wanting my wife to break with her, without effect,” answered Lord Ellingshurst. “You’ll see her, in due course—you can form an opinion of her for yourselves. Although I’ve known her for some years, I know nothing of her, really; she’s a sort of mystery woman—possibly an adventuress. But—there she is!”

“Still,” said Chaney, “granting, my Lord, that Lady Ellingshurst is extravagant and a gambler, and that Mrs. Vansidine is what you say, that doesn’t seem to me to be sufficient ground for suspecting them to be thieves. Your Lordship must have more grounds for actual suspicion than those you’ve mentioned so far.”

Lord Ellingshurst leaned back in his chair, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and regarded Chaney with a queer smile.

“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Chaney,” he said. “I’m an old-fashioned sort of person. I was brought up to believe that probability is the guide of life. Do you?”

“Um—er—my Lord!” he said. “That seems a bit above my mental powers. Er—yes, as far as I understand your Lordship, yes, I do.”

“Very well—now supposing that Lady Ellingshurst set down the case of diamonds in her room, left the room for a few minutes, came back, and found the case gone? What would she do—what is it probable that she would do?”

“I think so,” agreed Lord Ellingshurst, with a dry smile. “I’m sure so. But she didn’t scream. Had she screamed, her maid would have heard her, for the door was open between the room in which the maid was sewing and Lady Ellingshurst’s room. The maid heard nothing—neither scream, nor exclamation. And you’d think that—as she was close at hand—the maid would have been the first person to whom Lady Ellingshurst would have communicated the loss. Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, Lady Ellingshurst didn’t say one word to her maid! Mercer—the maid—doesn’t know, even now, that the diamonds are gone.”

“Strange!” murmured Chaney. “Very strange! I suppose Lady Ellingshurst immediately communicated the loss to your Lordship?”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Chaney, Lady Ellingshurst never mentioned the disappearance of the case containing the diamonds to me until yesterday,” he replied. “I knew nothing of the loss until just before noon yesterday, when the two clerks from the bank were due to arrive for the purpose of taking the case back to the bank in London. You see, on returning from Maidstone, late at night, Lady Ellingshurst said to me that she would lock up the case in a small safe she has in her room, and, perhaps a little carelessly, I agreed—I didn’t want the bother of going to the safe in the butler’s pantry—”

“We don’t follow,” I said. “If the diamonds had been stolen from Lady Ellingshurst’s room early in the evening, before she went to the function at Maidstone, she could not have worn them at Maidstone, nor could she have locked them up in the safe in her own room on her return.”

“Oh, I’ll explain,” said Lord Ellingshurst, laughingly. “I was about to do so. Lady Ellingshurst appeared at the Maidstone function in all the glory of the famous diamonds, much, no doubt, to everybody’s delight—if people delight in such exhibitions; I don’t! And everybody believed he or she was looking at the real thing!—I did, myself. But we were not looking at the real thing. What we saw was the counterfeit set—the duplicate.”

“Exactly! I will explain that,” continued Lord Ellingshurst. “My grandfather, who added considerably to the original collection, caused to be made in Paris a counterfeit or duplicate or imitation set, which was done so skilfully that it is impossible for anybody but an expert to tell which is which, if the real set and the imitation set are placed together. This imitation set is, of course, very valuable—I believe the stones are real, though not of the quality of the famous one. Now, this duplicate set is always at the disposal of the Countess of Ellingshurst for the time being, and it was it that Lady Ellingshurst wore on Monday night—the real one having been, as she said, stolen.”

“What reason did Lady Ellingshurst give for not telling you at once, my Lord?” asked Chaney.

“She said she was too frightened—for one thing. Another—she thought someone might have snatched the case out of her room for a practical joke and would replace it. Another—she knew it would disturb the—shall we call it harmony?—of the proceedings at Maidstone. Another—she didn’t want our guests to know. And so on, and so on—anyway, she did not tell me until the imminent arrival of the clerks from the bank obliged her to do so.”

“Oh—I told them that we were retaining the case for a while, until our return to town.”

“Outside our three selves?—you, me, Mr. Camberwell? I don’t think anyone, except Lady Ellingshurst and Mrs. Vansidine.”

“What your Lordship means, I take it, is that Lady Ellingshurst told your Lordship that she had told Mrs. Vansidine?”

“But your Lordship suspects these two ladies!” he said, slyly. “So—there would be no question of telling, would there?”

“I was putting it to you as if this really had been a burglary,” replied Lord Ellingshurst.

“Just so, my Lord—I understand,” said Chaney, indulgently. “Well, we don’t know yet that it hasn’t. Let’s hope it has—it’s not a pleasant thing to suspect two ladies—”

“I am not a sentimentalist, Mr. Chaney,” remarked Lord Ellingshurst, coldly.

“No, my Lord? Ah, well, I am,” said Chaney. “Born like that, I was—always a very sentimental sort. But now, my Lord, another question—has your Lordship told Lady Ellingshurst that you suspect her and her friend Mrs. Vansidine?”

“Good, my Lord, good!” he chuckled. “Don’t! Now, is this Mrs. Vansidine still in the house?”

“All our guests are still here,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “There are five in all—three men, two ladies. Do you wish to see them?”

“All in good time, my Lord, and if necessary,” said Chaney. “It’s a great advantage that they don’t know—except Mrs. Vansidine—of what’s happened; better still, that the servants don’t know. Well, my Lord, now that my partner and I know all about it, I suggest that we get busy. Let us be doing something. And—first of all, may we see Lady Ellingshurst and hear her version?”

“Far preferable, my Lord, far preferable,” replied Chaney. “She will respond to our questions far more freely than if—er, anyone else were present.”

He left the room, and as soon as he had closed the door on himself, Chaney turned to me and made a grimace.

“Don’t like him, Camberwell!” he muttered. “Not at all to my taste that a man should so readily suspect his own wife. Queer business, of course, but—”

I am not quite sure now as to what it was that I expected to see when Lady Ellingshurst came in. One expects a countess to be something—well, out of the common: a lady of presence, dignity, and, possibly, beauty. What we did see was a young woman whose chief features were a mass of fluffy golden hair, a somewhat snub nose, and a pair of very large, rather childish blue eyes, just then opened to their widest extent. For the rest of her, Lady Ellingshurst could show a fine set of teeth and a compact little figure, and, taking her all together, I should have said—had I not known who she was—that she was well qualified to be either a barmaid in a smart restaurant or a soubrette on the stage. And—whatever Chaney may have thought during that first moment of contact—I formed the instant impression that Lord Ellingshurst was utterly wrong in his suspicions, for I could not credit Lady Ellingshurst with sufficient intelligence to plan a clever theft. Still—there was always the probability, or, perhaps, possibility, that she had been a cat’s-paw in the hands of somebody cleverer than herself.

“You want to speak to me?” she said, in half-frightened tones, as I hastened to draw forward a chair. “Is it about—the family diamonds?”

“Just that, Lady Ellingshurst,” replied Chaney in his suavest accents. “Merely a question or two. His Lordship has told us all about the disappearance of the diamonds from your room on Monday night; all we want is to hear your own account of it. Now suppose we begin at the beginning. The case containing the diamonds was brought down from the bank in London on Monday afternoon, and his Lordship himself took charge of it and locked it up in the safe in the butler’s pantry. That is correct, isn’t it?”

“I—I suppose so,” replied Lady Ellingshurst. “I didn’t see the case arrive, and I didn’t see Lord Ellingshurst put it in the safe.”

“When did your Ladyship first see—and handle—the case that night?” he inquired.

“Soon after the first dressing-bell rang, at six o’clock,” replied Lady Ellingshurst. “Lord Ellingshurst brought it to me in the billiard-room, where I was watching a game between two of our guests.”

“I carried it straight upstairs, to my room, and set it down on a small table which stands close to the dressing-table.”

“We understand that there is an outer case, a steel box in that, and a morocco leather box inside the steel box. Did your Ladyship remove the outer case?”

“No, I never touched anything. I set the case down on the little table just as it had been when given to me.”

“I didn’t leave it immediately. Perhaps five or ten minutes afterwards. My maid, Mercer, was doing some sewing in a small room that opens out of my bedroom, and I went in there to speak to her.”

“Well, now, can your Ladyship remember this: when you first entered your room, carrying the case, did you close the door—which, I believe, opens on the corridor?”

“Yes, I did. I remember that the first thing I did was to glance at the door. It was open.”

“No,” she answered, “I didn’t. I—I was too frightened. I did nothing. I was horribly afraid of—of telling Lord Ellingshurst. And I knew nobody would know the difference if I wore the duplicate set of diamonds that night. And nobody did!”

“But, Lady Ellingshurst, what about fifty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds suddenly disappearing? Didn’t you—”

“I thought perhaps somebody was playing a trick on me—that the case would be put back. Anyhow, I was much too frightened to tell anybody—that night, at any rate.”

“I told Mrs. Vansidine. She’s one of our present guests—an old friend of mine.”

“She advised me not to tell Lord Ellingshurst until next day—nothing could be done that night.”

“Mrs. Vansidine, you say, Lady Ellingshurst, is one of your guests. Where, in relation to your rooms, are hers?”

“I don’t know. I left her in the billiard-room when I went up with the case. She may have gone up to her rooms soon afterwards.”

There was something in the tone of that last reply that made us both look sharply at Lady Ellingshurst. She flushed a little under our inspection.

“You put an emphasis on your second word, there,” I said. “Are we to understand that you’re somewhat doubtful as to whether she did or didn’t?”

Lady Ellingshurst hung her head and looked—something; I don’t know whether it betokened distress of mind or mere sullenness.

“As regards—what?” I asked, taking up the questioning process. “Please be frank with us, Lady Ellingshurst.”

She turned and looked at me a little doubtfully, as if she were turning things over in her mind before replying.

“I shouldn’t like it to go further,” she muttered, “and I don’t want Ellingshurst to know. But I’ve wondered.”

“Yes?” I said. “You’ve wondered—what? Don’t be afraid of telling my partner, Mr. Chaney, and me anything, Lady Ellingshurst. It’ll go no further. What is it you wonder?”

“I’ve wondered if—if Cora Vansidine took the diamonds,” she answered suddenly. “She’s fearfully hard up, and she wouldn’t have the least difficulty in getting rid of them—she knows all sorts of queer people. And—she is hard up, horribly!”

Chaney and I exchanged glances. Lady Ellingshurst did not see them; she was staring into the fire, and the expression of her face was not pleasant.

“She’s capable of anything of that sort, Cora!” she muttered, as if oblivious of our presence. “And she knew what it was I was carrying up to my room. And it wouldn’t be the first dirty trick she’s played me, either.”

Lady Ellingshurst turned and looked at him. It was a strange look, an inquiring look. I don’t know if Chaney knew what it meant, but I did. It meant that the Countess of Ellingshurst was wondering from what particularly innocent province of Arcadia Chaney came from! And she made no answer—in words.

“Told her? No!—I daren’t. She’s—dangerous,” exclaimed Lady Ellingshurst. “Tell her, indeed!—I should think not.”

“No! I daren’t tell Ellingshurst anything—anything like that, anyway. I’m—I’m frightened of him. You—you might as well tell a stone wall—or a marble monument. Ellingshurst isn’t a man—he’s a—a—an icicle!”

We were getting to something, Chaney and I, it seemed: there was more in all this than the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds. And as the present situation was becoming decidedly uncomfortable, Chaney did the right thing.

“Well, Lady Ellingshurst,” he said, cheerily, “let us leave all that just now. May we go up and have a look at your rooms—and at their immediate neighbourhood?”

“I’ll send Mercer to show you the rooms,” she said. “Don’t tell her what you’ve come for. You don’t look like it,” she went on, with something like a faint smile, “but she’ll think you’ve come about carpets or electric light or something—you can pretend, can’t you?”

“Well, Camberwell!” he said. “Whoever’s pinched those stones, I’ll lay anything she hasn’t! What do you think?”

“This promises to be a very interesting case,” he went on. “We’ve seen two interesting people. And—between you and me—I prefer the wife. Eh?”

I wasn’t going to commit myself, even in confidence to Chaney, and I said nothing. And before he could say more, the door opened again, and a demure-looking young woman, very smartly dressed, as I thought, for a lady’s-maid, appeared on the threshold.

“Will you come this way, please?” she said. “I’m to show you her Ladyship’s rooms.”

We followed our guide out into the hall and up the great staircase that ran round two sides of it, to terminate in a gallery from which branched off various corridors and passages. Three or four people were in the hall as we passed through; one of them, a tallish, handsome woman, dark-haired, dark-eyed, gave me a sharp, questioning look in which I fancied I saw recognition. And though I did not know her, I set her down in my mind as Mrs. Vansidine.

The lady’s-maid led us along a central corridor until we came to a door at which she paused. Throwing it open, she preceded us into a large, lofty apartment furnished in very luxurious style as a bedroom, from which various other doors opened. We were at once engaged in affecting interest in the capacity of the room, but we contrived to note that Lady Ellingshurst’s description of the situation of the small table on which she had placed the case was correct, and also to ascertain that there was no balcony outside the windows, which looked out on the front of the house. We looked into all the other rooms, too, but there was nothing there to interest us—what did interest us when we got outside again was the fact that across the corridor from Lady Ellingshurst’s room, and almost facing her door, was an alcove fitted with a French window which looked out on the gardens behind. I there and then formed a theory of my own as to how the case, once abstracted from Lady Ellingshurst’s room, could have been dropped by the thief to a confederate standing beneath the window of the alcove, or, supposing there was no confederate, lowered to the shrubbery at the base of the wall, to be recovered later, in the darkness. But I said nothing of this to Chaney at the time.

The hall was empty when we went downstairs again, and the butler was waiting for us. He took us off to a room in which luncheon was served to us; we had a footman in attendance most of the time and had no opportunity of discussing matters. But when we had lunched, we saw Lord Ellingshurst again in his study, and I made a suggestion to him which sprang from a brief consultation between Chaney and me.

“Will your Lordship be kind enough to invite me here to dine and sleep tonight?” I said. “I want to see your present guests at close quarters, for reasons which I needn’t go into. My partner will return to town in our car and will send it back again with my things. Tomorrow morning he will return—and we will tell your Lordship what our opinion is of this case.”

“Good idea!” he said. “By all means, Mr. Camberwell. Let’s see—yes, you’re an old travelling acquaintance of mine, eh? Will that do? We met—shall we say in Italy?”

“I am very well acquainted with Italy, my Lord,” I answered, “and I speak Italian.”

“All right,” he said, laughing. “Good! So do I. Very well—henceforth we’re Ellingshurst and Camberwell. Come back here when you’ve seen Mr. Chaney off, and I’ll introduce you to your fellow-guests.”

There were five other people staying in the house, and between the middle of the afternoon and bedtime I had ample opportunities of studying them. There was Sir Charles Eldrick—an elderly hunting and shooting man. There was Colonel and Mrs. Baxter—military folk. There was Mr. Featherstone—man about town. And there was Mrs. Vansidine—who was the handsome woman I had seen in the hall.

Everything went on that night as things do go on in an English country-house. There was dinner, and bridge, and music, and billiards, and talk. At eleven o’clock I went to my room. And I had just got into a dressing-gown and was mixing a whisky and soda from the tray left on my table when a light tap came at my door. I opened it—to find Mrs. Vansidine on the threshold.

Mrs. Vansidine had been easily the handsomest and the best-dressed woman of the three who had graced Lord Ellingshurst’s table that night; her finery, indeed, had attracted my attention. And though she had now discarded it for some negligee attire—I am no hand at describing woman’s gear—she still looked striking and attractive; enough, indeed, to turn the heads of most men, especially when, as now, she added to the general charms of her appearance the particular one of a captivating smile.

I stood aside in silence, let her pass into the room, and closed the door. And I thought rapidly. What was she after? Something, without doubt. Before turning to her, I steeled myself to be on my guard. Whatever it was that she wanted, she relieved me from the onus of opening a conversation: she spoke almost before I had faced her.

“Mr. Camberwell!” she said, in a low, ingratiating voice. “No one downstairs—I mean amongst the guests—knows you. But I do!”

Knowing that she was an inveterate cigarette-smoker, I handed her a box which lay open on the table by which she had seated herself, and struck a match for her.

“Yes, Mrs. Vansidine?” I said, in as matter-of-fact tones as possible. “Yes?”

“I knew you as soon as I saw you this afternoon,” she continued. “And your partner, Mr. Chaney.”

“Of course, I haven’t said a word to a soul,” she went on. “But I guessed why you were here. The Ellingshurst diamonds, of course!”

I had sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her where she sat in a big easy chair, and from this eminence I looked down at her, speculatively.

“Do you know anything about their disappearance, Mrs. Vansidine?” I asked, coolly. “Is that what you came to tell me?”

“Don’t be silly or superior—or cynical, Mr. Camberwell!” she exclaimed. “I know nothing about the disappearance of the diamonds—except that I didn’t steal them, help to steal them, or connive at or contrive their being stolen.”

“It’s rather a nasty thing to be one of a house-party in a house where a serious theft takes place,” I remarked. “However high and unassailable one’s moral character may be, there’s always the uneasy feeling that somebody may suspect one.”

“Oh, well, it wouldn’t take me long to set up an alibi,” she said, showing a set of very beautiful teeth in a flashing smile. “I was in the billiard-room playing pool with Dickie Featherstone and Colonel and Mrs. Baxter when Ellingshurst brought his wife the case containing the diamonds—”

“Know?” she exclaimed. “I’ve seen that case—and its contents—a score of times during the last few years. But listen, Mr. Camberwell—I was in the billiard-room, I say, playing pool with the three people I’ve just mentioned when Ellingshurst brought the case to Adela—”

“Exactly—her names are Adela Constance. Well, Adela took it from him and went straight away with it. The time then—I remember it clearly, because the first dressing-bell went—was six o’clock. Now, I stayed in the billiard-room, and so did the other three, until twenty-five minutes to seven. So I was never upstairs at all during the half-hour in the course of which the case was stolen. Yet I shouldn’t wonder if I’m suspected.”

“Oh!” She opened her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “How can I say? Perhaps by Lord Ellingshurst himself; he hates me. Perhaps by my dear friend Lady Ellingshurst—who loves me!”

“Why should they suspect you, Mrs. Vansidine?” I inquired. “Have you a reputation for stealing your friends’ goods?”

“You’re joking,” she retorted. “Of course I haven’t. But I’m poor, Mr. Camberwell—what can a poor widow woman like me do to avoid chronic poverty? And when you’re known to be always hard up, you’re suspect. Ah!—I wish I’d twenty thousand a year instead of a miserable nine hundred!”

“Some people can live very well indeed on nine hundred a year, Mrs. Vansidine,” I remarked. “Very well indeed, I assure you.”

“Can they?” she said. “Live? You mean—exist. Oh, well, anyway, the Ellingshursts know I’m always hard up—debts of all sorts, you know—and I dare say they think I took the diamonds, to sell. Well, I didn’t. What do you think, Mr. Camberwell?” she went on, turning her fine eyes full on me. “Do I look like a thief?”

“You look like what you are, Mrs. Vansidine,” I said. “A very beautiful and charming woman!”

“Prettily said,” she murmured. “That was very gallant, Mr. Camberwell—I see there are possibilities in you, young as you are. But—I didn’t steal the diamonds. And—between you and me—I don’t believe they ever were stolen!”

I was lighting another cigarette as she spoke, and in my surprise I let the match burn itself out before using it.

“Never were stolen, eh, Mrs. Vansidine?” I said, after staring at her during a full moment’s silence. “Curious theory, that, isn’t it?”

“Oh, well, perhaps it needs qualifying a bit,” she answered. “I mean to say, you know, that if they were stolen—if you can call it stealing—it was by one or other of the persons most intimately concerned.”

“Just that!” she replied coolly. “Why not? I don’t know what you, Mr. Camberwell, may have thought, or what that partner of yours, the former police inspector—”

“I know a lot of men—and women—in London, Mr. Camberwell, by sight if by nothing else,” she answered, smiling. “Oh, yes, I recognized Chaney, when you and he crossed the hall with Mercer. But as I was saying, I don’t know what you or Chaney thought when you inspected Lady Ellingshurst’s rooms, but I should say that you thought it extremely improbable that the diamonds were taken and got away during the few minutes she was with her maid. Cock-and-bull story that, I think.”

“Depends, Mrs. Vansidine, depends!” I replied. “I’ve known of a theft taking place in less time than that. However, you think—let’s be candid—you think that either Lord or Lady Ellingshurst—”

“Look here, Mr. Camberwell,” she broke in, “I’m a woman of the world, and I’ve no illusions about anybody or anything. Lady Ellingshurst is even more hard up than I am, and that’s saying a good deal. She’s heavily in debt to her bookmaker, and I know for a fact that he’s pressing her. She owes bridge debts—there are people who won’t play any more with her till she pays up. And her dressmaker—oh, well, there it is. Now, she could sell those diamonds for an awful lot—even if she sacrificed them.”

“You included Lord Ellingshurst in your suggestion,” I said. “Do you mean that he might conspire with his wife?”

“I don’t say that, and I don’t know, of course,” she answered. “But I do know this—Ellingshurst is, if not an absolute miser, at any rate awfully mean about money—incredibly mean. I know instances, lots. Well, he’s the sort of man who would readily say to himself: ‘Here are those diamonds, heirlooms—why shouldn’t I get rid of them for cash?’ It’s not such an impossible theory, Mr. Camberwell. Just you put it to yourself. How does anyone know—how could anyone know—that the diamonds were in that case when Ellingshurst handed it over to his wife in the billiard-room? Ellingshurst took the case from the bank-clerks; Ellingshurst had it in his study for some time before he took it to the butler’s pantry and locked it up in the safe; Ellingshurst alone had the key to it. What do you say about all that?”

“Merely that if Lord Ellingshurst wanted to appropriate the diamonds, he had every opportunity of doing so, and in such a fashion that no one need ever have known anything about it, Mrs. Vansidine,” I replied. “So—why on earth should he have called in Chaney and me?”

“Bluff!” she said, scornfully. “Mere bluff! When you know Lord Ellingshurst better, Mr. Camberwell, you’ll know that he’s crafty. Mean—sly—crafty. He’s playing some game now, but I don’t know what it is.”

“At any rate, Mrs. Vansidine, you’re here to tell me that you didn’t steal the diamonds, aren’t you?” I remarked, smiling at her. “Well, we must go on and try to find out where they’ve got to. You and your fellow-guests all seem to be persons of the very highest—”

“Respectability, eh?” she interrupted. “Oh, of course—outwardly. And I dare say we do draw the line at pilfering—”

“Fifty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds is worth having,” I said. “But I was going to add that in addition to the ultra-respectability of his guests, Lord Ellingshurst’s servants, too, appear to be of an equal respectability. Old, well-tried servants, eh?”

“Oh, leave the servants out!” she said. “If the diamonds have really been stolen, it’s been the work of an expert.” She suddenly broke off, looked at me for a moment as if she was debating some question in her mind, and then went on in hurried accents. “Mr. Camberwell,” she continued, “I wonder if I may ask you something?”

She hesitated awhile and then spoke hurriedly, as if nervous about whatever it was that she was going to say.

“You come across some very queer people, don’t you?” she said. “I mean—in the exercise of your profession. I’ve read of some of your cases, in the papers—you must meet some strange people.”

“Occasionally, Mrs. Vansidine,” I admitted. “Otherwise they’re very ordinary people—who do strange things. But—why?”

“Have you ever, anywhere, come across a man of my name?” she asked. “It’s an uncommon name.”

“No,” I replied. “I feel sure of that. It is an uncommon name, and I should remember it. No, I don’t think I ever heard it before today—or, as it’s past midnight, yesterday. But again—why?”

“Somewhere,” she answered, “somewhere—knocking about in one shady circle or another, or perhaps in several shady circles—I’ve got a husband. And—I wish I could know, definitely, where he is and what he’s doing.”

This was leading into matters with which I had no concern—still, the lady was there, and one must be polite.

“As I say, I never remember hearing the name before, Mrs. Vansidine,” I said. “But—perhaps your husband is now known by some other name?”

“I dare say,” she answered. “He would be quite capable of it. And as it’s some years since I either saw or heard of him, he may now be John Smith or James Brown or William Robinson. All the same, if he wanted to impress anyone, Vansidine is—don’t you think so?—a handsome and striking name.”

“I suppose you’ve got to find out what’s happened to the diamonds?” she said. “You—and Mr. Chaney.”

“Oh, well,” she replied, moving to the door, “you’ll have had some strange adventures and seen some queer things before you solve the mystery, Mr. Camberwell. Now don’t forget—I haven’t got them!”

“I think I’ll acquit you, Mrs. Vansidine,” I said as I prepared to open the door for her. “But—since you’ve spoken to me about them—may I ask you to do me a favour?”

“If you can do it,” I ventured to say, correctingly. “You mayn’t be able to do it. Well, this—if you’re sufficiently in her confidence to get what may be a secret out of her, find out for me if there’s anyone, man or woman, who’s unduly pressing Lady Ellingshurst for—money. Do you understand?”

I opened the door; we nodded to each other, and she went off along the darkened corridor. And presently I went to bed, but not to sleep. Here, I thought, was as queer—and in some respects as amusing—a tangle as I had ever come across. The Earl of Ellingshurst suspected (1) his wife or (2) his wife and Mrs. Vansidine in conjunction. The Countess suspected Mrs. Vansidine. And Mrs. Vansidine suspected either Lord Ellingshurst or Lady Ellingshurst or the two together. Certainly I should have something to tell Chaney when I met him in the morning.

I went to sleep at last, and after a time I slept soundly—so soundly that it was only gradually that I became aware that somebody was knocking, gently, at the door of my room. I started up in bed, half-asleep, and called.

The door opened; an unseen hand switched on the electric light. Then I made out the figure of the butler, Gadd, and as my eyes grew less blurred, I saw that his face showed signs of excitement.

“Can you come down to my Lord at once, sir?” he whispered. “Here’s something very dreadful happened—we’ve just heard of it. And—and we’re afraid it’s murder, sir, murder!”

I was out of bed on the instant and reaching for some clothes; instead of leaving the room the butler stood there, watching me, and I could see that his big frame was trembling.

“It’s—it’s one of the servants, sir,” he gasped out. “One of the maidservants—the second housemaid, Boach, Effie Boach. It was her night out last night, sir, and she never came in. And this morning—not so many minutes ago—one of the gardeners came to say that he’d come across her body, lying in the Home Wood—dead, sir!”

“But—murder?” I said as I hurried into my clothes. “That’s a big word, Gadd. She may have been taken ill—”

“No, sir, no, it’s murder!” he persisted. “The gardener, sir—name of Simpson—he says she’s been strangled to death. There’s—there’s a cord round her neck, sir—he saw it.”

“Waiting for you in the hall, sir,” he answered. “Simpson’s with him. I called my Lord at once, sir.”

“Only the housekeeper, sir. I told her as I came along to you. She has more to do with the maidservants than I have,” he replied. “It was she who told me the girl never came in last night—she ought to have been in by ten o’clock.”

I followed him down to the hall—a fire had already been lighted in the big fireplace, and three people were standing near it. One was Lord Ellingshurst, muffled up in an old ulster; another was a man whom I set down as the gardener, Simpson. And the third was a tall, slimly built, middle-aged woman of striking appearance, whom I had not seen before, but, from what Gadd had said, took to be the housekeeper. She was talking, volubly, as I joined the group.

“—her usual weekly evening out, my Lord,” she was saying, “and as far as I made out last night, she left the house at her usual time, six o’clock. She told one of the other maids that she was going to meet a friend in the village—whether she did or not, of course I don’t know, but we can easily find out. However, she didn’t come in last night—she hadn’t come in at ten o’clock, her proper time, at any rate—”

“Well, there’s always one of the menservants up all night, my Lord—he could have let her in—”

“Walker was on duty,” remarked the butler. “He didn’t let her in—I’ve just asked him, my Lord. The girl didn’t come in.”

“She’s stayed out all night once or twice,” said the housekeeper. “In fact, I warned her not long ago that I didn’t allow that. She said in excuse that she was afraid of coming back through the woods so late.”

“Simpson,” he said, “coming early to his work in the gardens this morning, has found the dead body of one of the maids, Effie Boach, lying in the Home Wood, which lies between the Abbey and the village. We’d better go down there, Camberwell. But—is there anything I should do, first?”

“Certainly there is,” I replied. “Your Lordship must communicate with the police, at once. And they must bring a doctor—there’ll be a police surgeon somewhere at hand, of course. Shall I phone for you?”

I went off with the butler to the telephone, where I soon made the necessary arrangements with the nearest police station. Coming back to the hall, I asked Gadd a question or two.

“Do you know anything about this unfortunate girl’s private affairs?” I inquired. “Is she a local girl?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Gadd. “Her father’s a gardener in the village. Quiet, inoffensive man—she was the eldest of a largish family.”

“Never heard of anything of the sort, sir,” he answered. “She was what you might call a plain young woman, sir—no attractions. Very terrible thing, sir—her parents’ll be in a fine way about it, poor things. And who could have anything against a harmless girl like that? It’ll make all the other women servants afraid to go out now that the nights are dark.”

We went back to Lord Ellingshurst, who was still in conversation with the housekeeper. Presently he, I, and the gardener left the house and set out across the gardens and the park in the direction of the Home Wood, a great stretch of woodland which lay on the southern side of the estate, separating Ellingshurst Abbey and its immediate surroundings from the village of the same name. Leading out of the park was a bridle-path which cut clear across the wood to the highroad beyond, and half-way along this, lying a little to the right, and partly concealed by the undergrowth, lay the dead girl, just as Simpson had first seen her.

One glance told me how the girl had been killed. Round her throat, tied in a tightly drawn knot at the back, was a cord, evidently recently cut from a length of clothes-line. It looked to me as if she had been deliberately strangled by a practised hand. Lord Ellingshurst gave but one glance, too, and turned to me with a look which, had the actual murderer seen it, would have stricken fear into his heart.

“Camberwell!” he muttered in a tense voice. “That’s not only murder, but brutal, fiendish murder! You and your partner will spare no pains and no expense in tracking the murderer down. No expense—no pains, you understand?”

“We’ll do anything and everything your Lordship likes,” I said. “This has been a vile murder—cruel! But it’s more a matter for the police.”

The police came presently, and a medical man with them. And then began the usual cut-and-dried investigations about footprints and so on. All these were still in process when, soon after breakfast, Chaney arrived. And when he had heard all that I had to tell him, he sought an interview with Lord Ellingshurst.

Lord Ellingshurst saw us in his study. The morning had advanced to nearly noon by that time, and things had progressed. All the guests had gone, with the exception of Mrs. Vansidine. The local police were in and out of the house, questioning servants, making inquiries; down in the Home Wood the scene of the murder had been carefully roped off and a constable placed on guard. But in Lord Ellingshurst’s study everything was quiet enough, and he himself, when we went in to him, appeared to be engaged in his usual literary pursuits.

“My Lord,” said Chaney, going straight to the point, “I want to ask your Lordship a plain question. Does your Lordship connect this undoubted murder with the theft of the diamonds?”

“How do you connect the murder of an obscure maidservant with the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds?” he asked. “It is certain that the girl has been murdered, soon after the disappearance of the diamonds. But there is such a thing as coincidence, you know—”

“You can’t draw blank cheques on it, after all, my Lord,” retorted Chaney. “I don’t think coincidence comes in here at all. I think this girl has been murdered because she knew who stole the diamonds.”

“Really and truly, my Lord! And, of course,” continued Chaney, “the murderer of the girl and the purloiner of the diamonds are—identical!”

“Oh, well!” he said, hesitatingly. “That means that my first idea—of which I told you—must be thrown overboard: I can’t imagine my wife or Mrs. Vansidine murdering Effie Boach! But it also means something else—that the thief and murderer is somebody who lives in this house.”

“Um—not necessarily, my Lord,” answered Chaney. “No—not necessarily. Let me explain my theory. May I take it that the procedure as regards the bringing of the diamonds from the bank, as on Monday last, was pretty well known to the servants?”

“To the upper servants, probably,” admitted Lord Ellingshurst. “Mercer, for instance, my wife’s maid, she’d know. And Gadd was well aware of it, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Sutherland. But they’re old, tried, trusted servants—”

“News spreads in a house like this, my Lord,” said Chaney. “We may take it that the servants knew that Lady Ellingshurst was going to wear the famous diamonds on Monday night. Now, this girl, Effie Boach, may have told that to somebody outside the house and—”

“How would that somebody get into the house?” interrupted Lord Ellingshurst.

“Not much difficulty about that, I think, my Lord,” he replied. “I’m not at all on the small and delicate side, as your Lordship sees, but I’d engage to get into your house at any time after dark’s set in without anybody knowing about it. With all your doors, and your windows, and your long corridors, and twists and turns, and nooks and corners, a skilful burglar would get in here and hide himself without any difficulty, especially if he’d a confederate inside.”

“You think this unfortunate girl may have had a confederate outside, then?” asked Lord Ellingshurst.

“You never know how these domestic servants are got at, my Lord,” answered Chaney. “She may have known some man to whom she talked about the diamonds. We all know that servants do talk—”

“I can’t see how Effie Boach could possibly have known that Lady Ellingshurst would carry that case up to her room at a precise moment on Monday evening,” said Lord Ellingshurst. “That’s going beyond the bounds of probability, surely! How could she know?”

“The burglar—or thief—may not have known the precise nature of the contents of the case, my Lord,” said Chaney. “He may have got into the house, as these gentry constantly do, about the time when people dress for dinner on the chance of picking something up in various rooms when their occupants had gone down for dinner. Then he may have noticed that the door of Lady Ellingshurst’s room was open, and have slipped in and taken the case. I’m only suggesting, of course, how it may have happened. Then, finding out later what he’d actually got hold of, and knowing that the girl could give him away, he—well, I suggest he contrived to meet her, and—we know what he did.”

“Then the thing to do, I suppose, is to find out what acquaintances the girl had?” suggested Lord Ellingshurst. “Isn’t that it?”

“That, my Lord, is more a matter for the local police than for us,” replied Chaney. “I propose now to find out what they’re doing.”

The local Inspector of Police, being made aware of our commission from Lord Ellingshurst, told us presently of all he had been able to gather regarding the dead girl’s movements on the evening of her death. Effie Boach, as far as could be ascertained, in those first stages of the investigations, had no sweetheart nor any young men friends. But she had a particular girl friend in the village, one Clara Mason, and she had promised to meet Clara at a certain time and at a certain place in the village on the night in question. Clara Mason was at the appointed place at the time fixed on, but Effie Boach did not come there. Clara Mason waited half an hour for her; then, as Effie failed to appear, Clara went, alone, to a village concert which they had arranged to attend together. Close inquiry failed to throw any light on Effie’s movements after she left Ellingshurst Abbey. Her parents lived in a cottage on the outskirts of the park; she had not been there. She was well known to everybody in Ellingshurst, which was only a small place; no one had seen or heard of her that evening. Taken all together, the available evidence went to suggest that the girl had been met and murdered in the Home Wood very soon after she quitted the Abbey. The path in the Home Wood near which her dead body was found was little used; careful inquiry failed to show that anyone had been along it, in either direction, between the early evening and the time next morning when Simpson, the gardener, took it on his way to work. This was the sum of the police inquiries made during the day of the gardener’s discovery. And when we had heard it, Chaney made a practical suggestion to the Inspector.

“I noticed,” said he, “that the piece of cord which was tied round the girl’s throat had obviously been cut from a clothes-line, and that it was new. Find out from whose clothes-line it was cut.”

We went back to report to Lord Ellingshurst. There was a man in his study—a middle-aged man who looked to me like a retired Army officer. Lord Ellingshurst waved a hand in his direction.

“My steward, Colonel Herwin,” he said. “I’m glad you two have come in—Colonel Herwin has just told me something that he’ll now tell you.”

We both took this to mean that whatever it was that Colonel Herwin had to tell us, it had some relation to either the theft of the diamonds or the murder of Effie Boach, and Chaney said so. Colonel Herwin, a matter-of-fact, hard-bitten man who seemed frankly puzzled, or suspicious, or a mixture of both, nodded.

“It may have—I’m beginning to think it has,” he said. “If it hasn’t, there’s a good deal of what people call the long arm of coincidence knocking about. Well, to begin with, I called in to tell his Lordship that a tenant of his has made a very strange disappearance since Monday night.”

“Unaccountable to his servants, anyway,” replied Colonel Herwin. “I’d better explain the matter, as briefly and simply as I can. There is here, on the estate, an old house, situated between the Abbey and the village, and on the edge of the Home Wood, known as the Dower House. It used to be, as its name implies, used by the dowager countesses of Ellingshurst, but for the last fifteen years or so it has been let, furnished, to one tenant or another. About a year ago I, as steward of the estate, let it to a Mr. Nugent Guest. It is Mr. Guest who has disappeared.”

Chaney produced his little note-book and began to jot down two or three things. And Colonel Herwin, after waiting a minute or two, went on.

“Mr. Nugent Guest,” he said, “appeared to be quite a suitable and satisfactory tenant. He gave me two good references—one to his solicitor, and one to his bankers, both in London. He described himself to me as something of a recluse, a good deal of a student, and a bit of an artist, in an amateur way. He brought down a very good library, and he certainly used to paint pretty regularly in water-colour. Good stuff, too—he gave me two or three of his pictures.”

“Quite good,” observed Lord Ellingshurst, pointing to a small picture on one of the panelled walls. “That’s one of his—the village green. Better than most amateurs he certainly was.”

“Well, as I say, Mr. Guest has disappeared,” continued Colonel Herwin. “This afternoon his housekeeper, Mrs. Adey, a very respectable woman whom he took over with the Dower House, came to me very much upset. She and a sort of general servant, a young woman named Priscilla Clinch, formed Mr. Guest’s domestic establishment, except for a village lad who cleaned knives and boots, and a gardener—who happens to be the father of the girl who’s been murdered, one Charles Boach. The boy and Boach, of course, didn’t live at the Dower House—the only inmates, you’ll understand, were Mr. Guest himself, Mrs. Adey, and Prissie Clinch.”

Chaney was busily writing in his book; Colonel Herwin stopped until he motioned to him to go on.

“Well, this is what Mrs. Adey came to tell me,” said the Colonel, resuming his story. “On Monday night everything went on as usual at the Dower House. Mr. Guest always dined at eight o’clock; he dined at his usual hour that night; Prissie Clinch, who waited on him, appears to have been the last person who ever saw him. The last she saw of him was just before ten o’clock, when she took mineral water and a decanter of whisky into his study—in pursuance of a nightly duty. He was then reading and smoking, and she saw nothing unusual in his appearance and behaviour. And—here’s a point Mrs. Adey herself laid emphasis upon, and I think it should be remembered—just as Prissie Clinch was leaving the room, he called her back and bade her tell Mrs. Adey that as the cold weather was beginning to set in, he wanted porridge served for breakfast every morning, and she was to begin next morning. Mrs. Adey bore this order in mind and served porridge next morning—but Mr. Guest never appeared at his breakfast-table! During the night Mr. Guest had—vanished!”

Colonel Herwin paused, spreading his hands and looking from one to the other of us as if to seek some recognition of the dramatic effect of this announcement. But no one spoke, until Chaney asked a question in his most matter-of-fact tones:

“Oh, well, what you might call at once,” replied Colonel Herwin. “Mr. Guest always breakfasted at half past eight. He came down to the minute and expected his breakfast to be on the table to the minute. Now on Tuesday morning he was not down at half past eight, nor at a quarter to nine, nor at nine o’clock, so then Prissie Clinch went up and knocked at his door—”

“A moment, Colonel,” said Chaney. “Hadn’t she made any attendance on him before that? What about his shaving water, for instance?”

“The Dower House has been thoroughly modernized,” replied Colonel Herwin. “There is hot and cold water laid on in all the principal bedrooms. So there was no need for the girl to take Mr. Guest shaving water—hot water was there, ready to his hand. No—they’d heard nothing of him that morning. Well, as I say, Prissie Clinch went up at nine o’clock and knocked at his door. She got no reply and she got none when she knocked a second time. So she ran downstairs and told the housekeeper. Mrs. Adey went upstairs with her. And a third summons producing no result, the two women entered Mr. Guest’s room. Mr. Guest was not there. And—his bed had not been slept in!”

“Bed—had—not—been—slept—in,” muttered Chaney, patiently writing in his book. “Um! What did the women do, sir?”

“What could they do? Mrs. Adey tells me that once or twice since he had come to live at the Dower House, Mr. Guest had risen very early in the morning and gone quietly off to catch a train. She thought he must have done so on this occasion. But whenever he had done so, he had always, without exception, left a note for her in some prominent place in the dining-room. On finding that he wasn’t in his bedroom, and that the bed had not been slept in, she went down to the dining-room to look for such a note. She found nothing. Then she thought that Mr. Guest had for once forgotten this and would wire her during the day. But no wire came. Nor did Mr. Guest return that night. In short, Mrs. Adey and Prissie Clinch have neither seen nor heard anything of Mr. Guest since Prissie Clinch said good-night to him about ten o’clock on Monday night. But,” concluded Colonel Herwin, with a queer, significant look at our attentive faces, “they have heard something else, and seen something else!”

“Queer story altogether,” replied Colonel Herwin. “May be the result of nerves—it’s the sort of place in which women would be frightened to be left alone, and there’s a sort of superstition in the neighbourhood that the house is haunted. However, this is what the housekeeper has just told me. She says that at intervals on Tuesday, during the day, and again during the evening, before they went to bed, she and the girl, Prissie Clinch, heard a muffled sound like knocking on a wall, but couldn’t locate it. She heard it again after she went to bed—it kept her awake. Then, later that night, about twelve o’clock, she felt confident that there was somebody moving about in the house. It’s a big house, with no end of queer nooks and corners, and irregularly built—a main body, with extensions that have been added at one time or another during the last two hundred years. Mrs. Adey got up, woke the girl, and they searched the house—”

“Nothing! However, the same thing happened again next day. Both women heard the knocking, at intervals. Mrs. Adey went all over the place, outbuildings as well—there are some extensive outbuildings at the back, used by a farmer—but again she couldn’t make out where the sound came from. And that night, last night, she once more heard—as she thought—somebody moving about in the old part of the house, and once more got the girl up, and once more searched. And this time they saw something. Some sound made Mrs. Adey look out of a staircase window which gives on the garden, and she distinctly saw a figure pass across a corner of the garden and disappear round the buildings in the direction of the wood which lies behind—the Home Wood, in fact.”

“She did. Both saw it. But neither could tell whether it was the figure of a man or a woman. Mrs. Adey thought it was that of a woman, but wasn’t certain; Priscilla Clinch says that from the height of the figure she thought it was that of a man wrapped up in a big cloak that came down to the feet. Anyway, both saw it, and where it went, too.”

“Last night. Mrs. Adey came to see me about it first thing this morning, but I had gone out until noon. She came again this afternoon and told me all I have now told you. Of one thing I’m quite sure,” continued Colonel Herwin, glancing at Lord Ellingshurst, “these women are not romancing. The housekeeper seems to be a practical, common-sense woman, one who, I should say, is not easily upset. And there’s no doubt that she’s frightened.”

“I suggest that you both go along to the Dower House and make some inquiries,” he said. “If there’s any connexion between all these things, the theft of the diamonds, the murder of Effie Boach, and the disappearance of Mr. Guest, there’s work for you. Colonel Herwin will take you down there.”

“I was going to suggest it, my Lord,” said Chaney, “but first, and while we’re about it, I want to ask Colonel Herwin one or two questions. You say that you had references for this Mr. Nugent Guest—one from his bankers, one from his solicitor? What sort of references?”

“Oh, the ordinary sort,” replied Colonel Herwin. “In each case the reply was that we should find Mr. Guest a satisfactory tenant.”

“But nothing to show you who or what he was or what his previous record was?” said Chaney.

“Oh, dear, no, nothing of that sort. The bankers said, I think, that they had known Mr. Guest for some years and that we should find him a good tenant; the solicitor, something of the same sort. Just the usual replies, you know.”

“I understand,” said Chaney. “What both really meant was that you’d get your rent punctually. Now, I suppose that Mr. Guest was personally known to both his Lordship and you, Colonel? What were your impressions?”

“I never remember seeing Mr. Guest but once,” he said. “I saw him sketching or painting, near the church, one day, and just said good-morning to him. So I have no impression to tell you of.”

“I never saw much of him,” said Colonel Herwin. “We met, casually, now and then. He seemed to me to be just about what he described himself as—student, artist, that sort. Very quiet, uncommunicative sort of man—a recluse.”

“Well,” he said, “let’s go see this old house. I dare say,” he remarked as we went out with Colonel Herwin, “I dare say the noises originate in the presence of rats—I’ve never known an old house, Colonel, that didn’t produce a crop of strange sounds at night. But the mysterious figure is another thing.”

Colonel Herwin led us through the gardens and grounds into the big park, and thence, by a path which skirted the Home Wood, to a point from which, on one side, we could see the village of Ellingshurst, and on the other certain tall, curiously shaped chimneys, towards which he stretched a pointing finger.

“That’s the Dower House,” he said. “You’ll get a full view of it presently. As I told you just now, it’s a very old place. A good deal of it dates from the fifteenth century. Of course it’s been restored at one time or another, and the interior has been modernized. But it’s a decided relic of yesterday.”

I quite agreed with that when, presently, we stood in front of the Dower House. It was a queer old rambling place, with a timbered front, strange twisted chimneys, ivied walls here and there, quaint windows, a coat of arms—the Ellings’—in a shield over the door of the porch, and all sorts of architectural odds and ends about it. There was a courtyard in front, and a walled garden at one side, and in the rear of the house itself was a range of outbuildings, barns, granaries, stables, scarcely less ancient than the main body in front. Colonel Herwin pointed to these.

“The Dower House was turned into a farmstead for a time, about a hundred years ago,” he said. “It’s only of late years—the last thirty years—that it’s reverted to its original purpose. The outbuildings are now let to one of our farmers—they’re shut off from the house by a high wall at the rear of the orchard.”

We crossed the flagged courtyard and entered the porch. Evidently the housekeeper had seen us coming, for the door opened at once.

“None, sir—we’ve heard nothing,” replied Mrs. Adey. “Will you come in, gentlemen?”

We followed her into a square, stone-lined hall, thence into a big room at the side, the windows of which looked out on to the courtyard. Before she could invite us to seats, Chaney turned to the housekeeper.

“We’ve come here, ma’am, at Lord Ellingshurst’s request, to make inquiries,” he said. “I want to make one at once. Just think, carefully. Was Mr. Guest at home between, say, five and seven o’clock on Monday evening last? Can you remember, now?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Adey. “He was not. Mr. Guest was out, from tea-time to dinner-time.”

With the evident intention of bringing immediate corroboration of her statement the housekeeper crossed the room, opened a door into a long passage through the side windows of which we caught glimpses of gardens and orchards, and called loudly to some unseen person.

A smart-looking, alert young woman, whose black gown, white cap, and white apron were worn with some show of coquetry, came forward and eyed each one of us with varying degrees of curiosity—Colonel Herwin she evidently knew quite well. Dropping her hands in front of her apron in an attitude of attention, she looked inquiringly at Mrs. Adey.

“Prissie,” said the housekeeper, “these gentlemen want to know where Mr. Guest was late on Monday afternoon. I’ve told them he was out, but you can say more particularly than I can, for you saw him go out and come in, didn’t you?”

“Mr. Guest went out as soon as he’d had tea,” she said. “I brought tea in here for him at five o’clock, the usual time. He wasn’t ten minutes over it; then he went out, through the gardens at the back. He came in, the same way, about a quarter past seven, when I was laying the table for dinner.”

Chaney and I glanced at each other; I knew what his question to Mrs. Adey had meant. He wanted to know where Mr. Guest was at the time of the theft of Lady Ellingshurst’s diamonds. Well—now we knew. Mr. Guest, at any rate, was not at the Dower House.

Prissie Clinch, duly examined, was moving away; Chaney stopped her with a gesture. He turned to Mrs. Adey.

“I want to ask you and this young lady a question or two,” he said. “Colonel Herwin has told us all you’ve told him about Mr. Guest’s disappearance, the noises you’ve heard, and the figure you saw disappearing in the garden. Now I want to hear something about all this from your own lips.”

We all sat down. Chaney proceeded to examine and cross-examine the two women. And the sum total of his examination was precisely what we had already got from Colonel Herwin. What impressed me was the confidence the two women showed as regarded the mysterious knocking, and their certainty that they had seen a figure going away from the house during the night.

“Well, now, as regards the knocking,” concluded Chaney, “have you, or either of you, heard it today?”

No—neither of them had heard anything. The last time they had heard it had been late on the previous afternoon. Questioned further, neither could give the least idea of where it came from. Mrs. Adey said it seemed to be in the garden; Prissie Clinch thought it was somewhere the other side of the high wall which shut off the garden from the outbuildings. Each was vague on that subject. But they were both precise and definite enough as to seeing the mysterious figure.

“Very well,” said Chaney. “Now show us where you were when you saw—whatever it was you did see.”

Mrs. Adey rose and began what proved to be a somewhat lengthy task in acting as cicerone. This is not a guide-book nor a topographical work, nor an essay on English architecture since pre-Tudor days, and I am not going to describe the Dower House; it will serve my purpose if I say that though I have seen a good many queer old country-houses, I have never seen a queerer one than it. The exterior was odd and interesting and picturesque enough, but it was nothing to the interior. After a very few minutes rambling about in that, one might as well have been in a cunningly arranged maze. Rooms seemed to open out into one another; passages, after twisting about right-left, left-right, north, south, east, west, brought you to where you set out; staircases, after going up, unexpectedly went down; you turned a corner and suddenly found that you were in the other part of the house; another corner, and you were where you were before; a third and instead of looking out on the courtyard, you were looking on the orchard, and so on and so on. Chaney, indeed, summed up the Dower House in a few words; it was, he said, an ideal place in which to play hide-and-seek on a wet day when you’d nothing else to do.

There was, however, nothing puzzling, nor odd, about the exact location of the place from which Mrs. Adey and Prissie Clinch had seen the mysterious figure. The Dower House, as a building, consisted of a main structure, the original one, from which various wings or supplementary structures branched off at one angle or another. To be more precise, the main building stood four-square (that is, it had originally been four-square, with no additions) in the rear of the courtyard. But now it had on either side of it wings, extending right and left; these again, here and there, had additions of their own. The back of the main building, however, the original old house, looked out on the gardens at the rear, and it was from a window in the main corridor of this that Mrs. Adey and Prissie Clinch had seen the mysterious figure. The view from that window—a long, low one, set in a recess—was a wide one, and Chaney and I took particular notice of it. Immediately beneath us lay the lawns and flower-beds of the garden, which was enclosed on the right and at the opposite end by a high wall of mellow old brick; this wall shut off the outbuildings, whose roofs and gables rose above it, having the tall trees of the Home Wood for a background. On our left ran the walls and roof of another wing of the old house; it was in that wing, Mrs. Adey informed us, that she and Prissie Clinch slept. Roused from their sleep by the noise in the house, and hearing—as they thought—a door close, they had stolen to this window and looked out on the garden. The night was clear and starlight, and they were confident of what they saw—a cloaked figure stealing away from the house.

Mrs. Adey pointed to the wall of the wing which ran off at right angles to the main part of the house.

“We first saw it moving along there,” she said. “It came into view, out of the darkness, near that buttress. We’d seen nothing till then; it came into sight quite suddenly. Prissie saw it first, and she nearly screamed, but she restrained herself and gripped my arm and pointed. I felt like screaming myself, gentlemen.”

“I didn’t know what to think, sir. But they say—everybody says—that this house is haunted, and—well, I was frightened!”

“So was I,” said Prissie Clinch. “It would have frightened anybody—what we saw.”

But neither woman could give a very accurate account. Anyway, a figure, that moved along the wall, crossed the farther end of the garden, and vanished at a point where the garden wall and the angle of the cluster of outbuildings met at the edge of the Home Wood.

“It just sort of faded away into the trees,” said Mrs. Adey. “As if—well, as if it had been a ghost.”

“They say there is a ghost about this house,” remarked Prissie Clinch. “People in the village say so.”

“Oh, well,” said Chaney, “we must see what we can do to lay it. But now just show me again the exact spot at which you first saw this figure appear—you say you saw it going along the wall down there?”

“It was exactly where that buttress is, near the pantry window,” replied Mrs. Adey, pointing to where some supporting masonry had been built up against the main wall of the wing of the house which ran off at right angles. “It was as if—I can’t say more exactly than as if it had walked straight out of the wall.”

“As if it had walked straight out of the wall, eh?” repeated Chaney. “Well, they say that ghosts can walk right through walls, don’t they? Um!—come downstairs again.”

We all trooped downstairs. Chaney looked into the passage which led to the regions from which the housekeeper had summoned Prissie Clinch.

“To the kitchens and pantries,” replied Mrs. Adey. “They open off from it. The outer wall is the one we’ve been looking at from the window upstairs.”

Chaney turned into the passage. Half-way along it he came to a door, deeply set in the thick wall. Opening this, and motioning us to follow, he stepped out into the garden, at the side and in the shadow of the buttress to which Mrs. Adey had called our attention.

“This is where the—let’s call it ghost—was when you first saw it?” he asked. “Just about here, eh?”

“It couldn’t have done that,” said Mrs. Adey promptly. “I myself see that every door in the house is secured before I go to bed.”

Chaney made no immediate reply to that. He turned into the house again and, when we had followed him, closed the door and looked carefully at it.

“Yes,” he said, “but I see that the only way in which you can secure this particular door is by locking it. There are no bolts, no bars, no chains. Nothing but a lock—quite a simple one.”

“I always see that the key’s turned, anyway,” said the housekeeper. “I see to it myself—every night.”

“Ay, but supposing anybody else had a key?” suggested Chaney. “And that reminds me—was Mr. Guest ever out late at night?”

“He would be sometimes,” replied Mrs. Adey. “Sometimes when he’d been up to town, he’d be late.”

Chaney busied himself about the door and its lock and the way of the lock for a few minutes longer. Then he turned to the two women again.

“Have you mentioned this affair of the ghost to anybody but Colonel Herwin?” he asked. “Tradesmen or village folk, you know?”

“Well, I dare say we have,” admitted the housekeeper. “I saw no reason to keep it secret. And of course it’s not a pleasant thing for two lone women to be left in a house like this with things of that sort going on.”

“Quite right, ma’am, it isn’t,” said Chaney. “But we’ll see if we can’t lay hands on the ghost tonight. A word with you, now, Colonel.”

We went back to the room into which Mrs. Adey had first led us; Chaney closed the door. Colonel Herwin, who had silently followed us about the house, listening attentively to all that had passed between Chaney and the housekeeper, now spoke.

“I don’t think there’s much mystery about it, Colonel,” replied Chaney. “What these two women saw—and would very readily take for a ghost!—was some person who came to see Mr. Guest. That person, in my opinion, is a woman. She may not have known—on her first visit, at any rate—that Mr. Guest was away. If she didn’t, she found that he was away. Her second visit was to see if he’d come back. In any case, she’s got a key to that door we’ve just had a look at. Probably she’s been in the habit of letting herself in there—all unknown to the housekeeper and the maid. That’s how I figure it, Colonel.”

“Dear me, dear me!” he exclaimed. “I—I suppose your theory has something in it—”

“But—I can’t think of any woman in the neighbourhood that—in short, that would be likely to visit Mr. Guest under—under such circumstances!” continued Colonel Herwin. “Such—er, clandestine circumstances!”

“Very likely, Colonel—I can’t say, not knowing the ladies of the neighbourhood,” replied Chaney. “But I think you’ll find I’m right. The pertinent question at present is—who is the lady?”

“That’s simple enough,” answered Chaney. “My partner and I will come here tonight, after dark, and we will keep the house under observation. If any ghost comes here tonight, we will interview it. Perhaps you’ll fix things up with the housekeeper, Colonel?”

The Colonel fixed things up, and at ten o’clock that night Chaney and I took possession of the Dower House. During the evening I had been busy—developing what I took to be a brilliant idea. Noticing that electric light was installed all over the old place—I have already said, I think, that it had been thoroughly modernized—I brought with me, from our own car, a very powerful head-lamp and a supply of flexes and joints, and fixed up the lamp in the window of the upstairs corridors in such a position that if we detected a figure in the garden below, we could instantly flash a great beam of light on it.

Chaney and I made our own arrangements. We were to divide the night into watches of four hours each; I took the first, from eleven o’clock until three. It had, perforce, to be spent in darkness, for it would never have done to have a gleam of light anywhere in the house. I passed the time in the upstairs corridor, looking out on the night, watching the stars, listening, wondering if anything would happen. And just after I had heard the church clock strike twelve, I heard a sound somewhere outside the house and, looking from the corridor window, saw, dimly, a moving figure.

At the very moment of recognition of this moving figure, I recognized another startling fact—it was moving, not to the house, but from the house! As I caught sight of it, making it out, at first vaguely, then more clearly, against the masonry, it was just slipping past the buttress which supported the wall near the side door which Chaney had examined so carefully after hearing the housekeeper’s story. Accordingly, whatever the figure was, it had been in the house without my knowing, in spite of my careful watch. The slight sound which I had heard had probably come from a quiet closing of the door as the figure left.

In addition to rigging up the car lamp as a search-light, I had contrived a means of signalling to Chaney, who had gone to sleep in an adjacent bedroom, leaving the door open. He was a light sleeper, and within a few seconds he was at my side at the window, whispering an inquiry. I pointed to the garden.

I had no wonder, on seeing what we were now looking at, that the girl Prissie Clinch had talked of a ghost. The moving figure, gliding stealthily along the side of the wall towards the farther end of the garden, was essentially ghostlike in its appearance and its motion. That was a bright, starlit night, and we could see distinctly. And what we saw was a tallish figure, shrouded from head to foot in some darkish stuff, probably a dark grey, which so much enveloped it, literally from the crown of the head to the toes, that it was impossible to tell whether it was that of a man or a woman. Had the Dower House been the remains of some old monastic foundation, it would have required little effort of the imagination to picture this figure as the uneasy spirit of some monk, doomed to haunt the scenes in which he had spent his earthly existence.

But the figure, if moving stealthily, was also moving swiftly, and at a whisper from Chaney I turned the search-light full on that part of the garden through which it was moving. On the instant the figure sprang forward and broke into a rush for the corner of the outbuildings, where there was a little gateway which admitted to the wood. It was nearly at this gate when we heard a shout, and from some hidden place in the garden a man leapt out and made for it. He was a big, loosely-built man; he ran quickly; another second and he would have laid hands on the object of his pursuit. But as he came within a couple of yards of it, the figure turned, a hand shot out, there was a flash and a sharp report, and the man threw up his hands with a scream and collapsed on the pathway. Before he had sunk to the earth, the figure had vanished in the undergrowth of the wood.

With nothing said beyond a smothered exclamation from Chaney, we raced downstairs, through the house, and out into the garden. We had, of course, left the search-light on, and its beam fell full on the man who lay there just in front of the wicket-gate through which the figure had vanished. Chaney ran to him, but I dashed past and into the wood. Once within its shadows, or, rather, its utter blackness, I pulled myself up sharply, realizing that ears would serve me better than eyes. And I heard nothing, not even the crackle of a twig, the rustle of a leaf. Everything in there was silent as could be. And hearing the wounded man groan, I went back to where he lay. Chaney was helping him to his feet and asking him where he was hit. But I saw where, at once—his left arm hung limply at his side.

“It’s my arm, master,” the man was saying. “Left arm—I cannot lift it.”

We hurried him into the house; Mrs. Adey and the girl met us in the corridor and threw open the door of the front kitchen. As Prissie Clinch turned on the electric light, both women let out exclamations of surprise.

“Why, it’s Boach!” said Mrs. Adey. “What ever’s come to you, Boach? Who’s been at you?”

The similarity of the man’s name with that of the murdered girl made Chaney and me glance at each other. But that was no time for questions; Boach was bleeding.

“Ring up the doctor, my girl,” said Chaney, motioning Prissie to the door which led to the hall. “Tell him to come here at once and that there’s been a shooting accident. Quick about it, and tell him to be quick. Now, my lad,” he went on, turning to Boach, who had dropped into a chair and was still groaning, “let’s get your coat off and see what the damage is. Mrs. Adey, get something we can make a bandage of—old linen, anything.”

Between us, Chaney and I got Boach’s rough jacket off and turned back the sleeve of his shirt. We soon found the wound—the bullet had gone through the fleshy part of the arm, half-way between elbow and shoulder, and—so it seemed to us, and we afterwards found we were right—had passed right through without touching the bone. Both of us possessing some knowledge of first aid, we strapped and bandaged the arm and, having given Boach a restorative in the shape of a dose of brandy and water, proceeded to question him.

“Now, my man,” said Chaney, “first of all—are you some relation of the girl who was found dead—”

“What were you doing in the garden, Boach?” asked Chaney. “Don’t be afraid—tell us.”

Boach took another sip of the brandy and water and shook his head with a gesture of angry defiance.

“Aren’t afraid of nothing, master,” he said. “I was after that bloody murderer, that’s what I was after. And I’d ha’ had him, if so be as he hadn’t give me this here, blast him!”

“But—how did you know?” asked Chaney. “I mean how did you come to think the murderer would be here?”

“Like this, master,” he replied. “These here ladies, they lets it be known, yesterday, as how there was queer goings-on in this here house—somebody afoot at night, and suchlike. And says I to myself, and likewise to my missis—‘That there,’ I says, ‘ ’ll be that bloody villain what scragged my poor girl in the wood,’ I says, ‘and Lord ’lives me if I don’t see him scragged therefor!’ And I makes up my mind to come and watch, and lay hands on that same. That’s why and wherefore!”

“Who else, master? Ain’t he a stranger, what nobody knows anything about—a fellow as hasn’t no proper okkypation—a-wandering about woods and fields, a-doing nothing but staring about him? I seen him a-talking to my girl once or twice, and I tells her if ever she do talk wi’ that, I’d give her a good larruping with my belt. Wasn’t going to have no lass o’ mine a-taking up wi’ such as he, what nobody knows nothing about. We don’t hold wi’ strangers in our parts.”

Chaney looked at me as if puzzled. He was a Cockney by birth and upbringing and had no knowledge of the curious idiosyncrasies of the rural populations. I took up the questioning.

I was quite prepared to hear him answer this in the affirmative, but he shook his head.

“Couldn’t say, master,” he answered. “I’m a fair man, I am, and I wouldn’t take my Bible oath that it was.”

“I didn’t, master. ’Cause why? ’Twas all covered up, like—he’d drawed his cloak all round his head, that fellow, so as you couldn’t see nothing. But I see his hand, and that there damned pistol what he shot me with—’twas all over so quick’s a flash o’ lightning, like. No, I didn’t see no face.”

“The fact is,” I went on, “you couldn’t swear it was a man, and you couldn’t swear it was a woman? Is that it? Then—you don’t know who it was?”

“Well, master, an’ it comes to that, I don’t,” he admitted. “But I do know as the bloody villain shot me, and here I am. And why isn’t that doctor a-comin’, you Prissie Clinch?—might so be as I’ll be a-bleeding to death, and what becomes o’ my missis and the childer’ then, I should like to know!”

The doctor came presently and convinced Boach that he was not going to bleed to death and had escaped with a flesh wound, though a pretty bad one. We made him comfortable for the night after the doctor had attended to him and had promised to call in at his cottage and tell Mrs. Boach what had happened. And, it still wanting some hours of daylight, we were all going to retire again when Prissie Clinch came to me in the dining-room.

“There’s something I’d like to say, sir, if I may,” she said shyly. “Something I think should be known.”

“Let me know what it is, by all means, Prissie,” I replied. “Don’t keep anything back that you think may be useful.”

“Well, it’s this, sir,” she continued. “I was thinking about it last night—it hadn’t occurred to me before. We think Mr. Guest left the house during Monday night. Well, sir, as I’ve always looked after them for him, I know all about Mr. Guest’s clothes. Mr. Guest, sir, has three overcoats—there’s a heavy one, a light one, and one that’s waterproofed. He’s also three hats. Now all his overcoats and all his hats are there in the hall, sir—all of them. So if he went out that night, he went without hat or overcoat—and the nights are cold now, sir.”

“You’re a smart girl, Prissie,” I said. “That’s an important detail—very important. You’re sure about it?”

She crossed the room and opened a door which gave on the square hall of the house, and, switching on the electric light, pointed to a hat-stand.

“There they all are, sir,” she said. “Coats and hats. And Mr. Guest was very susceptible to cold—I’ve never known him go out of an evening, after the warm weather was over, without his light overcoat. Lately he’d worn the heavy one.”

“Well, that’s something to think over, Prissie,” I said. “I’ll tell my partner, Mr. Chaney, about it.”

The girl turned to leave the room, but before she had reached the door, she paused and looked at me, as if she had more to say.

“Well, sir,” she said at last, “I’ve wondered if Mr. Guest ever did leave the house?”

“This is a very strange place, sir,” she answered. “I’ve wondered if—if he mightn’t be hidden somewhere?”

“I can’t think of any particular place, sir,” she replied. “But in an old house like this—and then there are the farm-buildings, too, sir. If you’ve never looked over them you won’t understand, but they’re as queer as the house is. And there is that in it, sir—wherever he is, and wherever he went, he took neither overcoat nor hat with him. And”—she suddenly checked herself, as if remembering something, and then turned once more to the door—“will you excuse me a minute, sir—I’ll come back.”

“Something else has occurred to you?” I suggested as she turned away. “Is that it?”

“I’ve found out another thing, sir,” she said. “Wherever Mr. Guest went that night, he went in his slippers. He’s three pairs of shoes; he never wore boots. I remember now that when we came down on Tuesday morning, the shoes he’d been wearing on Monday were where he always left them, on the rug in his study—he used to put his slippers on there before he had dinner, every night, regularly. I cleaned those shoes, as usual, and put them back in the study. They’re there now, of course, untouched. And his other two pairs are in his bedroom. So he must have gone out in his slippers—if he did go out.”

Chaney came into the room just then. I told him of what Prissie had been talking; he heard it all over again from her own lips. And when she had gone, he shook his head.

“Shrewd girl that, Camberwell,” he remarked. “Keeps her eyes open. Now I wonder if her suggestion’s right? This fellow, for some reason of his own, may be hiding somewhere about the place—as I said last night, it’s the very place to play hide-and-seek in. We must examine it again, more carefully, and the outbuildings, too.”

“If that was he who shot Boach, he may have been visiting the house to get food,” replied Chaney. “The housekeeper, perhaps, can solve that problem. Anyway, we’ll have to go into things more closely.”

The local police had to be fetched and informed early that morning, and with their arrival we and they began and carried out a thorough search of the house and the outbuildings, and in the end were no wiser than before. One fact puzzled me—if the mysterious figure was really that of Mr. Nugent Guest, what had been his object in stealing into his own house at midnight? For no food had been touched—Mrs. Adey was positive on that point—and there was nothing to show that anyone had entered, for any purpose, after the two women had retired. We had a long consultation with Lord Ellingshurst and Colonel Herwin on these points; the result of it was that before noon Chaney and I, at Lord Ellingshurst’s request, got into our car and went off to town, charged with the mission of interviewing Mr. Guest’s bankers and Mr. Guest’s solicitor.

Chaney and I had found no opportunity of discussing these matters up to the moment of starting for town, but as soon as we had got fairly away from Ellingshurst, I put a straight question to him—did he believe the figure we had seen by our search-light to be that of the missing man, Mr. Nugent Guest? His answer was prompt and—from the tone of it—positive.

“Frankly, I don’t, Camberwell,” he said. “I don’t believe it for a second. Certainly not Guest!”

“Some person searching for Guest, wanting to see Guest, having some business of a secret nature with Guest,” he answered. “Somebody, too, who was so well known to Guest that Guest had entrusted him or her with a key to that side door. I say: him or her; but my opinion is that it’s a woman.”

“Nothing out of the way, Camberwell. I took careful note of that,” he said. “Five foot nine, at most. Not an unusual height for a woman, nowadays. I feel convinced our ghost—or Mrs. Adey’s—was, undoubtedly, a woman.”

“Plenty of women round about here, my lad,” he replied. “Look at these places”—he waved a hand at a small colony of what builders call highly desirable villa residences which had recently been built a little way outside the village—“you don’t suppose these are all tenanted by bachelors and widowers? Guest may have made a good many acquaintances amongst the ladies of these houses. You know the sort of people who come to live in this sort of house? City folk, as a rule, who want to live within thirty or forty miles of town, with a convenient railway station close by, from which papa can go up to business of a morning while mamma bides at home to mind the baby and potter about the garden. Guest may have struck up a friendship, or friendships, here—for anything we know, he may have had an affair in progress with some lady of the neighbourhood. Anyway, I’m certain that it was a woman that we saw last night.”

“Well, yes, armed,” he admitted. “But I see nothing wonderful about that. If a woman came visiting at midnight and had to cross woodlands and meadows, there’s nothing very remarkable in her carrying a revolver. Lots of women—motorists, especially—do, nowadays. Now, Camberwell, that wasn’t Guest—it was some woman seeking Guest.”

“Oh, well, we’re at the beginning,” he said. “And don’t you forget that there’s always the chance that Guest may suddenly turn up and give a perfectly reasonable account of his brief or protracted absence.”

“How could he account for leaving his house in the dead of night without hat or overcoat, Chaney?” I asked.

“Pooh—I make nothing of that,” he replied scornfully. “Very elementary stuff, that, my lad. Supposing he had some lady friend within easy reach of the Dower House, what easier than for him to slip across to her, furnish himself with coat and hat, and be off in a car—wherever he wanted to go? Oh, we’ve half a hundred things to find out!—but don’t you forget this, Camberwell: the police are on the job now! We’re working for my Lord—to satisfy his curiosity, I think, more than anything. But the police are working—for the police.”

“Its meaning, my lad, is just this,” he answered. “Now that murder has come into the business, there’ll be an inquest. Tomorrow or next day—no, the next day is Sunday—tomorrow or Monday, Camberwell, the coroner and his twelve men’ll sit to inquire into the death of Effie Boach, and you’ll see that the police will not only have linked together the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds and Effie’s murder, but that they’ll have a cut-and-dried theory all ready to advance—to which theory they’ll stick like grim death. I say—you’ll see!”

“Yes, I dare bet I know what that’ll be,” he answered confidently. “It’ll be this. You heard Boach say, when we were patching him up, that he’d seen his girl talking to Guest? Very well, Boach will have told the police all that by this time. The police theory will be that Guest stole the diamonds, that Effie Boach knew he stole them, and that he killed Effie so that she couldn’t split. There’s a nice, straight, plain, matter-of-fact explanation of the whole thing. No mystery, you see—just an impudent theft and a brutal murder—easily explained. Of course, it’s all wrong! But—you’ll see that a coroner’s jury, drawn from a rustic population, will swallow it as readily as calves suck their mothers’ milk. Mark my words!”

“I dare say, Chaney,” I assented. “But I wish we knew more about Guest.”

“We may, before the afternoon’s over,” he said. “But probably not much.”

Colonel Herwin had furnished us with the names of Guest’s references—the manager of his bank, and his solicitor. The bank in question was the Paddington branch of one of the five great joint-stock banks; the solicitor was a Mr. Wilson Pembury of Edgware Road.

We went first to the bank. It was one of those small establishments of which there are many in the suburbs of London, and as there was no rush of business, we had no difficulty in gaining access to its manager. He showed some signs of interest and curiosity when he found out who we were—our names, of course, had been before the public a good deal during the previous few months in connexion with one case or another—but very little of either when we mentioned Guest. Nor did either curiosity or interest appear to be aroused in him when we told him that Guest had mysteriously disappeared. Instead, he smiled.

“I don’t think there’s anything to cause wonder or alarm in any disappearance of Mr. Nugent Guest’s,” he said. “From my experience of him as a customer or client, he’s always disappearing—and reappearing.”

“Quite in the ordinary,” assented the manager. “Sometimes we never see Mr. Guest for months. Then, perhaps he suddenly turns up and we see him every day for a week or two. Then—he fades out of the picture again.”

“Well, he had, yes. His solicitor, Mr. Wilson Pembury, brought him here. Mr. Pembury practises in Edgware Road.”

“We know of him,” remarked Chaney. “He was one of Mr. Guest’s references when Mr. Guest applied for the Dower House. You were the other.”

“Matter of form,” said the manager. “I know very little of Mr. Guest, really. He keeps an account here, of course.”

“May I ask if he’s a well-to-do man, from a financial point?” asked Chaney.

“You may take it from me that he is a man of means,” replied the manager. “He is what some people would call quite well off.”

“But you seem to regard him as a man of some mystery?” suggested Chaney. “Does that refer to his occasional disappearances or—”

“Oh, well, he is a bit of a mystery,” responded the manager. “I can tell you one thing about him—of course, this is all in strict confidence—that’s always struck me as strange. In the course of a year Mr. Guest will pay a lot of money to his credit. Now, it’s a strange fact, but it is a fact, that I’ve never, never once, known him to pay in a cheque to his credit—never, in the whole six or seven years of my knowledge of him!”

“Always in the form of Bank of England notes, or Treasury notes,” replied the manager. “Occasionally I’ve known him to pay gold in—even in these goldless days.”

“Nothing of that sort,” said the manager. “Sometimes he has had a large, a very large balance lying here. He’d suddenly withdraw most of it—in cash. But what he did with it I can’t tell you. Perhaps Mr. Pembury can.”

We went round to Edgware Road and called on Mr. Pembury at his office. Mr. Pembury did not show the interest in us that the bank-manager had shown, and on our fully explaining the object of our visit, he began to show signs of something very like displeasure.

“But this is simply ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “Do you mean to tell me that you walked into my client’s house there at Ellingshurst and occupied it, without invitation from him? You’d have looked very queer, I think, if Mr. Guest had returned home and found you there!”

“I’m not forgetting anything,” retorted Mr. Pembury, peremptorily. “Mr. Guest is the sort of man who—so to speak—goes in and out at a moment’s notice, without telling anyone his business. Probably he’s gone away for a few days—or a few weeks—or you may find him there when you get back. Really, I’m astonished! Do you mean to tell me that the Earl of Ellingshurst, merely because his wife’s diamonds have been stolen and his housemaid murdered, has employed you—”

“I’ll tell you what his Lordship has employed us to do, sir, in a few words,” interrupted Chaney, who was always ready to become aggressive if he encountered aggression. “He’s employed my partner and me not only to find out where Mr. Nugent Guest is, but who Mr. Nugent Guest is! And if you as the solicitor who acted as reference for Mr. Guest when he took the Dower House can’t or won’t tell us, we shall find somebody who will!”

“Oh, well, if you put it that way,” he said. “I—yes, of course, I did act in the way you refer to. Well, the fact is, all I know of Mr. Guest is just this—Mr. Guest came to me some six or seven years ago, when he was living in rooms in St. Mary’s Terrace, just beyond Paddington Green. He told me he’d been travelling about the world for some time, had settled down in London, and had money that he wanted to invest in house-property. I assisted him—as his legal adviser—in this. From time to time since then Mr. Guest has made further similar purchases—he owns a good deal of house-property in various suburban districts. And,” concluded Mr. Pembury, with an expressive gesture of his hands, “that he should be in any way suspected of stealing or being concerned in the stealing of Lady Ellingshurst’s diamonds appears to me—”

“Do you know anything of Mr. Guest’s doings, profession, business, and so on, before you knew him, sir?” inquired Chaney.

“Nothing—except that I gathered that he’d travelled a great deal,” replied the solicitor. “He appeared to know the colonies very well.”

“And you say he used to live in St. Mary’s Terrace?” asked Chaney. “Until recently—until he went to the Dower House? Just so—can you give me the number of the house at which he lived?”

“I shall go down to the Dower House myself tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t feel any alarm as to my client; he has probably gone away for a few days. But if all these rumours are afloat, I ought to watch his interests. I shall certainly go down there.”

Chaney remarked that this was an excellent idea on Mr. Pembury’s part, and that we would certainly keep him informed as to how things went on. And Mr. Pembury became friendly and, learning that we were about to visit Mr. Guest’s old lodgings, volunteered to accompany us; he might, he suggested, be of use.

We went round to St. Mary’s Terrace and, asking at Number 91 for Mrs. Flitt, were presently face to face with a faded-looking lady who evidently knew the solicitor by sight at any rate and was familiar with his name.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Flitt,” said Mr. Pembury. “You know me, I see—pretty well known in these parts, I think, eh? Well, Mrs. Flitt, we’ve called, these gentlemen and I, just to ask you a question or two about Mr. Nugent Guest, you know. I’m his solicitor, Mrs. Flitt. Mr. Guest used to have rooms here, didn’t he? Well—”

“Used to, sir?” she said. “Mr. Guest has rooms here now. He’s never left them.”

It was Mr. Pembury’s turn then to look surprised. He stared at us and stared from us to the landlady.

“Never left them?” he exclaimed. “But—he’s been living in Kent, Mrs. Flitt!”

“That may be, sir,” replied Mrs. Flitt. “But he’s never given up his rooms here. Mr. Guest, sir, comes here only occasionally, but his rooms are kept for him just as usual.”

“Oh, I see!” said Mr. Pembury. “I see! He keeps his rooms on and uses them now and then, eh? Ah, just so. And when was he here last, Mrs. Flitt?”

“I suppose it wouldn’t be convenient to show us Mr. Guest’s rooms, ma’am?” he asked.

“No, sir, it would not,” replied Mrs. Flitt. “Without Mr. Guest’s permission, at any rate.”

“Odd that I never knew of that,” he muttered. “Very odd! He never told me.”

We parted there, Mr. Pembury returning to his office and we to our car—in which we returned at once to Ellingshurst, still wondering about Mr. Nugent Guest.

Chaney and I spent that night at the village inn at Ellingshurst. It was a primitive, if clean and comfortable, little place; and the only place in which we had a chance of resting our somewhat weary limbs in the interval between supper and bed was a sort of general resort, half parlour, half kitchen, in which the habitués of the Dog and Duck forgathered. There was a considerable gathering of them that evening, and Chaney and I, from the obscure corner in which we had planted ourselves with our pipes, gained plenty of food for reflection from the conversation that went on amongst what, I suppose, was a representative assemblage. Needless to say, there was but one topic of conversation—the murder of Effie Boach and the attempted murder of her father. And we had not listened long before we became aware that the consensus of opinion in Ellingshurst was that the murderer of Lord Ellingshurst’s unfortunate housemaid was Mr. Nugent Guest.

Whoever has had any experience of English village life knows that even in this twentieth century the rural mind is resentful and impatient of anything strange to itself. Innovations are disliked; the presence of a stranger is resented. A man may take it into his head to buy a picturesque and desirable country cottage and may settle down in it for the rest of his life and yet never become what the natives of the place consider one of themselves. For the first few years he will be regarded with doubt and suspicion, even if he pays his debts promptly, subscribes to all the village funds and charities, and serves Mrs. Grundy by punctual attendance at the parish church. Subsequently he will be first tolerated, then treated as one on probation; later, his advice on parish-pump matters may be grudgingly sought. But at the end of a generation he will still be considered a foreigner, and if he has children born in the village, it will be remembered against them, even though they live to a patriarchal age, that their father came from—outside. Now, the man with whose doings we were concerned just then, was, to Ellingshurst people, an absolute stranger who had been amongst them for only a few months at most; he was, accordingly, an object of absolute suspicion. Who knew anything about him? A gentleman? Might be, but neither his Lordship at the Abbey nor the Vicar at the vicarage asked him to dinner or dined with him. Man of means? Well, that might be, but it was precious little he spent in the parish. And what was to be thought of a man who spent his time mooning about woods and meadows, or sat down, when he might have been doing a bit of honest gardening, to make pictures of a tumble-down wall or a clump of trees or a stretch of river?—not honest work, that. And what did he want, if he was a gentleman, to talk to an ignorant, simple lass like that poor Effie Boach for? Her father had caught ’em a-talking together, more than once, and had threatened Effie that he’d larrup her well if he caught ’em again. That there man, sure-ly, was the bloody murderer!—and a main bad lot, seeing as how he not only scragged the poor girl, but tried to shoot her bereaved parent.

There was, of course, as there always is in rustic assemblies, at least one man who, out of sheer contrariness, went counter to public opinion. He was a shrewd bright-eyed little chap, whom we afterwards discovered to be the village shoemaker. And, like all objectors, he had some awkward questions to put.

“What call ha’ you for holding that this here Mr. Guest is the guilty party?” he demanded. “You aren’t got no what you might call evidence agin him—not a scrap o’ what you might call real, right-down evidence. What’s it siggerfy about his been seen occasionally talking to Effie Boach? ’Twas a way o’ his—I seen him talking to other young lasses, and lads, too.”

“That’s all fudge,” declared the shoemaker. “Boach hisself says he couldn’t say who it was shot at him. And let me ask all on you another question. There’s such a thing as common sense in this world, though a good many folks seem to ha’ been born without it. If this here man killed yon girl, d’ye think he’d hang about here in a fancy dress, haunting that Dower House and round about it as if he was a ghost? Not likely—he’d ha’ cut his stick at once.”

“He mowt not!” asserted a dark-visaged man, very solemnly. “He mowt not!”

“You’re a pack o’ fools!” he said, good-humouredly. “But I reckon you’ll stick to your own opinions.”

Chaney turned to me when—closing time coming just then, and everybody leaving—we had the place to ourselves.

“Of course they’ll stick to their own opinions,” he said. “And you see what the general opinion is, Camberwell. Guest is the guilty man! And don’t you forget that the jury which will be summoned to inquire into Effie Boach’s death will be made up of the men or of the sort of men we’ve just been listening to. In other words, it’ll have made up its mind before it hears the evidence.”

“Let’s hope there’ll be a few men like the shoemaker on the jury,” I said.

“There won’t,” replied Chaney. “He may be there, but he’ll only be one amongst many. Shoemakers are always independent thinkers—they’ve time to think things out. But, in the opinion of Ellingshurst folk, Mr. Nugent Guest is already guilty.”

That night passed, and early next morning, on our way to report to Colonel Herwin, we called in at the Dower House, to ask if anything had occurred since we left it the previous day. Nothing had happened, said the housekeeper. Mr. Guest had not returned, nor had she received any communication from him. There had been letters for him; the police had taken charge of them. The police, indeed, according to Mrs. Adey, had been very busy since our departure from the Dower House the previous afternoon. They had been in and about the house all the afternoon and evening, and some of them had been there again that morning. But they had told her nothing, though they had subjected her and Prissie Clinch to a searching cross-examination. Mrs. Adey had it in mind that they were up to something, but what that something was she could not think. And a couple of policemen had been in charge of the house all night: one of them was still there.

We went on from the Dower House to the estate office, where we had arranged to meet Colonel Herwin. Three men were coming away from it as we drew near; two of them, the local Inspector of Police and his Sergeant, we knew; the third, a military-looking man in mufti, I took to be the Chief Constable. He gave us a searching inspection as he passed us, in silence; the Inspector, however, stopped and came up to us.

“I suppose you gentlemen are still acting under Lord Ellingshurst’s instructions?” he said. “Just so—well, I may as well tell you that your evidence’ll be wanted at the Coroner’s inquest on Monday.”

“Anything that may be asked you,” replied the Inspector, with unnecessary peremptoriness. “You’ll be there, of course? The village hall—ten thirty.”

“We are acting under Lord Ellingshurst’s orders,” he said. “But I’m quite sure his Lordship is willing that we should put at your disposal any information that we’ve been able to secure. If—”

“His Lordship hasn’t done much to help so far,” he remarked. “I think you’d better leave all that till Monday, Mr. Chaney. You’ll understand? Be at the inquest, anyhow, both of you.”

“Um!” he said. “Bet I know what that means, Camberwell. His Lordship and the police have been having a row! I guessed they would—they’re not pleased that he’s called us in. However, Lord Ellingshurst’s money is as good as anybody else’s, and—”

“And here we are, I suppose, till Lord Ellingshurst tells us to go, eh?” I said.

“That’s about it,” he assented. “But I think I know exactly why they’ve had a row. We’ll hear in a minute—Colonel Herwin’ll know.”

Colonel Herwin looked as if his usual equanimity had been disturbed. He shook his head when he saw us.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “Just had the Chief Constable and a couple of his myrmidons here. The Chief Constable’s in a wax with Lord Ellingshurst—and, of course, he’s been pouring it all out on my unfortunate head!”

“He’s angry because Lord Ellingshurst didn’t inform the police of the theft of the diamonds,” replied Colonel Herwin. “I mean, didn’t give information at once.”

“We’re not police,” said Chaney. “We’re private inquiry agents. According to the strict letter, or etiquette, or procedure, or whatever you like to call it, Colonel, his Lordship, finding that a crime had been committed in his house, should have informed the police there and then. The Chief Constable, having an official mind, certainly will not be pleased that his Lordship ignored them.”

“He isn’t pleased—he’s furious,” remarked Colonel Herwin. “However, they’re busy enough now, in all conscience!”

“They won’t tell me a word,” replied the Colonel. “I believe they have—I believe they’ve got something really important up their sleeves.”

“About—what?” I asked. “Theft of the diamonds, or murder of the girl?”

“Both! As to that,” the Colonel went on, “they absolutely refuse to separate the two. They’ve got it into their heads that the two crimes are all of a piece; that whoever it was that stole the diamonds is the same person that murdered the poor girl. They’ve been at me this morning to find out all I could tell ’em about Guest. I didn’t tell ’em that you’d gone up to make inquiries. What did you find out, now? Anything?”

We told him the results of our inquiries at Guest’s bank and at his solicitor’s and added that Mr. Pembury proposed, in his missing client’s interest, to come down to Ellingshurst.

“That’s a capital idea on Pembury’s part,” he remarked. “I think Guest ought to be represented. I’ve an uneasy idea that he’s being—well, unjustly blamed. From what you’ve told me, and from what I know of him, his disappearance may have arisen from quite innocent motives; the puzzling thing, to my mind, is—who’s this mysterious person, man or woman, who’s been haunting the Dower House and who undoubtedly shot at Boach? Well, the police are employing their own methods, and I suppose you’ll employ yours?”

“We shall carry out the commission given us by Lord Ellingshurst, Colonel,” replied Chaney. “But if we’re not to be hindered in our work, there’s something you can do for us. The police, I can see, are not friendly to us—they’ll resent our interference. Give us an authorization in writing that we are to go anywhere we like on Lord Ellingshurst’s property—that’ll cover investigations we want to make at the Dower House, where they’ve stationed a guard.”

“I’ll do that, certainly,” assented Colonel Herwin. “Write out what you want, and I’ll sign it.”

“Mr. Camberwell and Mr. Chaney are empowered to make any investigations they please on the Earl of Ellingshurst’s property.”

Colonel Herwin signed each; Chaney pocketed one and I the other, and we went away, Chaney to make some inquiries in the village, and I to pay another visit to the Dower House, where I wanted to inspect the outbuildings once again. And near its gates I met Mrs. Vansidine.

Mrs. Vansidine, in a smart tailor-made suit and carrying a stick, greeted me with an inviting smile.

“Oh, Mr. Camberwell!” she exclaimed; “I’m so glad to meet you. I want to look over this fascinating old place, and although I’ve paid I don’t know how many visits to Ellingshurst, I’ve never been in the Dower House. I’ve just been trying to get in now, and there’s a horrid policeman at the door who absolutely refused to let me. Can’t you take me in?”

I was not at all indisposed to have a tilt with the police authorities, for I had seen that they were resentful of our presence, and I opened the gate.

“I think I can manage that for you, Mrs. Vansidine,” I said. “The policeman may object, but—come along!”

The policeman on duty did object, but, conscious of the document in my pocket, I calmly put him aside and took Mrs. Vansidine into the house. Almost at once she was struck by one of Guest’s water-colour drawings of Ellingshurst Abbey.

“But this man is an artist!” she exclaimed. “Is all his work as good as that?”

“There’s a lot of it in his study,” I said. “Here’s the room—look round at your leisure. Nobody will stop you while I’m here.”

I left her to inspect the pictures and went to speak to the housekeeper. Mrs. Vansidine had the study and the adjacent rooms to herself for some time while I was busied elsewhere. Had she told me of what happened while she was thus left alone, the Ellingshurst mystery would have been cleared up almost at once. For Mrs. Vansidine made a discovery—and kept it closely to herself.

Chaney and I went home for the week-end; there was nothing that we could do at Ellingshurst in the way of search or inquiry until the inquest had been held. But we were back there and at the village hall early on Monday morning, intent on hearing whatever evidence the police were about to bring forward. Chaney was of opinion that the opening proceedings at the inquest would be short and formal; that the Coroner would take evidence of death and identification and then adjourn. I was not of that opinion; I knew more of what goes on in rural districts than Chaney did; my opinion was that Coroner and jury would both want to thresh things out. And in that opinion I proved to be right; we were in that hall until the afternoon was well advanced.

Ellingshurst village hall was a building of some considerable size, a large room specially designed for the holding of meetings, giving of concerts, presentation of plays, and so on. At half past ten, when the Coroner took his seat, it was packed by inquisitive and excited spectators. Lord and Lady Ellingshurst, of course, were there, and with them was Mrs. Vansidine. Most of the notable people of the district were there, too; as for the villagers, they crowded every corner. Near us sat Mr. Pembury, evidently keen to hear whatever might be said; there were other members of the legal profession present also. And amongst the privileged spectators was an elderly gentleman who attracted my particular attention—a tall, bearded, distinguished-looking man who, as the proceedings went on, followed every detail with marked interest; he, Colonel Herwin whispered to me, on my asking for information, was Sir John Pett, a local squire, a county magistrate, and also a learned and devoted archæologist.

We were not left in doubt very long as to what course the proceedings were to take. The usual preliminaries over, the Coroner addressed his jury (amongst whom Chaney and I recognized several of the village gossips that we had seen at the Dog and Duck, including the shoemaker), and from the first words of his address we knew that the police had taken a line of their own in presenting a case to him. He pointed out that some forty-eight hours previous to the finding of Effie Boach’s dead body in the Home Wood, a very serious crime had taken place at Ellingshurst Abbey, the said crime being nothing more nor less than the theft or burglary of the famous Ellingshurst diamonds, worth a fabulous amount. Was there a connexion between that crime and the more serious crime of murder? From the evidence which he understood would be put forward, he believed there was a connexion; it might be found that the second crime sprang directly out of the first. There were some very mysterious circumstances to be inquired into, and the members of the jury would hear a good many things that would doubtless surprise them. Upon one thing, however, he was determined—that was, to get a positive verdict. There could be no doubt whatever, as they would soon learn from the evidence, that this unfortunate girl had been brutally murdered, in a cruel fashion, and as a result of cool premeditation and design. This was no murder done in a moment of anger or passion; the murderer, whoever he was, had carefully waylaid his victim—and so on, and so on. It seemed to me that the address was an almost direct hint to the jury as to what they were expected to do; although no name was suggested, it was plain that one person, and one only, was in the Coroner’s mind.

The evidence which was then brought forward had been very carefully and even cleverly marshalled, with a design to show, in consecutive fashion, the sequence of events at Ellingshurst Abbey and at the Dower House from Monday evening, September 19th, until the opening of this inquest. I made a shorthand note of it at the time, and what now follows is an abstract, showing how the evidence developed and was designed to lead to a definite conclusion. Each witness was carefully questioned by the Coroner, and here and there questions were interposed by one or two members of the jury and occasionally by Mr. Pembury. Questions and answers, however, except where they were of special note and importance, are omitted here; I am giving only the gist of the evidence, up to a certain point, at any rate. Towards the end of the proceedings, when some evidence absolutely new to Chaney and me was given, I have dealt with it more fully.

After the usual preliminaries of swearing in the members of the jury, their viewing of the dead woman’s body, its formal identification, and the Coroner’s opening remarks—

1. Lord Ellingshurst gave evidence as to the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds from the Countess’s bedroom on the evening of Monday, September 19th.

(His evidence was wholly akin to the information which he gave to Chaney and me when he called us in, but he was closely questioned by the Coroner with a view, I thought, to bringing out the fact that particulars about the diamonds—i.e., what was usually done with them when they were brought from the bank—were well known to the household.)

2. Mrs. Sutherland, housekeeper, gave evidence that the murdered girl, Effie Boach, housemaid, was in charge of the rooms in that part of the house in which Lady Ellingshurst’s bedroom was situate, and that she, Effie, would be on duty there about the exact time at which the diamonds were stolen.

(I took this evidence as going to show—on the part of the police and according to their theory—that Effie Boach saw the case containing the diamonds taken from the Countess’s room; in other words, that Effie knew who the thief was.)

3. Millie Waters, a village girl, testified that she had arranged to meet Effie Boach on the evening of Wednesday, September 21st, at a certain time and place. Effie Boach never kept the appointment.

4. Simpson, the gardener, gave evidence that, coming to his work in the Abbey gardens rather earlier than usual on the morning of Thursday, September 22nd, he found the dead body of Effie Boach on the pathway in the Home Wood.

5. Two local medical men testified as to the cause of death. The girl had been strangled, and the crime had been carried out with deliberation, and, in their opinion, by some person possessed of great muscular power.

(Questioned by the Coroner for further particulars, one of these doctors said that, in his opinion, the murderer, standing behind or at the side of the girl, had slipped the rope round the girl’s neck in the form of a noose and had instantly drawn it so tight that the victim would not have had a chance to resist or even to cry out. The rope had been drawn so tightly that it had actually cut into the flesh.)

6. Boach, the dead girl’s father, gave evidence that he had seen Effie in conversation with Mr. Guest, tenant of the Dower House, and that he had threatened to “larrup” (thrash) her if he ever saw or heard of her talking to him again. He gave further evidence as to his watching the Dower House on the night following the murder, in the hope of catching Guest, of his seeing a figure which he took to be Guest’s, and of his being shot at and wounded.

(Boach was closely questioned by the Coroner, by some of the jurymen, and by Mr. Pembury. Asked why he objected to Mr. Guest’s talking to Effie, he said that Mr. Guest was a “furriner,” and he didn’t hold with young girls talking with suchlike. Asked further if Effie had told him or her mother what she and Mr. Guest were talking about, he said no, the girl had steadily refused to say, and in consequence he had given her a taste of his stick—as a result of which she’d left the cottage and never been home since.

Further particulars were obtained from Boach about his visit to the Dower House on the night on which he was shot at. Asked why he went there at all, he said that he’d heard that the women there, Mrs. Adey and Prissie Clinch, had seen somebody prowling about, and he had come to the conclusion that it was Guest, who had gone into hiding after the murder and was visiting the house at night to get victuals. He therefore determined to watch in order to catch him. Further questioned, he said he didn’t see the figure enter the house, but he saw it come out of the side door. Pressed by both the Coroner and Mr. Pembury, he admitted that he could not swear that it was Guest who shot at him, and that he wasn’t certain that the figure was a man’s—it might have been a woman’s. Pressed still further to describe the figure, he said it was wearing “one o’ these here coats what covers you all up, and had a sort of hood drawn all over the head and face”—he could not swear that he ever saw the face at all, because as he got near to it, the figure turned on him, fired at him, and he went down.)

7. Mrs. Adey gave evidence as to the strange disappearance of Mr. Guest.

8. Prissie Clinch supported this, adding further details.

(Mr. Pembury extracted from these two witnesses evidence showing that Mr. Guest was somewhat eccentric in his habits, and that it was no uncommon thing for him to go away at a moment’s notice, and sometimes without giving them any notice at all, and then suddenly turn up again.)

9. Ronald Camberwell gave evidence as to Lord Ellingshurst’s sending for him and his partner, Chaney, and entrusting them with the task of solving the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Ellingshurst diamonds. He further told all the circumstances developing out of his and Chaney’s visit to the Dower House.

(It was very evident to me from the moment I entered the witness-box that the police—who, of course, had got up the case for the Coroner—were inclined to treat me as a hostile witness—hostile, that is, to their theories. I was particularly pressed as to my impressions about the cloaked and hooded figure—could I swear that it was that of a man?—or of a woman? I refused to commit myself either way.)

10. Chaney, however, who followed me in the witness-box, was not inclined to hedge matters. He had come to an opinion of his own, and he voiced it. He felt confident, he declared, that the figure which we had seen leave the Dower House and cross the garden towards the Home Wood was without doubt a woman’s.

(The Coroner tried hard to get Chaney to give some substantial reason for his opinion, but failed to extract anything more from him. Chaney stuck to his first answer: “From what I could see of it, in the light of our search-lamp, I believed the figure to be that of a woman, carefully cloaked from head to foot.”)

[It was at this stage of the proceedings, after Chaney had left the witness-box, that evidence was brought forward—through the police, of course—of the existence of which we had, until then, known nothing.]

11. William Repp, a police constable, gave evidence that, acting on instructions from his superior officers, he, in company with other members of the police force, had carried out an exhaustive examination of the Dower House and its outbuildings on Thursday and Friday, September 22nd and 23rd. In the course of his search he saw, hanging from a nail in one of the outhouses near the kitchens, a new clothes-line, one end of which hung down the wall. Noticing that a piece had been cut off from this, and having seen the length of similar cord with which Effie Boach had been strangled, he drew the attention of the Inspector and the Sergeant to it. He now produced the new clothes-line referred to, together with the length of cord taken from the dead girl’s neck.

(There was a good deal of excitement in court over the exhibition of these articles. They were carefully examined by the Coroner, the jurymen, and various persons sitting round the table reserved for legal representatives; Chaney and I were also allowed to examine them. Personally, I had no doubt whatever that the length of cord which had been used by the murderer in strangling the unfortunate Effie Boach had been cut from the new clothes-line.)

12. At this stage Mrs. Adey was recalled. She identified the clothes-line as one which she had recently purchased from a gypsy woman who had called at the Dower House offering such things. Mrs. Adey had hung it up in the old wash-house, an outbuilding in the kitchen section of the house; she had not particularly wanted it and had really bought it to get rid of its pertinacious vender.

13. Another policeman, Charles Straker, deposed that he, too, in pursuance of orders, helped to examine and search the Dower House and its immediate surroundings. He was ordered to search that part of the Home Wood into which Boach’s assailant was said to have retreated after firing at Boach. For some hours he searched that part of the wood which was immediately at the rear of the outbuildings of the Dower House. Just where the wicket-gate opened out of the Dower House garden into the wood, there were numerous footprints, but the ground was wet and soft, and they were blended together in an indistinguishable mass. He made one discovery, however, just as he was about to give up the search. . . .

(There was a peculiarity in this witness’s evidence of which, had I been in a position to question him, I should have taken full advantage. He said that he was searching that corner of the Home Wood for some hours, but he never told the court with what object! And no one asked him if he was looking for the pistol which might have been thrown away there, or for footprints amongst the trees or bushes, or for, say, a scrap of cloth which might have been torn by briers or brambles from the would-be murderer’s clothing in his flight. He appeared to have been turned into the wood by his Sergeant to—in his own words—“take a look round.”)

(Abstract continued) . . . He made a discovery. An outer wall of the Dower House outbuildings formed a boundary of the Home Wood for a little distance. This wall was here and there pierced with small openings—for ventilation of the stables or byres inside. Most of these openings, however, had been filled up with old sacking or with straw—probably during the previous winter. The witness, looking along the wall, noticed that out of one of the openings there dangled the cuff and sleeve of something like a coat. Drawing this out, he found himself in possession of a waterproof—which he now produced.

(This exhibit proved to be a slate-grey mackintosh, fashioned of some very light material and made in a somewhat peculiar fashion—whether it was intended for male or female wear, no one could say. It was long enough, however, for a man or woman of five foot nine or ten. One of its peculiar features was that although it was so light in texture that it could be rolled up into very small compass, its cut and make were voluminous; another feature was that it had a hood or cowl which could be drawn over the head and face. The Coroner caused the witness to put it on. When he had done so, Chaney and I had no doubt whatever that we were looking at the garment which had enwrapped the mysterious assailant of Boach.)

[At this point the police produced what was probably their most important piece of evidence.]

14. Cornelius Hare (who, incidentally, looked a thorough bad lot!) of Ellingshurst, labourer, but at present wanting a regular job, deposed that on the evening of Wednesday, September 21st, at about seven thirty, he was near the exit from the Home Wood which came out on the main road near the Dower House. He saw Mr. Guest leave the Home Wood, cross the road, and turn into the orchard of the Dower House. Mr. Guest was wearing the waterproof cloak which the last witness had just exhibited. Hare knew Mr. Guest well by sight. No—he was not near enough to see Mr. Guest’s face on the occasion he was referring to; but he knew his figure, his walk, the general look of him, and he was confident as to his evidence. He’d seen Mr. Guest in that rig-out before—late at night, when the weather was wet.

That was all the evidence, and the Coroner, remarking that he was anxious to get a definite verdict, was about to sum it up to the jury when Mr. Pembury, who from time to time had put a question here and a question there, rose once more to his feet.

“Mr. Coroner,” he said, “I wish to enter a formal protest against a further continuance of these proceedings. You appear to be anxious to secure a definite result, at once, regardless of the fact that grave charges are being made or suggested against my client, Mr. Nugent Guest, in his absence. I protest strongly against the way in which this inquiry has been and is being conducted, and I ask you to adjourn any further proceedings until Mr. Guest is here in person.”

When the buzz of excited talk and murmuring which followed upon this had died down, the Coroner gave Mr. Pembury a critical—and obviously cynical—glance.

“Do you think it at all possible that Mr. Guest is likely to attend these proceedings—in person?” he asked.

“I do, sir,” replied Mr. Pembury. “I will engage myself to bring him here!”

“I make a confident statement like that, after all I have heard,” declared Mr. Pembury, with strong emphasis on the personal pronoun. “Yes, sir!”

“Mr. Guest has had ample opportunity of coming here,” remarked the Coroner. “Why has he not availed himself of it? Can you, as his solicitor, explain his absence?”

“As his solicitor, sir, I can tell you a good deal about Mr. Guest,” replied Mr. Pembury. “I have known him for some years, and I am prepared to tell you all I know of him. It is quite evident to me that it is high time I did so.”

“It is not well at all, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Pembury. “The whole of these proceedings have been marked by an attempt on the part of those who have prepared the evidence to create an atmosphere of bias and prejudice against my client. It is impossible to disregard the theory of the police. That, briefly, is that, with the connivance of the young woman Effie Boach, my client, Mr. Nugent Guest, stole the Ellingshurst diamonds from the Countess’s bedroom—or persuaded Effie Boach to steal them and afterwards hand them to him—and that he subsequently murdered Effie Boach, she being the only person who had knowledge of the theft, and that he later on completely disappeared from his home. That, at any rate, is what I understand is being put before the jury. Now, as Mr. Guest’s solicitor, I wish to make certain observations. Mr. Guest, to my knowledge, is a man of means; he owns a considerable amount of very good house-property in London and is not likely to steal anybody’s diamonds. As regards his sudden disappearance, I can prove from past knowledge of him, and from the knowledge of him gained by his London landlady and his present housekeeper, Mrs. Adey, that Mr. Guest is rather an eccentric man and is given to sudden disappearances—such as he made last Monday evening. He—”

“Do people go out into the night without hat, overcoat, or boots?” said the Coroner, sarcastically. “Or, rather, if they do—”

“Pardon me, sir, but that argument can cut two ways,” said Mr. Pembury. “If you will reconsider that part of the evidence—”

“If your client is within reach of the newspapers,” interrupted the Coroner, a little testily, “he knows that his presence is badly needed here, and he should come forward. We have had weighty and serious evidence put before us, and I see no reason for adjourning this inquiry simply because Mr. Guest is not present. It is unlikely that any further evidence will be forthcoming—”

At this point the elderly gentleman who had been pointed out to me as Sir John Pett, who for some little time had been manifesting symptoms of unrest, rose in his seat.

“May I be permitted to address you, Mr. Coroner?” he asked, quietly. “I think you will know that I should not dream of doing so without good reason—what I, at any rate, believe to be good reason.”

“I believe it to be exceedingly relevant, sir,” replied Sir John. “And if you like, I am willing to say what I have to say on oath.”

“I think—knowing you—we can dispense with formalities, Sir John,” said the Coroner. “I take it you have some comment or suggestion to make?”

“Yes,” answered Sir John, “I have. It is a very simple suggestion. I suggest that Mr. Nugent Guest has not disappeared in the way which would seem to be indicated by the evidence. My belief is that Mr. Guest is lying dead somewhere about his own house!”

The excitement occasioned by Mr. Pembury’s spirited defence of his missing client was as nothing when compared with the hubbub immediately aroused by Sir John Pett’s plainly worded declaration of his opinion. The crowded court broke into exclamations; the superior police officials stared at Sir John and then at each other; the various press-representatives, of whom there were a good many present, not only from local but from London newspapers, dropped their pencils on their note-books and opened their mouths in astonishment, and the Coroner’s officer forgot to call for silence. As for the Coroner, he gave a perceptible start; his brows knitted, and he looked hard at Sir John.

“In the utmost seriousness, sir,” replied Sir John. “I said—in my belief. I will go further—I will say that I feel convinced of the truth of my suggestion.”

“Do you make the suggestion because of—I should like to know what,” said the Coroner. “Explain as fully as you like.”

“I make the suggestion because of my knowledge of the Dower House,” continued Sir John. “I make it as an archæologist and as one who has considerable acquaintance with the architecture and character of the old houses in this part of the county, in which I have lived, as my neighbours know, for nearly half a century. There are many people here in your court who know that I am considered an authority on these subjects—I have written on them, I lectured on them—”

“Oh, we are all very well aware of your eminence in that way, Sir John,” said the Coroner. “You think, then, that Mr. Guest has never left the Dower House?”

“I feel sure that Mr. Guest is somewhere in the Dower House—dead! I happened to have some slight, very slight acquaintance with Mr. Guest, though it was so slight that I exchanged any conversation with him on only one occasion. But the subject of that was the Dower House. I found that he, like myself, had a taste for antiquarianism, and he certainly had a full appreciation of the beauties of the fine old house in which he was living. He told me that he was exploring it, for he had an idea—in which I fully shared—that there were secret places—”

“I am suggesting that Mr. Guest, unknown to anyone, even to his servants, discovered one or perhaps more of these secret places, and that he is lying dead in one of them,” replied Sir John. “And that I believe will be found to be the truth. My own opinion is that on the night of his disappearance, after his servants had retired, Mr. Guest went into one of the secret places, or the secret place, he had discovered, that he there had an accident, possibly through a fall of timber or masonry, and that the knocking which the servants heard was from him, continued until they heard it no longer. And my further suggestion is that before ever concluding or even continuing this inquiry on its present lines, you should ask for a searching examination of the Dower House, under expert supervision—I feel sure that Lord Ellingshurst would willingly consent to such a course.”

“I felt sure of that,” continued Sir John. “Such a search should be thorough. And I should be glad to give my services in connexion with it, for I feel sure that the suggestion I have made will be found to be correct.”

Sir John Pett sat down, and there was a brief silence. The Coroner looked at the principal police officials. But they made no reference to his glance; they were still looking wonderingly at Sir John. He turned from them to the jury; the jury sat open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

“I am wondering,” observed the Coroner, “if the result of any such search as Sir John Pett suggests would have any real effect on the weight of evidence already put before us. I am not sure—”

“If my client, Mr. Guest, became a victim of some accident in his own house on the Monday night,” he said, “he could scarcely have murdered Effie Boach on the evening of the following Wednesday!”

“We will adjourn to this day fortnight,” he said. “In the mean time, gentlemen—”

But nobody waited to hear the Coroner’s platitudes. Everybody wanted to get outside and discuss the turn of events. And in a few minutes there was a ring formed round Sir John Pett, and eager questions were being put to him as to what should be done.

“Whatever you suggest shall be carried out,” said Lord Ellingshurst. “And we’ll have no delay. Tell Herwin what ought to be done, and he’ll give the necessary orders about workmen, and so on.”

“To begin with,” replied Sir John, “we don’t want any workmen. I suggest that a few of us should examine the house under my supervision. Your Lordship—Colonel Herwin—a representative of the police—perhaps these two gentlemen—” indicating Chaney and me—“who, I believe, already know the house—we shall be quite sufficient a party, for a beginning. When am I free? I am free now.”

After further discussion we settled on a beginning of the search at two o’clock that afternoon, Mr. Pembury, at his own earnest entreaty, being added to the list of explorers. And then, amidst excited groups of villagers, police, pressmen, and curiosity-mongers, we separated for lunch. Chaney and I went home with Colonel Herwin; Lord Ellingshurst took Sir John Pett off to the Abbey. At the time fixed upon, we all forgathered at the Dower House. The news of what was to be attempted had, of course, been spread by the people who had attended the inquest, and when Colonel Herwin, Chaney, and I arrived, we had to make our way into the grounds through a dense crowd of inquisitive onlookers.

We found the other members of the search committee already assembled in the hall of the house. Sir John Pett was armed with books, papers, and an old parchment which, I subsequently discovered, was a hundred-year-old plan of the Dower House and its surroundings which had been lent him by Lord Ellingshurst. He was obviously enjoying his role as leader, and when we had all assembled—behind strictly closed doors, guarded by policemen who had orders not to admit anyone—he entered upon his task by giving us an address which, with all respect to him, was more fitted to a meeting of an archæological society than to us, abounding as it did in elaborate particulars of secret rooms, priests’ holes, cunningly contrived hiding-places, double staircases, and similar mysterious features of ancient houses. What it really came to was this: A great portion, the greater portion, of the Dower House dated back to pre-Tudor times; the Elling archives showed proof that it had figured largely in the troublous days of the Penal Laws and again at the time of the Great Revolution; it was more than probable that its lath and plaster, its oak panelling, its stout walls, some of them several feet thick, concealed strange and curiously contrived hiding-places, some of which Mr. Nugent Guest had probably discovered. Now what Sir John Pett devised was this: We were to split up into couples; each couple was to take a room or a passage or a corridor, and our first job was to sound the panelling foot by foot. If we discovered any place which gave back a hollow sound, we were to fetch Sir John to inspect it.

The upstairs corridor from which I had manipulated the car lamp as an improvised search-light was appointed to Chaney and me for our field of operations. It was a long, low-roofed passage running the whole length of the older portion of the house; its flooring of stout oaken boards, apparently as thick as railway-track sleepers, was irregular and uneven; here and there you went down a step, here and there up a step. The walls on either side were panelled in very old, time-darkened oak and were of a great thickness on the outer side; so thick, indeed, that the small windows pierced in them here and there were placed in embrasures of such extent that you could set a small table in each, as a supplement to the roomy window-seats; each, in fact, made an alcove, in which three or four people could comfortably gather for a chat. To come to a question of accurate measurement, those outer walls on that side of the house, the side looking out on the garden and outbuildings, were nine feet in thickness.

The corridor was panelled on both sides; Chaney took the inner one, from which, here and there, doors opened into bedrooms; I took the outer. We began to examine the panelling, foot by foot, from floor to ceiling. It was solid, substantial stuff firmly fixed against the walls, and for some time knockings and tappings failed to produce any suspicious sound. Personally, I never expected any result in that part of the house; my idea was that if any secret place was revealed or discovered, it would be somewhere in the lower regions. Yet it fell to my lot to make the desired discovery.

Tapping my way along the panelling, I suddenly came to a place, between the second and third of the four windows, which sounded as if there were a hollow behind it. Calling Chaney over, I got him to test it. A blow or two from his closed fist convinced us that my first suspicion was right; the sound we produced was just like that one would get by knocking on the door of a cupboard. Yet there was no sign that this was a cupboard; as far as we could see, the panelling was as solid there as elsewhere.

I quietly fetched Sir John Pett, who up to then had moved about, giving a general superintendence to our labours. He, too, convinced himself that there was a hollow space behind the place we indicated. Without saying a word he began to finger the somewhat elaborate mouldings of the squares into which the panelling was divided. He evidently knew what he was doing, and we stood by, expectantly watching as his fingers moved from square to square. Suddenly there was a sharp click as of a spring giving way; the next instant Sir John, with an exclamation of triumph, pushed back a sliding door, revealing a cavity in the wall big enough to accommodate a full-grown man, and from it, going down and away in the wall’s nine feet of thickness, a stone stairway, with worn and dust-covered steps.

Sir John Pett took one glance into the suddenly revealed cavity and another into the gloom of the staircase and turned to us with something of a sly smile.

“Ha ha!” he exclaimed. “To be sure—just so! I felt assured there’d be something of this sort. Now—” he paused and glanced round, from one end of the long corridor to the other—“we’ll—what do you say?—we’ll just keep this discovery to ourselves, for the moment. If we could only prevent the others from coming up—eh?”

“We can, Sir John,” said Chaney. “There are doors at each end of this corridor—we can lock them from the inside.”

“Do so, by all means,” replied Sir John. “Too many cooks—eh? I think an exploration party of three will be quite large enough, at present.”

I locked the doors at both ends of the corridor and went back to the opening in the panelled wall. Sir John produced a couple of powerful electric torches, one of which he handed to me.

“I anticipated something of this sort,” he said. “I came provided, you see. And now, as instigator of this search, I’ll lead the way.”

He stepped into the cavity and, before taking the first step downward, stooped into the gloom and sniffed.

“There’s an outlet to the open air somewhere down here,” he said. “Don’t you notice?—the air’s fresh. There’s not the stuffy, fetid smell that one usually finds in a closed passage or chamber—this air is quite fresh. However, let’s set out on our exploration, carefully. Mind your heads—it’s rather a tight fit.”

He went slowly down; Chaney followed him; I brought up the rear. I counted thirty-one steps, all going straight down, without twist or turn. When we reached the thirty-first, I reckoned that we must be on a level with the foundations of the house, perhaps lower. And there the steps came to an end, and we found ourselves in a narrow, low-roofed passage, the roof, sides, and flooring of which were formed of the solid rock. Here the air was still fresher, and colder.

Sir John Pett paused, directing the light of his electric lamp around him. It revealed an opening at the end of the narrow passage, some five or six yards from where we stood.

“Where do you suppose we are?” he asked. “My sense of geographical situation is not too good. What do you make out? We’ve come straight down, to this point.”

I made a hurried reflection and calculation. In my opinion we were now standing at some point beneath the oldest part of the house, probably far underneath the room which Guest had used as a study and studio. Also I made out that we were not far from beneath the eastern end of the outbuildings.

“This passage comes out somewhere,” remarked Sir John. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be this current of air. Probably there’s an outlet somewhere amongst the buildings. But here,” he continued, advancing along the passage, “here seems to be a chamber, or vault—and so there is—a good-sized one.”

We emerged from this passage—in which we had only just been able to stand upright—into a sort of cave, apparently hewn out of the solid rock, which, in size, was about twelve feet in every direction. It was empty save for the presence of three or four—four, now I come to think of it, and to be exact—small chests or trunks of wood, all of comparatively recent manufacture, and each clamped at the corners with japanned metal. As soon as I set eyes on these, I was reminded of something—suddenly I knew what. The boxes were just like—and indeed were—the things that boys take to school as tuck-boxes—plain wooden affairs with strengthened corners and stout handles; the sort of things that will bear rough usage from railway porters and in play-rooms. But there were no names painted on these.

Beyond these boxes, piled up in a corner of this subterranean chamber, there was nothing in that place to take any note of. But in another corner there was an opening, revealing a passage similar to that by which we had gained access, and a mere glance into its darkness proved to us that it was along it that the current of fresh air was stealing. Into this Sir John passed; Chaney and I lingered in the cavern; the boxes in the corner had aroused certain suspicions in us. Suddenly we heard a sharp exclamation from our guide.

We turned quickly, pushing our way after Sir John into the narrow opening. And by the light of our torches we saw, in one comprehensive glance, what had happened to the man whose disappearance had caused so much concern. Guest lay there on the floor of the passage, dead. A mass of fallen masonry lay over the greater part of his body; all that we saw of him in that first glance was his head and shoulders and his right arm, in the hand of which was tightly clasped a short iron bar. That he was dead was evident—and for the moment that discovery was the all-important thing. But when the first shock of realization had passed, we looked more closely to find out how his death had been brought about. And that was very evident. At that point of the narrow passage in which his dead body lay, there was a low, arched doorway of stone; the side pillars and the stone slab which had rested above them had given way and fallen on him, bringing down a quantity of masonry in addition; such a quantity, indeed, that its mass blocked all further access to the passage; what lay beyond we could not see. We noticed, however, that the current of fresh air blew more strongly at this point, and we judged from that that the exit at the other end of the passage was not far away.

Chaney pointed to the bar of iron which lay firmly grasped in the dead man’s hand.

“That,” he said in a low tone, “explains the knockings which the women heard in the house. He must have beaten the floor with that—till he died. And you can see what he was after!”

He pointed to the right-hand side of the passage, where, piled against the face of the rock, stood several other iron bars, similar to the one in Guest’s hand. Each was about a yard in length—equal to the width of the doorway.

“He must have found that the top of this doorway or archway was becoming unsafe,” continued Chaney, “and he brought these bars down here to strengthen it. And I should say that in trying to prize one into position there at the top, he somehow loosened the masonry of the arch, and down it came. And—look at the size and weight of these stones!—he wouldn’t have a chance.”

Chance or no chance, there was the grim fact that Nugent Guest lay dead before us in that subterranean vault, and the mystery of his strange disappearance from the house over our heads was now solved. Now that we knew what we did, the problem of his whereabouts was settled, and neither ourselves nor the police would be troubled to find him. But there were still two other questions to settle: Had Guest anything to do with the disappearance of the Ellingshurst diamonds? And—far more serious—was he the murderer of Effie Boach?

At Sir John Pett’s suggestion, I made my way back to the corridor from whence we had set out. As I passed out from the alcove at the head of the secret stairway, I was aware of loud knocking at the end of the corridor, on the door which I had locked before we went down. Opening it—after first closing the door in the panelling—I found the local Police Inspector. He stared suspiciously and perhaps angrily at me.

“What’s this door locked against us for, Mr. Camberwell?” he demanded. “I’ve been knocking here ever so long!”

“Sir John Pett’s wish,” I retorted. “And I believe Sir John is in charge.”

“I am not at liberty to tell you,” I answered. “Where is Lord Ellingshurst?”

He looked sourly at me for a moment—so sourly that I made no more ado, but passed straight by him and went downstairs into the big room. Lord Ellingshurst, Colonel Herwin, and the rest of the searchers were there, standing round a table, all looking at some stuff or objects lying on its polished surface. And Lord Ellingshurst was speaking.

“I am quite sure of it,” he was saying. “I could swear to the material anywhere, at any time!”

“We’ve found, thrown away in a waste-basket, pieces of the stuff of which the case containing the diamonds was made,” he exclaimed excitedly. “Lord Ellingshurst is sure of it, Camberwell. Where is Sir John?”

I went forward to the table. There, spread out before the men who stood round, were several pieces of stuff which looked like very stout card- or mill-board covered over with some material of, I thought, a waterproof sort. The various pieces looked as if they had been torn apart and again torn up before being tossed aside as rubbish. Lord Ellingshurst was fingering one.

“There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “It’s unusual stuff, and I’ve seen and handled it so often that I can’t be mistaken. Where is Sir John Pett, Camberwell? He must see this at once—it proves that the case was brought to this house.”

“Sir John, my Lord,” I answered, “is, with my partner, in an underground chamber which we have discovered. The fact is, we have found Guest.”

I gave the unfriendly Inspector a direct look as I said this, and I was quick to see his frown of vexation. He had let me and Chaney see, more than once, that our presence was much resented; now I was able to pay him off a little. I waited a second, to let the murmurs of astonishment die out; then I went on.

“But,” I said, “we have found him—dead! He has probably been dead several days.”

“By George!” he said. “That—that is what Pett suggested! Pett was right, then. Dead? But—how?”

“Yes, how?” demanded Mr. Pembury, pushing forward. “I want to know that. How?”

I told them all about our discovery. There was a rush then, to the secret stair. At the entrance we met Sir John Pett and Chaney. From that moment Sir John took charge of things. Workmen, with necessary tools and appliances, were sent for. Eventually, before the close of the afternoon, Guest’s dead body was brought up and laid in one of the upper rooms, while the wooden chests we had seen in the underground chamber were carried up one by one—each turned out to be surprisingly heavy—and placed, under the care of a couple of policemen, in the dead man’s study.

Chaney and I, exchanging a few words in private on the subject, found ourselves in agreement on the probable result of an examination of the contents of those boxes. We believed they would be found to contain stolen property. But—did any one of them contain the Ellingshurst diamonds?

The boxes—all securely fastened by locks—were broken open (no keys being found in the dead man’s pockets or in his rooms) by one of the workmen, in the presence of the rest of us. The Inspector took out the various contents. And he had scarcely drawn forth his first find from amongst a mass of wrapping than he let out a cry of recognition.

“That’s a piece of the silver that was stolen from Lady Ranmore a month or two ago!” he cried. “We have the full description of it. Perhaps your Lordship will recognize the markings?”

Lord Ellingshurst picked up one of the pieces of plate and gave it a sharp glance.

“That’s certainly the Ranmore crest,” he said. “What was it you’re referring to?”

“Ranmore House was broken into during the family’s absence,” replied the Inspector. “The silver had been left in it in an old-fashioned safe which the thief had found no difficulty in opening. It’ll be—yes, some five or six weeks since. We’ve had the matter in hand ever since, but we never got a clue. Now, of course,” he concluded significantly, “we know who the thief was!”

“My apparently quite respectable tenant,” said Lord Ellingshurst, with a sardonic smile in the direction of Colonel Herwin. “Well, well!—references from bankers and solicitors don’t seem to be much good, I think!”

“If you mean that for me, my Lord,” he exclaimed, “all I have to say is that I am not to be blamed. I knew Mr. Guest as a respectable man for whom I had acted for some time. I never had reason to suspect him of being anything else, nor, I am sure, had his bankers. We acted in absolute good faith.”

“I never suggested that you didn’t,” retorted Lord Ellingshurst. “What I said was that such references are no good. For, you see, neither you nor his bankers really knew him. You say he was a man of property—”

“He owned some very nice parcels of property,” muttered Mr. Pembury, “very desirable house-property.”

“No doubt he’d bought his property out of the proceeds of this sort of business,” continued Lord Ellingshurst. “Must have been a clever chap, too! What else is there, Inspector?”

There was a great deal more. The Inspector went on unpacking for some time, laying out on the tables of the room a miscellaneous collection of valuables. Guest appeared to have had a catholic taste. Gold, silver, precious stones, watches, jewellery, rare books, illuminated manuscripts, furs, miniatures—all these figured in the exhibit which finally met our astonished eyes. As the Inspector remarked, the police were in for a busy time in getting all these articles claimed and identified.

This day, then, Monday, September 26th (just a week after Chaney and I had been sent for by Lord Ellingshurst), closed with one part of the problem solved. But it was only a part, for the Ellingshurst diamonds were not to be found amongst Guest’s ill-gained possessions.

I must once more refer to my note-book—this time for a summary of the developments which took place between the discovery of Guest’s dead body and the beginning of a new phase of the investigations entrusted by Lord Ellingshurst to Chaney and me. Put into brief form, this summary shows itself as follows:

1. The police authorities, forming the theory that Guest was a professional criminal who for some time had contrived to evade the grasp of the law, made strenuous efforts to get him identified. During the time which elapsed between our discovery of his body and his burial, men came down from Scotland Yard and from some of the convict establishments and carefully inspected the remains. Nobody identified him. A photograph of him was circulated all over the country with a request that anyone who recognized it or fancied he did so should come forward at once. No one came forward.

2. The Dower House was searched from top to bottom for anything in the way of letters, papers, memoranda, which could throw any light on this mysterious man and his past history. We found nothing. His servants said he had very little correspondence at any time, and Prissie Clinch, who appeared to be very familiar with his habits, told us that after reading whatever letters he had at breakfast-time, he invariably tore them all into shreds and threw them into the fire. While this search was being made at the Dower House, a similar search was in process at Mrs. Flitt’s, in St. Mary’s Terrace—Chaney and I carried that out. And there we had the same result that the police had at the Dower House. We found literally nothing that could be of any assistance to us.

3. The press had been drawn in to help at a very early stage of the proceedings; for some days the Ellingshurst mystery made a principal feature in the London and provincial newspapers. But out of the millions of readers who must have been thrilled by the problem set up—who was Nugent Guest?—not one came forward with either information or suggestion.

4. Exhaustive inquiries in the neighbourhood of the Dower House failed to show that Guest had had any particular woman friend anywhere about there. Beyond exchanging an occasional how-do-you-do with the people round about him, he appeared to have had no social relations with anybody.

5. From immediately after the opening of the inquest the police did everything possible to ascertain the ownership of the waterproof cloak or coat which had been found in the outbuildings. In this they failed absolutely. The man Cornelius Hare, who had given evidence at the inquest, persisted that he had seen Guest wearing that very coat, in wet weather, more than once. But Cornelius, as everybody knew, was not a dependable witness, and Mrs. Adey and Prissie Clinch said, most emphatically, that Mr. Guest had never had such a garment—to their knowledge, at any rate. As the cloak or coat in question was much weather- and mud-stained, the police countered the housekeeper and the maid by suggesting that Mr. Guest kept the thing in the outbuildings.

6. Finally, for some days after the discovery in the subterranean chamber of the Dower House, a most thorough and exhaustive search was made there and in the house itself and in the outbuildings and in the coppices of the Home Wood—in fact, in every possible and likely place—for the missing diamonds. And it was fruitless—not a trace of them was come across.

The police authorities and their local representatives became more friendly disposed towards Chaney and me as time went on. Following his usual practice, Chaney put at their disposal all the information we acquired—it was not much, but in some instances they had failed to acquire it themselves. They began to discuss the case with us, paying some attention to our opinions and theories, and their own originally conceived notions began to fade. Mr. Pembury, now that Sir John Pett’s theory as to Guest’s disappearance had been confirmed only too fully, knocked the bottom of the police case against Guest as murderer of Effie Boach clear out—it was impossible for Guest, pinned down in that underground chamber on the Monday night and never released until death ensued, to have strangled Effie Boach on the Wednesday evening. The police accepted that now, while still asking—then who did? But they clung tenaciously to the theory that Guest, unaided or perhaps with the help of an accomplice as yet undetected, stole the diamonds from Lady Ellingshurst’s rooms.

Now that we knew all about the late Mr. Nugent Guest—knew, at any rate, that beneath the Dower House he had secreted a considerable amount of very valuable property, the proceeds of thefts and burglaries at town and country houses—Chaney and I quite believed that it was he who had engineered and perhaps carried out the affair of the Ellingshurst diamonds. Our ideas, doubts, conjectures, may be summarized as follows:

1. To begin with, had the murder of Effie Boach anything whatever to do with the theft of the diamonds? Or was it a mere coincidence.

2. If it had, was Effie murdered because she knew who took the diamonds from Lady Ellingshurst’s room?

3. And if that was so, had Effie Boach herself given information as to the likely whereabouts of the diamonds to the actual thief?

4. Or had she merely seen somebody remove the case, and, afterwards, let that somebody know that she had seen?

5. This would mean that the somebody had good reason for silencing Effie.

6. But that particular somebody could not have been Guest. Guest himself was effectually silenced within a few hours of the theft of the diamonds, and Effie Boach was living forty-eight hours after that.

Boiled down to a fine point, it seemed to Chaney and me that the real truth of the matter was that Guest had accomplices. Who were they? Were they inmates of Ellingshurst Abbey, or folk who lived near? We reviewed the first lot. In the course of our investigations we had seen a good deal of the domestic staff. The butler, Gadd, was a very old and trusted servant; the housekeeper, Mrs. Sutherland, had been there some years and was a person of what is commonly called the highest character and respectability: it was impossible to suspect either of entering into a conspiracy to rob an employer who, whatever his other peculiarities were, had the reputation of being very generous and considerate to his servants. As for the rest of the servants, footmen, housemaids, cooks, what-not, it seemed idle to connect them with such a cleverly planned, cleverly executed theft. No, if Guest had accomplices, or an accomplice, he or she was to be looked for outside. And there were a good many people to draw from—the new houses and villas and week-end cottages near the village, all let, were tenanted by London people amongst whom it was quite likely there was a black sheep or two. It was at this point of the proceedings, when we were feeling baffled, that Lord Ellingshurst once more summoned Chaney and me, presumably to another conference. But when we arrived at the Abbey, it was to find that his Lordship wished us, in strict privacy, to meet two persons who—to use an expressive term—had something to say.

These two people were already in conversation with Lord Ellingshurst when Gadd showed Chaney and me into the little study where we had first heard of the loss of the famous diamonds. I took a quick glance at them as we entered, guessing that they had come there on the business which was just then engrossing the attention of everybody in the neighbourhood. A smart, alert, well-dressed man, of between thirty and thirty-five, obviously of the commercial class, self-assured, ready for an emergency; a rather pretty woman, of about the same age, just the sort of woman that that sort of man would select for a life-partner. Business-like people both—and to be depended upon.

“Mr. and Mrs. Brown,” said Lord Ellingshurst, explainingly. He motioned us to sit, glanced at the door as if to make sure that Gadd had closed it, and again waved a hand towards his visitors. “Mr. and Mrs. Brown,” he went on, “live in one of the new houses on the other side of the village. They are, of course, acquainted—through the newspapers and the current talk—with what has been going on. And they have called on me today because they have something to tell—something which I want you two to hear. Just tell Mr. Camberwell and Mr. Chaney what you’ve told me, Mr. Brown.”

Mr. Brown turned a business-like look on us. It grew still more business-like when Chaney, in silence, produced his little note-book.

“Well, gentlemen,” he began, “what I—and my wife—have told his Lordship is very little, but we’d duly considered it before we came here, and we felt his Lordship ought to know what we knew. It’s about something that took place on Saturday, September 17th. To be precise, gentlemen, as to time—about a quarter to half past five in the afternoon.”

“September 17th,” remarked Chaney, busy with his notes. “Why haven’t you come to his Lordship sooner, Mr. Brown?”

“Because I haven’t been in a position to do so, sir,” replied Mr. Brown. “I may mention that I am in the service—a responsible position, Mr. Chaney—of Messrs. McAndrew and Robertson, jute-merchants, of London and Dundee—my work is in the London office. But occasionally I have to travel up to Dundee, and I did so travel on Monday, September 19th, and did not return until yesterday, so this day is the first on which I have had the chance to wait on his Lordship. Certainly, my wife could have done so, for she knows what I know, but she thought it best to await my return, so that we could consult together before coming to Lord Ellingshurst. And, indeed, what Mrs. Brown could have told would not, so far as I can see, have affected anything that has happened during my absence. It is, you will see, a sort of side-light—”

“Let’s have it, Mr. Brown,” said Chaney. “Something you’ve heard—seen—?”

“Seen, sir,” replied Mr. Brown. “This. I returned from the City—our place is in Upper Thames Street, Mr. Chaney—at my usual time, about four o’clock, that Saturday afternoon, and after Mrs. Brown and myself had partaken of a cup of tea, we did what we always do—went for a walk through the woods which lie between us and Ellingshurst. We are very fond of that walk, and we always follow the same paths, which lead us at last to a spot called hereabouts the Surprise View—it is where you emerge from the woods on a sudden break in their outer edge from which there is a very striking prospect of the Abbey, lying down here in the valley. We always stop there, at a little hunting-gate, to admire the view, which is most beautiful—and is always attractive, whatever the season of the year may be. Well, on this particular occasion, gentlemen, we had not been there long when, from another gate in the boundary of the woods, beneath us on the slope of the park, came Mr. Guest, of the Dower House—”

“By sight, very well indeed, sir,” replied Mr. Brown. “Otherwise not so well, though I have spoken to him now and then, as folk will who live in the same neighbourhood.”

“Mr. Guest, sir,” continued Mr. Brown, “took a path which leads from where he left the wood to the Abbey—we can, of course, show you the exact places. He had not gone far when there came into view, as if coming from the Abbey, the figure of a lady. We were much too far off to be able to see if she was young or old, dark or fair, but we can say that she was tall for a woman, walked very alertly—it was a chilly afternoon—and had a very good figure, which wasn’t obscured by a long coat. Mrs. Brown, if necessary, could give more details about the lady’s appearance—I’m just telling you the bare facts.”

“They met near one of the little coppices or clumps of trees of which there are so many in the park,” replied Mr. Brown. “And having met, they walked up and down on the path near that coppice, talking. In fact, we left them so occupied when we went on, by another way, through the woods.”

“You couldn’t see the lady’s face clearly enough to be able to recognize her when you saw her again?”

“Have you seen any lady whom you believed to be the lady who met Mr. Guest?”

Mr. and Mrs. Brown exchanged a glance which transferred itself to Lord Ellingshurst.

“That’s just what we came to tell his Lordship,” said Mr. Brown. “We saw what we believed to be the same lady next morning.”

“At Ellingshurst Church, with his Lordship and Lady Ellingshurst,” replied Mr. Brown. “We had no doubt of it. As soon as we got out of church, my wife said: ‘Donald, that was the lady we saw walking about with Mr. Guest in the park yesterday afternoon.’ And I agreed with her.”

“And so,” said Chaney, quietly, “you feel sure that the lady who was with Lord and Lady Ellingshurst at church on Sunday morning, the 18th of September, was the same lady you had seen in company with Mr. Guest in Ellingshurst Park the afternoon before?”

“I am quite sure of it,” replied Mrs. Brown. “Figure—and walk—and style—”

And Mr. Brown was quite sure of it, too; upon that point Mr. Brown, with a Scotsman’s practical directness, had no doubts whatever.

I—and, as I subsequently found out, Chaney, too—had been thinking hard during this revelation. Mr. and Mrs. Donald Brown, obviously worthy and dependable persons, might be quite right in their belief that the Lady of the Park was identical with the Lady of the Pew, but that belief rested entirely on a similarity of figure and general appearance. If on the Saturday afternoon they had been close enough to Guest and his companion to see the lady’s face, their evidence would have assumed very serious and grave aspects; as it was, it amounted to little more than conjecture.

Chaney put his note-book in his pocket and regarded Mr. and Mrs. Brown attentively.

“Well, folk who go to church generally exchange a bit of gossip at the church door,” remarked Chaney. “And I guess you do. Now, when you came out of the church that Sunday morning you’re talking about, did you, or either of you, ask anybody who the lady was who was with Lord and Lady Ellingshurst?”

“Well, we did,” he acknowledged. “Just in a—well, out of sheer curiosity. You see, we were certain we’d seen her with Mr. Guest—certain she was the lady—”

“Why shouldn’t Mr. Guest be seen with a lady?” interrupted Chaney. “Anything remarkable in that?”

“No—no!” agreed Mr. Brown. “No—but, somehow, Mr. Guest was not the sort of man you’d associate with ladies. And, of course, it was curiosity on our part, but, as you suggest, we did ask the name.”

“Mrs. Pratt, the under-steward’s wife. She always knows the names of his Lordship’s guests,” replied Mr. Brown, smiling.

“No!” he said. “You’re not to mention names—at present. Let’s call her Mrs. X. Now then, once more—are you both still firmly of opinion that the lady you saw in the park with Guest and the lady you saw at church next morning with Lord and Lady Ellingshurst were one and the same person? You are? Very well—now do you know, can you tell, anything else about her?”

Mr. and Mrs. Brown glanced at Lord Ellingshurst. He had remained with us, quietly listening to Mr. Brown’s story, which, of course, had first been told to him; now he waved a hand towards Mrs. Brown.

“That’s just it!” he said. “Mrs. Brown can! And in my opinion, Chaney, you’ll find Mrs. Brown’s story far more important than Mr. Brown’s.”

“I shall be glad to hear anything Mrs. Brown can tell us, my Lord,” he said. “We certainly seem to be getting somewhere. Tell things in your own way, ma’am,” he continued, turning to our new informant, “and please to remember that the lady is—Mrs. X.”

“That is, if Mrs. Brown’s story is about Mrs. X,” I remarked. “It mayn’t be.”

“It is about Mrs. X,” she said. “And am I to tell it from what I should call the beginning? Well, you see, after knowing what Mr. Brown and I knew about Mrs. X meeting Mr. Guest in Ellingshurst Park that Saturday, all the things that came out at the inquest and in the newspapers had a great deal of interest to me; I read everything I could get hold of in the papers, both the London and the local ones. And I was more than once tempted to see somebody, his Lordship or Colonel Herwin or the police, and tell them what we’d seen, but then I reflected that a mere meeting like that was not a particularly suspicious circumstance, and as my husband was away and I hadn’t him to consult, I did nothing—till his return.”

“But,” continued Mrs. Brown, “the day before my husband came back—that is, the day before yesterday—I had to go up to town. I went up by the nine fifty from our station here. On the platform I saw Mrs. X. I concluded she was leaving Ellingshurst Abbey, for she had a quantity of luggage—one of the footmen from the Abbey was looking after it for her. There weren’t many people going by that train; most of them I knew quite well by sight. But there was a man there—a gentleman, I suppose you’d call him by his dress and appearance—who was a stranger to me; I’d certainly never seen him about here before. I noticed that he was watching Mrs. X and her pile of luggage—he seemed to be watching her very closely, and as she is, of course, a very striking-looking woman, I didn’t think much of it.”

“Can you describe the man, Mrs. Brown?” asked Chaney. “You can? Good—but we’ll have it later. Go on with the story itself.”

“Well, Mrs. X, when the train came in, got into a first-class carriage, and she had her luggage put in with her,” continued Mrs. Brown. “I got into a third, just behind her carriage. That’s a Charing Cross train, but it stops at London Bridge and Waterloo. I got out at London Bridge. So did Mrs. X. A gentleman came forward to meet her—a very smart-looking, youngish man—”

“And you can describe him, too?” interrupted Chaney. “Again, good! But we’ll leave all that to the end. Well, Mrs. X was met—?”

“The luggage was got out,” resumed Mrs. Brown, “and with a porter wheeling it in front Mrs. X and this gentleman who’d met her went off to the exit. I followed them—to where the taxi-cabs are. I was just getting into a taxi when I saw the man whom I’d seen at Ellingshurst station. He was standing within one of the entrances, close by where Mrs. X and her companion were busy with a cab and the luggage, and he was watching them. He was still there, and they were still there, when I drove off.”

“Ah!” said Chaney. “You went away? Just when it was getting interesting—from our point of view. Pity!”

“Wait a little, Chaney,” remarked Lord Ellingshurst with a laugh. “The best is to come.”

“Hatton Garden,” repeated Mrs. Brown. “I had gone up to see an optician about my eyes.”

“Oh?” said Chaney, a little blankly. “Oh, I see, ma’am. Er—an optician? And his place was in Hatton Garden?”

Lord Ellingshurst and I exchanged glances of amusement—we knew what Chaney was thinking about. To him the name Hatton Garden suggested one thing, and one thing only—diamonds! And diamonds—or the loss of them—lay in the background of this case.

“In Hatton Garden,” said Mrs. Brown once more, and mentioned a number. “I had an appointment at eleven fifteen. I was there—at the optician’s—three quarters of an hour; it was striking noon when I came out. I walked down the street towards Holborn Circus, to get another taxi-cab and go to the West End. And as I was going along, I saw Mrs. X again. She was on the other side of the street. The man who had met her at London Bridge was with her. He and she were talking to a man who, I thought, was a foreigner. He used his hands a great deal in talking—gesticulating, you know.”

“I know,” muttered Chaney. He was in a state of high delight at acquiring all this information. “You’d know him again, Mrs. Brown?”

“I—I think I should,” replied Mrs. Brown. “But I saw several men of that sort about there—men who all seemed to be foreigners. Still, I looked particularly at that man—until I suddenly saw something else,” she concluded abruptly.

“The man I’d seen watching Mrs. X at Ellingshurst station and at London Bridge,” replied Mrs. Brown. “The very same man!”

“He was there, lounging about, near where Mrs. X and the two men were talking,” assented Mrs. Brown. “It seemed to me that he was trying to get near them, as if to hear what they were talking about. There were a lot of men in the street—groups here and there—elbowing each other. The taxi-cab that Mrs. X and her companion had taken at London Bridge was drawn up at the curb, next where she and the men were talking—I recognized her luggage.”

“If you ever want a job, ma’am,” remarked Chaney, admiringly, “which I sincerely hope you never will, come to me and my partner! You know how to keep your eyes open. But I’m interrupting the story.”

“That’s all,” said Mrs. Brown. “I couldn’t stay there watching, of course. I went on, hailed a taxi, and went away.”

“Leaving them still talking?” suggested Chaney. “Well—and if that’s all, now, Mrs. Brown, give us as accurate a description as ever you can of the three men. First, the man you first saw at Ellingshurst station. Second, the man who met Mrs. X at London Bridge. Third, the foreign-looking party in Hatton Garden. And if there were any special features or characteristics that you noticed, let me have them.”

Mrs. Brown gave the required information—she was evidently a naturally observant woman, with unusual powers of perception—and after being duly cautioned by Chaney as to the necessity of reticence and secrecy for the time being, at any rate, she and Mr. Brown went away, leaving us alone with Lord Ellingshurst. There was a brief silence when they had gone; Chaney was still writing up his notes. When he had finished, Lord Ellingshurst, who had been standing on the hearth-rug, watching him, dropped into a chair and put his finger-tips together.

“Now,” he said, “I want to know exactly what you two think of all that? The woman, of course, is Mrs. Vansidine. She left here two mornings ago—as Mrs. Brown has said. But then you’ve already concluded that the woman we’ve been hearing about was Mrs. Vansidine. So—what do you make of it?”

“There are a great many questions arising out of Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s story, my Lord,” replied Chaney. “Quite—quite what you might call a profusion of them. Was Mrs. Vansidine—we can mention her name freely now, I suppose—the woman seen to meet Guest in your park? Let’s suppose she was—the Browns are sure she was. Well, that looks as if she and Guest knew each other. What was the extent of their friendship or acquaintanceship? There is no doubt now, from what we discovered at the Dower House, that Guest was a most accomplished cracksman, thief, burglar—so accomplished that he was never caught nor even suspected. Did Mrs. Vansidine know him in this capacity? Did she arrange the theft of your family diamonds with him? Did she herself actually steal the diamonds and hand them to Guest? And does she know where the diamonds are now? Again, was she the woman who visited the Dower House at night, in an effort to see Guest, and who shot Boach? All these are questions which occur to one at once.”

“And all somewhat difficult to answer,” remarked Lord Ellingshurst. “For me to answer, anyhow.”

“But there’s another side of it,” continued Chaney. “Your Lordship is aware that there has been an immense, an unusual amount of publicity given to this case. The London papers have been full of it—they’re full of it still. Nothing has been suppressed—names have come out freely, Mrs. Vansidine’s amongst them, though, to be sure, she’s only been mentioned as one of your Lordship’s guests at the time the diamonds were stolen. Now the chief point of the publicity, my Lord, is just this—the diamonds are missing! In other words—the diamonds are somewhere. Well—there are no end of people who’d be only too glad to lay hands on them—”

“No, my Lord, I mean for possession of them,” said Chaney. “I mean, in plain language, that it’s highly probable that some clever London crooks, having carefully followed the whole case in the papers, have got it into their heads that Mrs. Vansidine either has the diamonds or knows where they are, and that they’re already concentrating on her. Hence her being shadowed from your local station to Hatton Garden the other morning—as she undoubtedly was.”

“You think the man mentioned by Mrs. Brown really was shadowing Mrs. Vansidine, then?” asked Lord Ellingshurst. “Not a mere coincidence?”

“If a man is seen watching—or we won’t say watching, but noticing and remaining in the vicinity of—somebody at Ellingshurst station, and is later seen doing the same thing at London Bridge station, and again, still later, in Hatton Garden, my Lord, it is not likely to be mere coincidence!” said Chaney. “No—Mrs. Vansidine was being followed—shadowed. And the next question is—by whom?”

Chaney did not reply for the moment. When, after some evident reflection, he did, it was with a fixed and steady inspection of our employer.

“I want to know where I am, my Lord,” he said, firmly. “My partner and I both want to know where we are. When we first came here, your Lordship was very candid with us and told us that you suspected your wife and her friend Mrs. Vansidine. We want to know if you still suspect Lady Ellingshurst?”

“No!” replied Lord Ellingshurst. For the first time since I had known him, he seemed taken aback and upset by Chaney’s direct question. “No, I don’t, I—I have quite altered my mind on that point. Moreover, my wife has given me her word that she knows nothing of the matter—nothing. But—you must see that there are grounds for suspecting Mrs. Vansidine?”

“Oh, strong grounds, very strong grounds!” assented Chaney. “I suspect her myself, but I’m by no means clear as to the particular degree in which she’s concerned. But has your Lordship faced this very ugly and unpleasant fact? If Mrs. Vansidine was in collusion with Guest, if she’s the mysterious woman who visited the Dower House at night and shot at Boach, well, she’s probably the murderer of Effie Boach! What about that, my Lord?”

“If she is, she is,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “From all I know of her, Mrs. Vansidine would stop at nothing to gain her own ends. And there would be nothing extraordinary in her getting out of this house in the dead of night to go anywhere. It now looks to me as if she abstracted the case containing the diamonds from my wife’s room and conveyed them through her own windows to Guest, waiting outside—”

“I should just like to point out, in regard to that,” I said, interrupting the conversation, “that Mrs. Vansidine herself proved to me that at the time the diamonds were stolen she was in the billiard-room downstairs and therefore—”

“That’s a detail,” said Chaney. “We don’t know—we’ve no evidence—who actually took the diamonds. The points to be considered now are two: One, the diamonds are missing, but are somewhere. Two—there is abundant evidence to make us believe that Mrs. Vansidine knows where they are. The thing to do, then, is to watch Mrs. Vansidine, day and night—”

“You wouldn’t go straight to her and face her with all we know?” suggested Lord Ellingshurst. “Wouldn’t that, perhaps—”

“It wouldn’t do at all, my Lord!” replied Chaney, emphatically. “Our best policy is not to let her know that we know anything, until we know much more. Otherwise—”

It was just then that Gadd entered the room with a message for Lord Ellingshurst, from the police. Would his Lordship please go down to the Dower House, at once?

Sir John Pett’s discovery of the secret passage and the underground chamber at the Dower House had only served to whet his appetite for further investigation of that ancient edifice and its surroundings, and under his promptings and his personal superintendence the local police, ever since the opening of the inquest on Effie Boach, had been turning the whole place upside down, they themselves being persuaded that the Ellingshurst diamonds were concealed somewhere in house, outbuildings, or garden. Panelling had been stripped, floors taken up, every nook and corner of attics, cellars, and the very roof explored; scarcely a yard of the gardens remained untouched. There were three wells on the property; each had been plumbed to its depths. Some curious finds had been made; odd articles hidden away and lost to sight for generations came into evidence again. But of the diamonds there was no trace whatever, after many days of patient search. Still Sir John kept at it; he, as well as the police, felt sure that Guest or his accomplice or accomplices had secreted their spoil somewhere about the Dower House immediately after it had been stolen from Ellingshurst Abbey.

Sir John was at the Dower House when we arrived there with Lord Ellingshurst in answer to the Inspector’s summons. The policeman on guard at the front (it was necessary even yet to keep a guard there, for the place was still being visited in crowds by the inquisitive) directed us round the house to the grounds at the back. There was a kitchen garden there of considerable extent—a gloomy expanse, fenced in by trees on three sides and by a high wall on the fourth—and at its farther end was what I should say had been once upon a time a fish-pond, but had gradually degenerated into a stagnant pool, thick with weed and slime. And on its bank we found Sir John Pett, Colonel Herwin, the Police Inspector, and some of his men, gathered about some object which appeared to be causing considerable interest.

Sir John Pett turned to Lord Ellingshurst as we hurried forward, his face jubilant with news.

“We’ve made a find!” he exclaimed. “I always meant to have this pond drained off, but we’ve been so busy inside the house and buildings that it’s been left until today. However, look at this—I think you’ll recognize it.”

The other men stood aside, and we saw, resting on a piece of old sacking, what I at first took to be a discarded tin biscuit-box—rusty from exposure or soakage. But Lord Ellingshurst knew what it was at once.

“Exactly!” agreed Sir John, triumphantly. “Thought you’d know it. Lying there in that corner under an accumulation of slime and weed. And it’s just as we fished it out; we decided not to open it until you came. Not,” he added, with a sly smile, “that I think you’ll find anything in it! It was already empty when it was thrown away, I should imagine.”

There was a garden seat close by; the Inspector lifted the box on to it and endeavoured to lift the lid. He had some difficulty in doing this; the steel had rusted. But he forced it open at last, and we peered into the cavity. So well made was that box that no water had percolated inside; what we saw was a smaller case of morocco, which almost fitted the outer shell. This, pulled out by the Inspector and its snap-catch forced open, was, as we had expected, quite empty. The men standing round looked at each other, questioningly.

“Foregone conclusion!” remarked Sir John Pett. He turned to Lord Ellingshurst. “It makes this much certain, though,” he went on. “Your diamonds came—here! Here, in this old house, somebody transferred them from this box to his—or her—own pockets. That’s flat! And the next questions are: Who? Where? Who was it? Where are they now?”

Lord Ellingshurst said little in reply. Bidding the police take care of their find, he went back to the Abbey, and Chaney and I accompanied him.

“I suppose this discovery establishes the fact that Guest had an accomplice?” he said as we walked across the park. “And I further suppose that the accomplice has got the diamonds. Now, do you really think—after what we’ve learnt this afternoon—that Mrs. Vansidine is the accomplice?”

“My Lord, I’ll be perfectly frank with you,” replied Chaney. “I think that the lady you name knows where the diamonds are; as regards her actual complicity in the original theft, I prefer at present to keep an open mind. But now that we know as much as we do, and as the next thing to do, in a practical way, is to keep an eye on her movements, I propose that we get in touch with her at once. Camberwell and I will start on that this very evening. Before we go, however, there are two things I want your Lordship to do for us. First, I want to inspect the rooms which Mrs. Vansidine occupied during her visit to the Abbey. Second—and equally if not more important—I want your Lordship to take Lady Ellingshurst into your, and our, absolute confidence about our recent discoveries and bring her in as a consultant.”

“I consider it absolutely necessary, my Lord,” replied Chaney. “Imperatively necessary! I want some information about Mrs. Vansidine which no one but the Countess can give—and I must have it.”

Lord Ellingshurst made no further remark on this point. We went on to the Abbey, and he himself took us up to the rooms which Mrs. Vansidine had vacated only two days previously. Telling us that we should not be disturbed and could examine the rooms at our leisure, he was leaving us when Chaney stopped him.

“There’s a question I want to put to your Lordship,” he said. “It occurred to me before, but our visit to the Dower House put it aside. Your Lordship heard Mrs. Brown’s very full description of the young gentleman who met Mrs. Vansidine at London Bridge station and was afterwards seen with her in Hatton Garden? Very well—now, while Mrs. Vansidine was your guest here, you had another guest in the person of a Mr. Featherstone, a young man, I’m told. Does Mrs. Brown’s description fit Mr. Featherstone—”

“I can answer that, Chaney,” I interrupted. “No need to trouble his Lordship. It doesn’t!”

“Very good,” said Chaney. “Another reason for seeing Lady Ellingshurst. She, perhaps, as she knows Mrs. Vansidine so intimately, will recognize in Mrs. Brown’s description one or other of Mrs. Vansidine’s gentlemen friends.”

Lord Ellingshurst went away, and we proceeded to look round the suite of rooms which Mrs. Vansidine had left. It was a very similar suite to that occupied by the Countess, on the opposite side of the corridor; its main door exactly faced Lady Ellingshurst’s. And Chaney was quick to point out that if the Countess’s door was open—as she herself said it was on the night of the theft—nothing was easier than for Mrs. Vansidine—or somebody else—to take the case straight out of the Countess’s bedroom, step into Mrs. Vansidine’s rooms with it, and drop or lower it out of the window to an accomplice waiting in the garden below. All that was necessary was careful and accurate timing and arrangement. To my remark—made for the second time that day—that Mrs. Vansidine had accounted to me for her movements and whereabouts on the evening of the day (and at the actual time) on which the diamonds were stolen, Chaney gave a deaf ear; if he had replied to it, it would only have been to say that we would see to that little matter later on.

Chaney was an expert at searching a room, and he searched those rooms thoroughly. But I could not see that he found anything, deduced anything, profited in any way, until, as he entered the sitting-room, his face lighted up at the sight of a waste-paper basket half-filled, which a careless housemaid had neglected to empty. That made him actually rub his hands.

“Nearly always something to be found in a w.-p.b., Camberwell!” he exclaimed, possessing himself of his find and setting it on the writing-table beneath which it had stood. “Here, you see, is a find at once—torn letters. Masculine handwriting—feminine handwriting—and not torn into such small pieces, either. We’ve no time now to go into all this, but we’ll just take out carefully every scrap of paper on which there’s any writing, we’ll put all the scraps into this big envelope, and when we reach the calm haven of our office, Master Chippendale shall have the task of piecing them together. It may be an absolutely profitless task, and, again, it mayn’t. We may make quite a useful discovery and—hallo, what’s this?”

He was carefully lifting the torn-up letters from the basket into a huge square envelope which he had taken from a lavishly equipped stationery case when he made this exclamation, and I knew he had found something more important than scraps of paper. Turning to me where I stood examining a blottingpad with the aid of my pocket-microscope, he held up a paper bag—one of those stout affairs which they give you at banks with five pounds’ worth of silver inside them and generally labelled £5, with the name of the bank beneath. This was so labelled—and the bank was that from which the Ellingshurst diamonds had been brought.

But this bag had no silver in it. Instead it had a quantity of cotton wool and tissue paper—Chaney drew both out. And suddenly from the crinkled tissue paper something dropped and, falling, hit against the fender with a sharp tinkle. I hastened to pick up what looked to me like some sort of pebble.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Chaney. “An uncut diamond! I know it! That’s what it is, Camberwell. Here’s a find, anyway. I—but where’s that note-book of mine?”

He dropped bag, wool, tissue paper, and pebble-like object on the writing-table and began feeling for his little note-book.

“Here we are—here we are!” he said, feverishly turning over the leaves. “Contents of the morocco case. Item, parure, etc. Item, collar of diamonds. Item, necklet of—ah, here we are, last of all—item, several loose cut and uncut stones. Camberwell, this is one of the uncut stones! They were probably enclosed in this paper bag. She’s overlooked this one in transferring them elsewhere. Now let’s get down to his Lordship.”

Lord Ellingshurst, busy, as usual, with his books and papers, gave us an inquiring look when we entered his study.

“Made any discovery?” he asked, ironically. “None, I should imagine—there!”

Chaney pulled out his little note-book; the paper bag and its contents were safely put away in his pocket.

“Your Lordship gave me a detailed list of the contents of the steel case,” he said, disregarding Lord Ellingshurst’s question. “Amongst the items I have one relating to some loose cut and uncut stones. That’s correct, I suppose?”

“Quite correct,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “They were stones left over after making up one or other of the various articles.”

“Does your Lordship know how they were packed in that case?” inquired Chaney.

“Yes,” he answered after a moment’s thought. “The last time I saw them, they were in one of those stout paper bags in which bank cashiers give you five or ten pounds’ worth of silver, wrapped in cotton wool or something of that sort. Why?”

“We’ve just found that in the waste-paper basket in Mrs. Vansidine’s room,” he said. Then, rubbing his hands together, he added in a low voice: “Lucky for us, my Lord—I mean the likes of us, Camberwell and myself—that these people always make some false step, some little mistake, throw something away, leave something lying about—your Lordship knows what I mean.”

Lord Ellingshurst had been examining the paper bag and its contents. When he unearthed the uncut stone, his eyebrows arched themselves and he gave us a queer glance.

“The next thing, my Lord, is to let us see Lady Ellingshurst, at once,” replied Chaney. “And when her Ladyship has given us a little information, we will be off to town, to call on Mrs. Vansidine. Up to this afternoon I was going slow in that matter, but since this discovery my idea is full speed ahead.”

Lord Ellingshurst fetched his wife at once. Chaney explained matters to her. And Lady Ellingshurst showed no surprise and, womanlike, lost no time in reminding us that she had told us that she half-suspected Cora Vansidine from the first.

“Quite right, my Lady,” agreed Chaney in his suavest accents. “Your Ladyship did. Well—intuition is a great gift. But now we want your Ladyship to help. And first of all—” here came out the note-book again—“I have here a description of a young gentleman who was seen to meet Mrs. Vansidine at London Bridge station the morning she left here. I’ll read it over to your Ladyship, and if you can recognize it and give us a name and any particulars, the information will be very useful.”

He proceeded to read over Mrs. Brown’s very full and detailed description; before he had gone far, Lady Ellingshurst stopped him.

“That’s Bertie Raikes!” she exclaimed. “So he met her, did he? Of course, it’s he!”

“You can call him anything you like,” replied Lady Ellingshurst. “Most people call him her lover, though he’s a good ten years younger than she is.”

Lady Ellingshurst could and did—950 Jermyn Street. And Mrs. Vansidine’s? That was 35 Hethersley Gardens, W.

“But she’s more likely to be at her club, if you want to find her tonight,” added Lady Ellingshurst. “And that’s the Asclepia.”

But I knew all about the Asclepia, a social club for both sexes, and I got Chaney away, for in my opinion there was no time to be lost. Half an hour later we were off to town in our car.

And that evening, about half past seven, we presented ourselves at 35 Hethersley Gardens and asked for Mrs. Vansidine. A nervous-looking maid shook her head.

“Mrs. Vansidine isn’t at home,” she said. “She went out last night, to dinner, somewhere, and she’s never come back!”

It was obvious that Mrs. Vansidine’s maid was very much concerned, and Chaney, who was a past-master in dealing with such situations, assumed his most fatherly and sympathetic manner.

“Dear, dear!” he exclaimed. “Never came home last night and hasn’t been heard of since? That would make you very anxious, now? You expected her, of course, my dear?”

“I never expected to find her not in when I got up this morning,” replied the girl. “Gave me quite a shock, it did! Of course, I’d gone to bed. She’s often out late—theatres and suchlike—and lets herself in with her latch-key, you understand. But when I took the tea to her room this morning—well, she wasn’t there.”

“Dear me, dear me!” said Chaney. “Unusual for her to be out all night, then?”

“She’s never been out all night before,” answered the girl. “Of course, I haven’t been here long; only three months. And she’s been away visiting in the country till two or three days ago—the flat was closed while she was away, because I went home. Did you want to see her particular?”

“We did,” said Chaney. “Very important business. What time did you say she went out last night?”

“She went out to dinner,” replied the girl. “A gentleman called for her—”

“Oh, you know him?” said the girl. “Yes, it was Mr. Raikes. He came for her about seven o’clock, and they went off together. I think the hall-porter downstairs got a taxi for them; he generally does.”

“She said nothing except the usual thing—not to sit up for her,” said the girl.

“Oh, well, she’ll no doubt turn up,” remarked Chaney. “You’re not frightened?”

“I don’t care about being left alone in this flat,” she answered. “I shall just clear out if she doesn’t come in tonight. I didn’t engage to be left here all to myself—you never know who might come. What might you be wanting?”

“Oh, just dropped in to see her,” said Chaney, retreating. “Old friends—that’s all. We’ll call again.”

We went downstairs to the entrance hall of the flats and found the hall-porter. Yes, he remembered Mrs. Vansidine coming down last night with a young gentleman; he called a taxi for them. No, he didn’t know where they went: the young gentleman gave directions to the driver.

Chaney’s face had grown a little longer when we left the flats known as Hethersley Gardens. But within an hour it had grown longer still. We went from Hethersley Gardens to the Asclepia Club, which, as everybody knows, is a smart social club for men and women, situated in a fashionable quarter of the West End. And there we certainly got news of both Mrs. Vansidine and Mr. Bertie Raikes. They had come to the club, together, about nine thirty the previous evening and had been seen to leave about two hours later. And that was all that we could learn.

“One more call, Camberwell,” remarked Chaney, as we came down the steps of the Asclepia. “And then we’ll see.”

“See about what we’re going to do,” he answered. “Come along to Jermyn Street.”

We went to Jermyn Street, where we discovered that Mr. Bertie Raikes lived in a flat which was one of many in a palatial building. Mr. Raikes was not at home, and his manservant (who, I felt sure, was an ex-orderly) looked us over very critically and perhaps a little suspiciously as he told us so.

All three of us stood watching each other for a full moment’s silence. The valet looked as if he was about as likely to answer a plain question as a tombstone is of speaking. But Chaney suddenly plumped him with a straight one.

“Has Mr. Raikes ever been home since he left to go out to dinner last night?” he asked.

“Do you know where he is?” asked Chaney. “Because we want him. And—we’re going to find him!”

“I haven’t the least idea,” he answered. “He went out, as I say, to dinner last night, and up to now he’s not returned. Try the Asclepia Club—he’s generally there at night.”

“We’ve been there,” said Chaney. He gave the man another long look and possibly began to exert some hypnotic influence over him, for the valet’s manner changed. “Look here, my lad!” he went on. “We want Mr. Raikes on very particular business. Have you any idea where he is?”

“You know Mrs. Vansidine, I’ll bet,” said Chaney. “Of course you do! Was she here yesterday at all?”

“She’s here most days when he’s at home,” he answered. “Yes, she was here yesterday morning for an hour or two.”

“I’ll bet you’d hear something of what went on,” continued Chaney. “Now, did you hear anything that would give you the impression that they contemplated going abroad?”

“Abroad? Lord, no! He’s going pheasant-shooting in Norfolk next week. I’m packing for it now,” he replied. “Sir Charles Straven’s place—that’s where we’re going.”

“Pheasant-shooting,” repeated the valet. “Always go there soon as it starts in October.”

Chaney hesitated a moment, as if debating some question in his mind; then he turned away, motioning me to follow. The valet called after us.

“Mr. Cooper and Mr. Campbell,” replied Chaney, carelessly. “We’ll call again.”

But outside in Jermyn Street, Chaney turned me towards the side-streets that run to St. James’s Square and southward to the river, and I suddenly sensed what he was after. We were no longer able to tackle this job unaided, or in our private capacity.

“Just that, Camberwell, my lad!” he answered. “We can’t keep this to ourselves any longer—we must tell all we know to the official people. For you can bet your stars, Camberwell, that woman and her boy are off, and they’ve got sixty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds with ’em. Off—gad, I should say they’re nicely across the Channel by now!”

We were both very silent as we crossed the Horse Guards’ Parade, threaded our way through the traffic in Whitehall, and finally emerged in New Scotland Yard. But presently Chaney was voluble enough, and for a good two hours he kept certain high officials absorbed in the story he had to tell.

“You don’t propose to give up your own investigations?” inquired one of his hearers when all we knew had been laid bare. “You’ll go on with it?”

“As long as Lord Ellingshurst pays us to do so,” replied Chaney. “But—as things are—all our information shall be put at your disposal.”

So we set Scotland Yard to work—and Scotland Yard works quickly. Before another nightfall the hue and cry for Mrs. Vansidine and Bertie Raikes was out everywhere; the press was duly informed; all the ports were being watched; the foreign police were communicated with. And in addition to that, Lord Ellingshurst, kept informed by telephone of these new movements, offered a reward of five thousand pounds for information which, etc., etc.

Feeling that we had set all possible machinery in motion, Chaney and I slept soundly that night. But next morning Chaney had a notion.

“Camberwell,” he said, as soon as he reached the office at nine o’clock, “here’s what! Get into the car; go down to Ellingshurst; collect that pretty Mrs. Brown and bring her back to Hatton Garden, where I’ll meet you at twelve sharp. Be off, at once.”

“The idea, my lad, is that we’ll take Mrs. Brown a-walking up and down Hatton Garden for an hour before lunch,” he answered. “She might, by great good luck, chance to recognize the gentleman to whom she saw Mrs. Vansidine talking the other day. And if she did—and I hope she may!—we could crave the honour of a little talk with him.”

“Do you really suppose he’d tell us anything, Chaney?” I asked incredulously. “If she had any transactions with him, it’s not likely he would!”

“We’ll see about that—let’s find him first,” he answered. “Go fetch Mrs. Brown.”

I was more than a little sceptical about any possible results from fetching Mrs. Brown. Hatton Garden is a busy thoroughfare at any time, and its pavements are usually thronged at the hour Chaney mentioned, and how Mrs. Brown was to be expected to pick out one man from amongst several hundred I failed to see. But there was no gainsaying Chaney when he had set his mind on anything, so I got the car and went off to Ellingshurst.

Mrs. Brown, found at home in one of the new houses outside the old village, was immensely intrigued by the prospect of taking a small share in what she pleased to call detective work. She was certain she would know the man again, she assured me—the man. Indeed, she would know all three men again: the young man who met Mrs. Vansidine at London Bridge station; the man they were talking to in Hatton Garden; and the man whom she saw three times, at Ellingshurst, at London Bridge, and again at Hatton Garden, furtively watching the lady, her companion, and the foreign-looking person. So I carried Mrs. Brown off and in due course delivered her up to Chaney at Holborn Circus a minute or two after twelve o’clock. And when I had parked the car in an adjacent side-street, Mrs. Brown, Chaney, and I walked up one side of Hatton Garden—preparatory, as I feared, to a similar walking down the other.

But we were in luck. We had not gone twenty yards when Mrs. Brown, who was walking between us, suddenly clutched our arms.

“There he is!” she exclaimed. “That’s the man! Across the street there—talking to the man with the black beard. It’s the man with the dark moustache I mean—in the bowler hat.”

“I see him,” said Chaney. “Take no further notice—don’t point—don’t stare—walk on, unconcernedly. A few yards—now we’ll go across and turn back. You’re quite certain, Mrs. Brown?”

“As certain as that I’m here—where I never expected to be!” replied Mrs. Brown. “What shall you do?—it’s quite exciting.”

What we did was to cross the street, turn back, make Mrs. Brown take another good look at her man, and then dawdle about until our quarry had finished his leisurely talk with the bearded gentleman and had turned into an open doorway close by. Then, bidding Mrs. Brown look after herself for a few minutes, we followed the man in. Half-way along a rather dark and narrow passage he was unlocking a door. Chaney made up to him.

“Good-morning, sir,” he said in his politest fashion. “May we have a word with you?”

The man paused in the act of unlocking his office door and looked us quietly up and down from head to foot. His face was as emotionless as a wooden effigy’s when he had completed that look, and he spoke one clipped word, inquiringly:

Chaney pulled out one of our professional cards and presented it. The man glanced it over and again spoke abruptly.

“A very simple matter, sir—a question,” replied Chaney. “You were seen, a few mornings ago, in conversation, outside your office here, with a lady and a young gentleman. The lady was rather tall—”

The man suddenly turned the key in the lock and motioned us to enter the room thus thrown open—a small, dingy office. We walked in, and he followed us.

“We want to know if you had any transactions with her?” continued Chaney. “Did you, for instance, buy any diamonds from her?”

The man shook his head. From a table in the centre of the room he picked up a cigar from an open box, bit off the end, spat it out, and proceeded to strike a match.

“That’s the second time I’ve been asked that since she was here,” he said quietly. “I’m beginning to wonder what her game was, or is? I’ll tell you all I know—it’s no concern of mine—I think she only came in here just as she might have gone into any office along the Garden, to get a bit of information; picked me out casually, d’ye see? She came in here, with a young swell—they’d a car outside, with luggage on it; I saw that, because I went out in the street with them. She told me that a friend in South Africa had sent her, as a present, some uncut diamonds. She wanted to know how and where she could sell them. I told them she could bring them to me to look at, and I’d give her my opinion. She’s never been back. But now look here, as you’re on the job—when I went outside with her and the young fellow, I noticed a chap hanging about who was certainly watching them. Later in the day that chap came here and wanted to pump me—asked me, in fact, what you did. I told him to go to hell!”

“Oh, you showed your card!” answered the diamond-merchant. “That fellow had none. Well, that’s all I know. As I say, she’s never been back.”

We returned to Mrs. Brown and gallantly escorted her to lunch at the Holborn Restaurant. Chaney, as an acknowledged lady’s man, exerted himself to entertain her, but my mind was fixed on the question: who was the fellow whom the diamond-merchant consigned to hell?

The man whom the Scotland Yard people told off to make a special investigation into the whole circumstances of the mystery which began with the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds was a certain Inspector Jalvane, with whom Chaney and I had worked before—notably in the instance of the stolen valuables from Linwood Church and a murder arising out of it, which formed the basis of Entry Number Three in my case-book. Jalvane was a character—a tall, spare, ramrod sort of man, more like a drill-sergeant than a policeman, shrewd, reserved, except when he had good reason to talk, when he became extremely voluble, and with a distinct distrust of the merely obvious. He came to see us the day after we had been to Scotland Yard, and we put at his disposal every scrap of evidence we had. After treating himself to an extraordinary amount of snuff—which appeared to be his great solace and stimulant—Jalvane told us his opinion. It began with a platitude, but, as somebody said, platitudes are crystallized truths and cannot be too often respected; so Jalvane’s was excusable.

“There is more in this than lies on the surface,” observed Jalvane. “Behind what is apparent, there is a whole network of clever conspiracy. My opinion is that the theft of those diamonds was the culmination of plans cleverly and skilfully made. I should say that the man you know as Nugent Guest was one of a gang; it is quite probable that he took up his quarters at the Dower House in order to bring off the burglary—if it was a burglary. Probably it wasn’t—though Mrs. Vansidine may have handed out the diamonds from the window of her room. But I should say there have been several people concerned in it. I should say, too, that they’re all off—she and they. As to the murder of the girl, what I think about that is this—I think that girl actually saw the case containing the diamonds lifted from Lady Ellingshurst’s room and knew the person who lifted it; I think she let that person know that she knew, and—she paid the penalty. I think, too, there’s no doubt that Guest took the case to the Dower House. And as regards what happened then, my idea is this—Guest put that case somewhere in his study, or his dining-room, or somewhere handy—he knew quite well that nobody would suspect him—and it was still where he put it when he went down into that subterranean chamber to repair the roofing. Well, we know he never came back from that job. But one of his associates came to the Dower House—the mysterious figure—having means of access; probably she (for it seems certain it was a woman) was Mrs. Vansidine, who, I suppose, could get out of the Abbey and go across to the Dower House quite easily at night. She found the case—let’s say lying about—removed the contents, threw the steel case and morocco case into the fish-pond, and took the diamonds away. We may be sure, considering everything, that the diamonds came into Mrs. Vansidine’s possession, as one of the gang. The incident of the small parcel of uncut stones proves that,” he concluded. “It would be too much of a coincidence that she should receive uncut stones from somebody in South Africa at the very time that those lying in Lord Ellingshurst’s steel case were abstracted! I’ve no doubt whatever that the Ellingshurst diamonds came into Mrs. Vansidine’s possession, I say, and I shouldn’t wonder if she got them conveyed to town, to other hands, as soon as they left the Dower House—where, undoubtedly, they were taken after the theft from the Abbey.”

“Jalvane,” I said, “where do you suppose Mrs. Vansidine and the rest have got to?—her confederates, I mean, of whom you seem sure she had some?”

“Oh, the Continent!” he replied. “I should say that she and the young fellow who was with her when she left the Asclepia Club that evening went straight off—and their associates with them. It’s quite likely that by this time the Ellingshurst diamonds have been disposed of. The odd thing, though,” he went on, “and it is a very odd thing, considering everything, is that we can’t hear a word of them. Paris—Brussels—Antwerp—Amsterdam—all the likely places—not a trace of ’em. And she’s a striking-looking woman.”

“Why should they come back?” he asked. “Monte Carlo would be more in their line, I should say. Still, I can’t think how it is that none of the Continental police have seen anything of them.”

“Ay, or North, or East or West, if there is any East or West,” retorted Jalvane, “but no such people as Mrs. Vansidine or young Mr. Raikes have been seen to leave Southampton or Liverpool or anywhere else. I shouldn’t wonder if they’ve flown across the Channel and come down in some likely spot in France or Holland. Anyhow, it’s as clever a disappearance as ever I heard of. Puzzling!”

But presently there was something that puzzled me much more than the mere disappearance. We were just then very busy in our office—a most complicated case had been put into our hands which necessitated constant attention on the part of Chaney and required the services of our clerk, Chippendale, and our lady assistant, Miss Fanny Pratt. The Ellingshurst commission, accordingly, was, for the time being, left entirely to me. And having thought matters carefully over, I decided that the most useful thing I could do at that juncture was to devote myself to finding out all I could about Mr. Bertie Raikes, who, whether he was with her or not, had vanished as completely as Mrs. Vansidine.

Now, Mr. Bertie Raikes, when I had collected together all available information about him, proved a bewildering problem. He was of good family and connexions. He was an orphan and, having attained his majority and so passed out of the care and tutelage of guardians and trustees, was his own absolute master. He was very well off as regarded the goods of this world, and I could not learn that he wasted his money. He had a very comfortable flat in Jermyn Street. He belonged to three or four good clubs, the Asclepia being one of them. He was a bit of a sport, played several games, and in country-house circles was known as a good shot and an occasional rider to hounds. In short, he seemed, from all I could learn about him, to be a clean-living young Englishman, dividing his time between town and country and doing no harm to anybody. Now, what should such a youngster be doing with a gang of thieves or mixed up in a conspiracy to steal diamonds? The only thing I heard about him which—everything considered—was not to his credit was that he was infatuated with Mrs. Vansidine, was always with her, and was, according to some people (the sort of people who profess to know), her lover. In our scheme of things, Mrs. Vansidine was mixed up in the diamond theft; had the diamonds; had gone off with the diamonds. Was it likely that young Raikes knew of her nefarious doings? It was not likely that a young man with two or three thousand a year of his own should be mixed up with thieving. Yet when Mrs. Vansidine disappeared, Mr. Bertie Raikes disappeared with her. Why?

I was puzzling over this problem when I came across an old schoolmate whom I rarely met, one Marston, now a barrister. He stopped me one morning in the neighbourhood of the Law Courts, where I had been on business, and I saw from his sudden start and glance that he had something he wanted to say to me.

“Camberwell!” he exclaimed. “Talk about coincidence! I was just thinking of you—in fact, I was going round to Conduit Street—your offices are there, aren’t they?—to find you this afternoon. Look here—are you pressed for time?”

“Then come into court with me,” he continued. “I’ve an application to make—it won’t take five minutes—then we’ll go across to my chambers.”

I followed him into the Law Courts: his business was soon over, and we went over to King’s Bench Walk, where he had chambers on the first floor of one of the corner houses. He threw aside wig and gown, pushed a box of cigarettes across the table, and settled himself to talk.

“Camberwell,” he began, “you and your partner have the Ellingshurst diamonds affair in hand—and the disappearance of Mrs. Vansidine?”

“We’ll leave the murder out—for the present,” he continued. “Mrs. Vansidine, as you know, is a member of the Asclepia Club, where, I understand, she was last seen. Well, so am I.”

“Yes?” I asked, perceiving there was still more to come. “And so is young Raikes, who disappeared with her.”

“To be exact, who was seen to leave the club with her,” he said. “Now, you and the police, between you, and aided by the press, have given an enormous amount of publicity to this business—and yet you haven’t been able to get one foot on the track of these two. Is that correct?”

“Quite correct,” I answered. “Neither the police nor ourselves have so far heard one word of them.”

“Well,” he went on, “here’s something for you. Mrs. Vansidine and Raikes are not the only people who have effected a sudden disappearance—from the Asclepia Club, at any rate.”

“It’s being already talked of there,” he continued. “I was at the club last night, and several men were talking of it. Have you ever in the course of your experience—you must have seen a good deal of town life—come across or heard of a man named Twidale?”

“Can’t say—more than that he’s a member of the Asclepia Club,” he answered. “You might describe him by that wide term: a man about town. You might know him by sight if you saw him—tall, dark, good figure, always immaculately dressed, scar on left cheek, bit of a swagger about his walk and bearing; looks, in fact, like what I should say he is—an adventurer.”

“Don’t know him,” I said. “But—apart from his appearance—who is he?”

“I should say nobody knows,” he replied. “He seems to have seen service in the Great War, and he can occasionally tell tales of doings in some queer parts of the world. He’s been a member of the Asclepia Club for some years, and being, evidently, one of those men who prefer ‘the sweet shady side of Pall Mall’ to any other scene, he’s always in town and has never been known to let a day pass without attendance at the Asclepia—you could lay all your money that you’d find him there, in the card-room or the billiard-room, at almost any hour of the day. Well, now, Twidale has never set foot in this favourite haunt of his since the evening of Mrs. Vansidine’s disappearance. He was in the club that night; he was seen in conversation with Mrs. Vansidine and young Raikes; it is known that he left a little before they did, and he has never been seen since.”

“No,” he answered. “Twidale is the sort of man who has no end of acquaintances, but no intimate friend—there’s as much aloofness about him as there is mystery. But there are one or two members there who knew his private address; he had rooms over a shop in South Molton Street, and I heard last night that one of them called at the rooms, to find out if Twidale was ill. The landlady replied to his inquiry that Captain Twidale, as she called him, had not been seen there since—well, on comparison of dates, it turned out to be since the very evening which witnessed the disappearance of Mrs. Vansidine and young Raikes. What do you make of that, Camberwell?”

“That the apparent coincidence of the disappearance is too remarkable to be coincidence,” I replied. “We and the police believe the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds to have been the crowning point of a cleverly worked-out job, in which Mrs. Vansidine was concerned. Probably the man Twidale is one of the conspirators. But what puzzles us is that young Raikes should—”

“Raikes?” he said. “Raikes is—a young fool. That woman could twist him round her finger! But—these disappearances, surely, are most extraordinary! Not a trace, you say, not a clue?”

“Not one iota of either,” I replied. “They might have vanished into the earth!”

“Odd, for she’s such a handsome woman,” he said, musingly. “And—to disappear as they were, in full evening dress. Camberwell—do you know what I think?”

“I think that when they left the club, they did one of two things,” he answered. “One, they’d a car waiting somewhere close by—Raikes’s perhaps—”

“Well, a car—and that they went right away to somewhere where they changed their clothes, caught an early morning boat, and made for the Continent,” he continued. “Or—that they’re at the present moment safely hidden in London.”

“The last suggestion means that a lot of people know a good deal,” I said. “I think your first suggestion is more likely. But now I want to know more about this Twidale man. Can you tell more?”

But—except for small things connected with club life—he couldn’t. And though I immediately set to work to acquire some information regarding Twidale, I got none that was of any value or importance. Neither did Jalvane, to whom I confided the news I had got from Marston. We heard a good deal about Twidale, it is true, but nothing that helped us; he seemed to be just what Marston had said, a man about town. Nobody knew anything against him, and nobody could speak intimately of him. As Marston had said, Twidale did not seem to have any close friends.

Then began what I will call the genesis of the climax. A week had elapsed since the disappearance of Mrs. Vansidine and young Raikes, and not one scrap of news of them had reached us or Scotland Yard. On the morning of the eighth day I was alone in our office; Chaney, Chippendale, and Miss Pratt were still away, and likely to be so for some days. Turning over the letters which had come in by the first post, I suddenly came on one that immediately attracted my attention, for two or three reasons. A cheap, common envelope—the stamp stuck on anyhow—the postmark smudged and obliterated for the most part—dirty thumb- or finger-marks all over the surface—but the handwriting, in pencil, a woman’s, pretty, if hurried.

I carefully cut open the flap of this odd-looking missive and drew out what obviously had been a blank leaf torn out of a book. It was covered with the same writing that appeared on the envelope, more hurried if anything, here and there almost illegible. Turning it over before reading a word, I looked for the signature. That was plain enough—Cora Vansidine.

I smoothed out the sheet of crumpled paper on my desk and bent over it wonderingly. It must have been torn out of a very old book, for it was turning yellow with age, and its margin on one side showed traces of damp; as I bent nearer to it, in the endeavour to make out the writing, which was in pencil and very faint, I was conscious of the musty smell which is associated with old books. But I was already reading:

“Mr. Camberwell, if this reaches you, for God’s sake come and find this place and get me out of it; I don’t know of anyone but you that I can turn to. I have been brought here by force and am kept a prisoner; I don’t know yet if, or how, I can get this posted to you. And I don’t know, either, exactly where I am—I was driven a long way from London. It is in a big old house. I believe it is near the South Coast. From the window of the room in which I am locked up I can see the sea—a glimpse of it—at a distance of some miles. There is high ground on one—the left—side of the house, with woods on the slope, and at the foot of the woods, on that side, there are the roofs of a village, and the low tower of a church, all about a mile away. On the right side there is a long range of downs, and not very far away from the house there is the ruin of a windmill with one big broken sail sticking up against the sky. I am sure I am near the South Coast, facing the sea, because every morning the sun rises away to the left—that is, to the east. There is another thing I can see, to mention which may be useful to you in finding the place. Away to the right, down on the level between here and the sea, there is the very tall spire of what seems to be a large church. And another thing—in front of the house, which has a lot of trees on all sides but the front, there is a very much neglected garden, and on its lawn, standing in the middle of a small pond or lake, there is a broken statue or stone figure. Do please try to find and identify the place by this description and do something to get me out—I am frightened. But please, please don’t bring the police into it—there are reasons, and if police came here, I don’t know what would happen to me. Oh, please do something, and if you get this, as quickly as possible. One thing more—I am not asking this merely for myself. There is someone else here with me, through no fault of his own. We are in the hands of desperate men who will stop at nothing. Please, please help me, help us!

Cora Vansidine”

I read this twice over, pausing at some of the particulars. There was something in it that roused some memory in me. Suddenly I knew what it was—the ruined mill, with its one sail sticking up against the sky! Where, when, had I seen that? Just as suddenly I remembered that particular, too. The previous summer I had been down at Wrenchester, a cathedral city near the South Coast, playing cricket; I had stayed in Wrenchester itself and gone about in the surrounding country with my fellow-members of our team, playing matches in the adjacent villages. And I remembered such a mill as Mrs. Vansidine described—it was the old windmill on Blackacre Down, some seven or eight miles inland from the sea, five or six miles from Wrenchester, and in itself a landmark which could be seen from several points of the bold-featured country around it and from a long way out in the English Channel. We had played cricket in a village at the edge of Blackacre Down; the old mill, with its blackened walls, its skeleton sail, was a conspicuous feature of the landscape as seen from the cricket ground; I remembered it well. And as far as I could recollect, the other particulars mentioned in Mrs. Vansidine’s letter aroused some memory in me.

I turned to the envelope again—a miserable bit of cheap stationery, such as is sold in village shops and is fashioned out of the poorest paper. But the postmark was so smudged and obliterated that I could not decipher the name on it or the date. Still, I fancied that the final letter of the name was R. Was this Wrenchester—or was it Ashner, which I now remembered as being the name of the village I have just referred to.

The next thing was what to do. But I was quick to decide on that. I was going to satisfy myself at once about the old mill—was Blackacre Down Mill the one Mrs. Vansidine described? Within a few minutes of reading Mrs. Vansidine’s letter I was getting the car ready for a run to Wrenchester; within half an hour I was off. It was here—all owing to excitement and impulse—that I made a great mistake—a mistake that might have been attended with fatal consequences. I left town without telling anyone where I was going or on what errand. There was, of course, no one in the office to tell anything to. But I might have told Jalvane. Jalvane, however, was not on the spot, and I was in a hurry. My notion, I think, was that I would go down to Wrenchester and Ashner, have a look at Blackacre Down, and if I identified any particular house with that described in Mrs. Vansidine’s letter, put myself in touch with the local police. As events developed, I never had a chance of carrying out this plan. Accordingly, from the moment I left our office, no one knew where I had gone or why I had left the office at all. I might have left an explanatory note on my desk for Chaney or for Chippendale, if they returned in my absence; that precaution, also, I did not take.

I went straight down to Wrenchester by the main road from London and turned into my old quarters at the Mitre Hotel for lunch. Here again I could have told several people of my presence in the neighbourhood; I knew half a dozen men in Wrenchester. If any one of them had happened to drop in at the Mitre that day and I had encountered them, I might—for they were all well known to me and all worthy of confidence—have told them what brought me there. But I saw nobody that I knew. In leaving the old city I passed the police headquarters; during the next twenty-four hours I bitterly regretted that I had not turned in there and given the Superintendent an account of my doings and what I was after. Instead I went on into the country, and after a run of some few miles came to the village I have already mentioned, Ashner. And there, on the outskirts, I pulled up and, getting out of my car, took a careful look round. One swift, but comprehensive glance, sweeping about from east to west, south to north, convinced me that I was on the right track, that my first flash of recollection had been a correct one.

But I will try to make the geographical situation clear. Northward of where I stood, at the distance of a mile or so, rose the long line of the downs, running from as far as I could see in the east to an equally far point in the west. Southward, some seven or eight miles away, separated from me by a level plain that stretched from the foot of the downs, was the sea, wrapped just then in a grey, autumnal haze. To the westward, down in the plain, rose the high, tapering spire of Wrenchester Cathedral; far beyond it, in the same direction, hovered the smoke of Kingsport. Facing northward again, Ashner Church, with its squat, square tower, rose above the red-tiled roofs of the little village. That lay on my right as I looked towards the downs; it was, I felt sure, the village and church described in the letter which lay in my pocket. But I was looking for the principal landmark—and shifting my position a little, so that I could look round and beyond a clump of trees immediately before me, I found it at once—the black bulk of the old mill, with its one remaining sail pointing high into the void, like a warning finger. There it stood, on a slope of the downs, a mile or so away from me, and separated from me and the village by a sort of ravine or valley or combe, which, thickly wooded with fir and pine, rose from the level of the plain to the top of the line of hills, then covered thickly with ling and heather. And I was not sure, for the afternoon was hazy, but it looked to me as if, some little distance beyond and below the old mill, there was a thin line of blue smoke creeping up above the trees from some hidden chimney. After I had climbed a bank of the roadside by which I had pulled up the car, the chimney came into view, and I knew then that amongst those trees there was a house, and one of some size.

I was now absolutely convinced that I had found the place described by Mrs. Vansidine, and the thing was now what to do next. Looking at my watch, I found the time to be a quarter to four. The daylight would last for some little time yet; it would never do for me to go spying and prospecting around that house while there was still light enough for anybody inside it to see me outside; I should have to wait for nightfall. After thinking the matter over, I decided to go into Ashner, spend an idle hour in getting tea at the village inn, and then, when dark had fallen, drive my car farther up the valley, amongst the woods, hide it in some convenient spot, and do the rest of my prospecting on foot.

After another leisurely look round the landscape, a further noting of its features, I got into the car and drove slowly into the village. This, a very small place, was mainly built round a square, the centre of which was a big grass-plot, from which rose a clump of old beech-trees. The inn, called Ashner Arms, stood on one side of this square; on two others there were shops of the general sort found in villages; on that facing the inn there was a blacksmith’s shop, a carpenter’s shop, and a brand-new garage, with the usual garish advertisements and hideousnesses in the way of pumps and appliances. Outside this—which I passed on my way to the inn—stood an ancient touring car; a boy in dungarees was doing some temporary repairs to it. He was almost the only human being in sight, except a tall man in a suit of plus-fours, of whom I caught a glimpse as he came out of the butcher’s shop and turned into the grocer’s.

Leaving my car outside the Ashner Arms, I walked into the parlour, rang a bell, and ordered tea from a sleepy-looking waitress. When she had taken my order and gone away, I went over to the window and looked out on the square in front. It was still as lifeless as when I had driven through it. But as I watched, the tall man in plus-fours came out of the grocer’s shop, carrying some small parcels. He strode across to where the boy was tinkering with the car, and threw the parcels in. Then, after watching the boy for a minute or two, he turned away and strode across the patch of grass towards the inn; another minute, and he was sufficiently near me for close inspection. When he had come a little nearer and I had taken him in from head to foot, I felt almost absolutely certain that I was looking at the man described by my barrister friend Marston—the man he called Twidale. Still another and closer look as he stepped off the grass on to the gravelled road in front of the inn, and I hadn’t the ghost of a doubt. The man was making for the inn, and for a second I wondered, first, if he would come into the room in which I was waiting for my tea, and, second, whether I was known to him. I often found out, in those days, that I was well known by sight to scores of people whom I did not know. This man might know me and who I was and what my occupation was. There was no help for it, however; there I was, and there I had to remain; already I heard his rapid, firm step in the stone-flagged hall. I dropped into a chair in the shadiest corner of the room and picked up a newspaper. A moment later he pushed the door open and put his head into the room. I looked up; our eyes met—and to my great relief, I saw, unmistakably, that he did not recognize me. He glanced round, gave me another look, withdrew; I heard his steps go farther along the hall. Then he evidently met somebody and spoke, in a loud, confident tone.

“Oh, there you are!” he exclaimed. “I say, send me up another supply of the usual this afternoon or evening, will you—you know what I want, eh?”

“Same as before, Captain? Certainly—you shall have it up by six o’clock, sir. You wouldn’t care for a few bottles of a particularly good claret I happen to have, now, Captain, would you?—some I got when they sold Sir William’s cellar, years ago? Just let me—”

There was a sound of retreating footsteps up the hall, the opening and slamming of a door; then silence. I concluded that the two men had gone into the cellar to look at Sir William’s claret. My tea came; I began to eat and drink. After a while the door in the back regions banged again; I heard the man’s voice.

“Send half a dozen along with the other stuff—shan’t be here long enough to drink more,” said the voice I had first heard. “Let’s have it in time for dinner.”

“Up by six o’clock, Captain, without fail,” replied the second voice. “A good-day to you, sir.”

The man addressed as Captain went out; I rose and, looking out of the window, saw him striding away across the square in the direction of the old touring car. Presently he got into it and drove away, and I sat down again and over a second cup of tea began to think. I was perfectly certain now that I was right about the house near the ruinous mill, and equally certain that the man I had just seen was Twidale, of whom Marston had told me. And I have since wondered, not once, but always, how it was that, being so certain, I did not then and there devise a plan of campaign which would have ensured my own safety. I could have dropped a hint to the village policeman; better still, as I had plenty of time before me, I could have run back to Wrenchester and told my plans to the Superintendent of Police; I could even have telephoned to Jalvane at Scotland Yard. Instead of doing any of these things, I finished my tea leisurely, smoked two or three cigarettes, and then, going out to my car, drove slowly away up the wooded slope of the downs.

Outside the village the road wound in and out, with many twists and turnings, in a continual ascent towards the top of the downs, and always through woods which became denser and thicker the higher it went. Although it was a main road, leading from London to Wrenchester, I found it just then little frequented; a car or two passed me, going south; once I was caught up and passed by another, travelling fast in the opposite direction. For some distance I saw nothing on either side but the woods, but at last, as I was nearing the top of the long ascent, I came to a place where, on the left or western side, there was a clearing, and there I came in sight of two objects which I wanted to see. High above me on that side was a view of the long, rolling outline of the downs, and in its midst, at a distance of perhaps half a mile, was the old mill, a black bulk against the rapidly darkening sky, and the one sail standing up in high relief against a drift of grey cloud. And nearer, seen through a cutting in the trees, were the chimneys of a house, and a peep of the roofs beneath them; a spiral of smoke curled up from one chimney, and I knew that I was looking at what I had seen before I went into the village. Here, without doubt, was what I had come to find.

But I did not stop there; I wanted to do things slowly and surely. I went on a little farther and at another twist of the winding road found myself, unexpectedly, close to the house of which I had just had a mere glimpse. It was not quite dark, and I could see well enough to make out that it was a four-square building, probably of ancient architecture, and that it stood at the back of a lawn in the middle of which was a small lake or pond—I could see the gleam of water. Not venturing to pull up, but slowing down as I passed the gates, I took a good look at the front and one side of the house; there was not a spark of light in it anywhere. But as I was passing out of sight of it, a faint light broke in one of the lower rooms, a mere line of light, as if through shutters that did not quite meet, and I knew then that, dark and forbidding as the place looked, it was not untenanted.

I went slowly on to the very top of the road where it emerged from the woods upon a wide expanse of treeless moorland. And there, his figure clearly outlined against the northern sky, I saw a man coming along. He looked like the man in the moon—that is to say, he carried something of bulk across his shoulder; as he drew nearer, I saw it was a bundle of sticks. And I pulled up the car and leaned out to speak to him, having a purpose in my mind.

“Can you tell me if there’s a Mr. Twidale living anywhere about here?” I asked.

The bundle, or faggot, of sticks was carried over the man’s shoulder on the prongs of a fork, and as I accosted him, he slipped the fork from its resting-place with a sidelong twist and deposited his burden on the ground at his feet; after which, shaking his head and rubbing his chin, he looked at me with a doubtful expression.

“Ain’t no gentleman o’ that name about here as I knows on, master,” he said. “There’s a Captain Somebody a-come, recent, to th’ old mansion what stands alongside the road here, going down to Ashner, but his name ain’t what you says, neither.”

“It might be the man I’m looking for,” I remarked. “What is the name of the gentleman?”

“Well, now, master, that’s what I was a-thinking of, myself,” he answered. “Reason why, ’cause I can’t rec’lect of it at this here moment. Sort o’ foreigneerin’ name, it is—one o’ them as isn’t known to us o’ these here regions. But they calls him the Captain—tall, dark-featured gentleman he is, what’s no doubt been a soldier one time.”

“That must be the man I want,” I said. “Much obliged to you. I’ll come back and look him up tomorrow. What’s the next village ahead, across the top here, and how far is it?”

“Matter o’ five or six mile, master, to Wexley—can’t miss it if you go straight on this road, and no turnings,” he replied. “Wexley-cum-Fairhurst ’tis called, proper, but we calls it Wexley.”

I gave him a shilling and told him to drink to my health; after thanking me and shouldering his bundle of sticks again, he went lumbering down the road towards Ashner, and I, just to make him think that I was going to Wexley-cum-Fairhurst, started my engine and drove off in that direction. But when I had gone a couple of miles, I turned round and came back to where I had set out—at the top of the road, where it and the moorland met.

It was dark now, quite dark, and by good rights I ought to have had all my lights on. Instead of fulfilling the law, I drove the car on to the moorland and, skirting the fringe of wood, went on until I came to a place where I thought I could safely hide or, at any rate, leave it for an hour or two. This was where there was an opening into the recesses of the wood, wide enough to admit the car. I ran it in there, left it, went out on the moorland again, and, turning back to the juncture of moor and highway, began the descent of the hill which I had just climbed. I was going to have a careful look at what the man with the stick had referred to as the old mansion.

I went slowly down the road, keeping in the cover of the wood which overhung the grass verge. Once or twice a car came along; once a big motor-lorry thundered past, going downhill. All carried strong lights; when I saw the first glint of them, I slipped into the undergrowth of the woods, which were here unfenced from the road. No pedestrians came or went; there was a general sense of solitude thereabouts. Half-way down the hill I heard the clock in the tower of Ashner Church strike, and stood to count the strokes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It was very dark now—perhaps not so dark in the open spaces above and below, but in the depths of those woods, still possessing their foliage, very dark indeed.

Suddenly, in the darkness, I was aware of two white objects, the posts of a gateway, and knew I had come again to the house around which I wanted to prowl, spying out the land. I could make out its outline of roofs and chimney against the sky, and now there were sparks of light in it here and there, both upstairs and down, though so small that I felt sure all the windows were closely blinded and perhaps shuttered. I heard no sounds from the house; everything was very quiet there. The gateway, however, was not a good place from which to watch; presently I slipped into a shrubbery just within the grounds, and from its shelter looked and listened. But though I stayed there, amongst the laurel and rhododendron bushes, for some time, I saw no more than I had seen at first, and heard nothing beyond the occasional passing of a car along the road behind me, and eventually I slipped out of cover again and in the increasing darkness began to edge nearer to the house.

The lawn and its sheet of water (in the centre of which I was able to make out the broken statue that Mrs. Vansidine had mentioned in her letter) were entirely surrounded, save on the side near the road, by trees, beneath which was a thick undergrowth; I had therefore no difficulty in approaching the house. Arriving at a point almost close to one of its angles, I came to a fence, beyond which, as far as I could make out, lay a kitchen garden. Using every caution, I passed through this fence, and—as I had expected I should—found myself at the rear of the premises. And I saw at once that I was now likely to see something, for from one of the windows a fairly broad beam of light flashed itself across the patches of potato and cabbage. Either the blinds were not drawn or the shutters did not fit in that window; anyway, I made up my mind that I would creep up to it and take a look at whatever was to be seen inside the room or kitchen in which the light burned.

Treading as lightly as I could, I slowly traversed the wall of the house in the direction of the lighted window. I passed several windows on the way and stopped outside each, to listen. But I heard nothing and saw no spark of light—the greater part of the house, as far as I could make out, seemed to be in darkness and in a silence corresponding to the darkness. As I drew nearer to the lighted window, however, I became aware of two things—sound and smell. There was a cheerful rattle of plates, an appetizing smell of something good, cooking. And judging that whoever was stirring inside there would be too much occupied with pots and pans to glance at the window—the lower half of which I now saw to be uncurtained and unshuttered—I went boldly up and by dint of standing on tiptoe and holding on to the windowsill looked in.

I found myself looking at a spacious, old-fashioned kitchen, on one side of which a big fire was burning in the open grate. Its flames shone and danced on a delf-case full of plates, dishes, and the like and on various old articles of furniture. It was a bit of the old world, that kitchen; there was even a jack dependent from the projecting chimney-piece, and from the chain hung, slowly revolving before the blazing coals, a fine sirloin of beef.

The sole occupant of the kitchen, at the moment I looked in, was a woman, who, when I first set eyes on her, was engaged in basting the beef with the gravy which ran from it into the square pan set on a pedestal beneath its gyrations. Presently she turned round and, laying down her big spoon, began to arrange plates on the grid above the fire; I judged from that that she considered the sirloin to be nearly roasted. As she was the first living thing I had seen about the place, I took careful stock of her—an elderly woman, evidently a village wife, got in, I thought, to do general housework, and wearing peasant clothing. She was a bustling woman, too, and moved swiftly about, between her fire and the big table in the centre of the kitchen. It seemed as if there was plenty for her to do; she had pots and pans on the fire, and something that required frequent attention in the oven; there were plates, dishes, tureens warming; all together, she was in the throes that every cook-general is in ten minutes before dinner-time, and so busy that she had no time to notice the face peering at her through the window.

Suddenly the woman was no longer alone. A door opened; a man came striding in—the man I had seen on Ashner village green and at the Ashner Arms. It was clear that he had come to see how dinner was getting on. He made a critical inspection of the sirloin, ceaselessly twisting on the jack; he had a peep into the contents of a couple of saucepans set on the fire; he opened the door of the oven and looked inside at something cooking there; he inspected the plates, dishes, and other things set on the grid to heat. Then he addressed some remarks to the woman, and I found out then, by the way she looked at him and by the fact that she held a hand cup-fashion to her ear, that she was very deaf.

The man looked round, took down a candlestick from a shelf, lighted the candle in it, and, opening a door set in one corner of the kitchen, disappeared into a dark cavity behind. I concluded that this was a cellar—anyway, he reappeared in a few minutes carrying two bottles of wine. Blowing out the candle and restoring it to its shelf, he went away with his bottles by the door through which he had first entered the kitchen.

Evidently dinner was about to be served in that house, and in a few minutes; evidently, too, the man, whom I now firmly believed to be Twidale was not the only person who was going to sit down to it. By straining my eyes a little, I managed to count the plates which the woman had ranged on the grid above the fire. Five. So there were five persons in that strangely silent house? Where were they? What were they doing? And—most important of all—who were they? That Mrs. Vansidine and the companion she referred to in her letter—and whom I took, of course, to be Raikes—were in the house I hadn’t a doubt. But were they included in the five persons of the approaching dinner-party? If not, did it mean that Twidale was the head of a gang of five?

The woman gave signs of having arrived at that stage which cooks call dishing up the dinner, and I, somewhat strained by my reaching up to the windowsill, relaxed my grip and, letting myself down, began to creep back along the side of the house; I wanted now to get round to the front. Presently I came to where the fence divided the kitchen garden from the lawn. There was a break in it through which I had got before; I now got through it again. And I had not taken one step on the lawn beyond when the glare of an electric torch hit me full in the eyes, but did not blind me sufficiently to make me unaware that I was looking straight into the muzzle of a revolver.

This sort of thing happens at lightning speed, and within the fraction of another second I realized that it was not one but two revolvers that were covering me, and that behind them were two figures whose bulk seemed unusually large in the confusion of the electric torch which one held in his free hand. I scarcely know what I did, but I probably made some movement, for a stern voice rapped out a sharp order in a fashion which meant business:

I put my hands up. The electric torch played about me; my captors were taking a good look at their prisoner. I could make them out now; two hefty young fellows of the type one labels gentlemen, well dressed in clothes suitable for country life, well set up, good to look at from a physical point of view. But there was that in the expression of their clean-shaven, determined faces, especially in their eyes, that sent a cold shiver down my spine: I knew that if I made any attempt to escape, showed any sign of resistance, there would be two bullets through me.

“Keep your hands up! Now march—forward! Lower your hands, or try to run, and you’ll be shot dead there and then! Move, now!”

One of them put a hand on my elbow and urged me towards the house; the other kept at my side; his revolver pressed into me in a horribly suggestive fashion. We rounded a corner, passed two or three black windows, came to a door. The leading man opened it; the other pushed me inside. A dimly lighted hall—empty. Doors on either side—all closed. But I could smell the sirloin—and now it seemed ages since I had peered in at that kitchen window and watched the woman busied at her innocent labours!

My captors showed me along, unceremoniously, until one of them opened a door on the left-hand side of the hall and pushed me into a small room, a sort of parlour, in which there was a fire burning and where a lamp, lighted, but with the wick turned down, hung by chains from the ceiling. Marching me into the middle of the room with a further sharp word of command, the man who had kept his revolver within an inch of me since my capture transferred it from my shoulder-blades to my chest, while the other turned up the light. We all three stared at each other—and now that I saw them in a clearer vision, I liked my companions less than in the glintings of the electric torch. And if there was truculence in their faces, it was no less evident in their tones.

The two men were of about the same age—twenty-five or so. But one—the one who had done the talking so far—seemed to be in authority. He turned to the other, still keeping his revolver at my chest.

The second man, still keeping a grip on his weapon, ran his hand over my clothing, stood up, nodded. The first rapped out another order.

“Drop your hands! Now, turn out everything you have on you—everything! Lay the stuff out on that table. Sharp about it!”

That put me in a serious funk. I had Mrs. Vansidine’s letter on me! Fortunately, it was in a pocket all by itself—a hip-pocket. Perhaps I should be able to conceal it from them.

One by one I produced all the personal possessions I carried, laying them out on the table in the centre of the room. At a word from his superior the second man again kept me covered with his revolver; the first quietly glanced at each object as I laid it down. Now, I had taken the precaution before leaving the office to empty my pockets of all my papers; I did not have even my professional card on me. I had no document whatever in my keeping except Mrs. Vansidine’s letter and that, you may be sure, I left where it rested, in the hope that they wouldn’t find it; hence there was little for them to see but a watch and chain, a purse, some loose silver, a tobacco-pouch and a pipe, a cigarette-case, a pencil, and a pocket-knife. The elder of the two men watched me narrowly, but he made no sign of touching anything until I put down my watch; that he picked up and turned over and I knew he was looking for a possible monogram or inscription on the case. There was nothing, and he snapped out another order.

I pulled that out and dropped it on the table. He picked it up and examined each corner. As it happened, it was one of a new supply I had just bought, and had not yet been marked.

But he was not to be caught. A word more, and the second man’s right hand was pawing about my clothing again. A minute later he had found Mrs. Vansidine’s letter, still in the cheap, creased envelope, and had drawn it out and handed it over. The other gave one glance at the name and address, and turned on me a look which boded no good.

“You’re Camberwell—private inquiry agent?” he went on. “Out with it, now!”

He drew the letter out of the envelope and, turning it over, glanced at the signature. He must have had extraordinary command over his features, for there was not a sign of surprise nor a start of astonishment. Without a word more, he signed to his companion to follow him, and they left the room. I heard the key turned in the lock.

I realized now that I was not only trapped, but in as serious a situation as I well could be. I was absolutely at the mercy of these fellows, whoever they were; no one knew where I was; no one could make any attempt to release me. I could do nothing for myself. Yet as soon as I heard the key turned from outside, I went straight to the window to see if there was any chance of escape that way. There was none; outside the window, set closely enough to prevent anyone from getting through them, were half a dozen stout iron bars. I was caged—hopelessly!

I turned from the window to inspect the room. It was filled with old-fashioned furniture, solid, comfortable. There was a big, wide couch near the fire, a couple of easy chairs, a bookcase set against one wall, with a collection of old leather-bound volumes on its shelves, some old pictures, a writing-table in the window. And the fire in the open grate was a cheery one, and welcome after my recent experiences on the road and in the garden. But it was a prison, after all—and how was I going to get out of it?

Some ten minutes or so went by, and then the key was turned and the door pushed open. The younger of my two captors appeared, bearing a tray. His grim look was relaxed now; he even gave me a grin with some show of fellow-feeling in it.

“No wish that you should starve!” he remarked. “Hope you’ve some appetite? See you again presently.”

He set the tray down on the table, went out, and locked the door again. Resolved to make the best of a bad job, I looked at my dinner. Certainly there was no intention that I should go hungry—there were beef and vegetables there in sufficient quantity to satisfy a ploughman’s appetite. And the beef was of prime quality and well cooked, and on the tray was a bottle—the cork drawn—of good red wine.

I ate and drank—and wondered what was going to befall me. That I was in the hands of a determined and unscrupulous gang there was no doubt. But was I the only prisoner in the house? Was Mrs. Vansidine there? Was Raikes there? If they were there, how was it that these men had not already put sufficient pressure on Mrs. Vansidine to make her give up the diamonds if she had them, or divulge their whereabouts if she had placed them in safe custody? However, it was of no use to wonder or to speculate—I could only await further developments.

The man who had brought in the tray came back after a time, bringing some excellent apple pie and some ripe Stilton cheese. His manner was as friendly as before, and I remembered my manners and thanked him.

“Don’t mention it!” he said, with a grin. “No shortage of prog in this spot. Nor of liquor, either—don’t spare the bottle.”

But he locked me in again. And for a long time after I had finished my dinner, I was left alone. I lighted my pipe and pulled an easy chair to the fire. There were books, plenty of them, in the bookcase, and there were magazines and papers lying about, but I was in no humour for reading. I wanted something to happen—sitting there, doing nothing, wondering what would happen, was intolerable. And the strain of it was rendered all the more trying by the intense silence. For a good two hours after the last grating of the key in the lock I never heard a sound from outside that room. That is, in the house itself—every now and then I heard some motor vehicle go past on the road outside; if it had not been for that, I might have been buried fifty feet deep in earth.

At last, with a suddenness that made me jump in my seat, the key turned again. The door was opened wide and the two men I had first seen entered. One remained standing by the door; the other—the elder of the two, and still grim of aspect—walked into the room, motioning to me.

“You will come this way,” he said, turning his finger towards the open doorway. “And you will bear in mind that you are entirely in our power and have no chance of escape. Follow him!”

The younger man walked out into the hall; I followed; the elder came on my heels. We marched in this order down the hall, past two or three closed doors; then the leader threw another door wide open and motioned me to precede him. I stepped into a big room, well lighted; evidently it was the dining-room of the house, for there was a smell of roast beef and vegetables still hanging about it. As for the rest of it, it was a spacious, gloomy apartment, panelled to a height of three quarters of the walls, and with dusky-hued old oil paintings, most of them portraits, above the panelling; the light came from a swinging lamp set above a big centre table and from a roaring fire of logs in the recessed hearth. And at the farther end of the table, leaning back in an elbow chair, his hands thrust carelessly in his pockets, and a cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth, sat the man whom I had last seen in the kitchen and whom I believed to be Twidale.

Closing the door behind them, and pointing me to a chair at the foot of the table, the two men who had brought me in took chairs themselves, between me and the door. There was a brief silence, during which the man at the head of the table and I looked each other well over. Then he spoke, smiling a little.

“Mr. Camberwell, I believe, of Camberwell and Chaney?” he said in a not unpleasant tone of voice. “Am I right?”

Now, during the brief march between the two rooms I had made up my mind as to what I was going to do. I was entirely at the mercy of three men. Instinct told me that my life was not worth one minute’s purchase. And so I had determined to be absolutely frank and candid, and I made no hesitation in replying promptly to the man’s question.

“Thank you,” he said, still smiling. “We may as well tell the truth to each other. Well, Mr. Camberwell, I needn’t ask you why you were found just now prowling about my private grounds. This letter explains your presence.”

He held up Mrs. Vansidine’s letter and its crumpled envelope. I made no reply and he went on.

“The postmark on this envelope is pretty well obliterated,” he remarked. “So—when did you receive this letter?”

“And you thought you recognized Mrs. Vansidine’s description of this house and its surroundings?”

“I believed I did. I saw it last summer when I was playing cricket in this neighbourhood.”

“No doubt, because you and your partner, and the police, and the press, have been doing your and their best to find Mrs. Vansidine ever since she walked out of the Asclepia Club!” he answered, with a cynical laugh. “But now, Mr. Camberwell, give me a truthful reply to a question which concerns both your safety and my own. Does your partner, Mr. Chaney, know you came down here?”

I hesitated for a second. Then I determined to stick to the line I had first resolved on, for I felt sure no other would do.

“So you’ve walked straight into the wolves’ lair without a chance of being rescued from outside, eh?” he said, smiling.

He made no reply to that beyond a nod, and for a moment he sat staring at the letter, which lay spread out on the table in front of him. Suddenly he looked up and gave me a questioning glance.

“Mrs. Vansidine suggests, at the end of this letter, that somebody besides herself is in danger,” he said. “Whom did you think she referred to, Mr. Camberwell? Any particular person?”

“Who disappeared about the same time that she did, then,” I said. “Our information led us to believe that they disappeared together.”

“It is difficult to account for or explain disappearances,” he remarked. “There are other disappearances afoot just now than Mrs. Vansidine’s and young Raikes’s.”

“I think so,” I replied. “I never saw you before today, as far as I can remember, but I believe you to be a member of the Asclepia Club named Twidale. You were fully described to me recently.”

“Easy to describe, no doubt,” he said, carelessly. “Do you know either of these young gentlemen?”

“Very good! Now, Mr. Camberwell, let’s get to business. You—and the police—are very anxious to get hold of Mrs. Vansidine, aren’t you? Why?”

“Because—surely the answer is obvious!—we believe that Mrs. Vansidine either has the Ellingshurst diamonds in her possession or knows where they are. But—”

“But you’ve got Mrs. Vansidine!” I went on. “Therefore you’re in a position to know all that we, so far, have not succeeded in getting to know.”

He gave me a glance which showed that he saw a certain amount of humour in the situation, and he laughed a little.

“Ay, well, Mr. Camberwell,” he said, “I dare say; but as we’ve begun by being frank and truthful with each other, we may as well continue in that estimable line of conduct, so I’ll say at once that we do not know—any more than you do!”

He gave the table a thump as he spoke the last words, and with yet another thump he repeated them, slowly.

I looked at him in surprise. As far as I could reckon things up, Mrs. Vansidine had been in his power for some days.

“We have not—call it persuaded—her to tell anything at all,” he answered.

“We are sure she could if we could make her!” he exclaimed. “Oh, yes—Mrs. Vansidine, Mr. Camberwell, knows the whole secret. But now that we’ve had this talk, you and I, let us come to business. As you may have guessed, Mrs. Vansidine is in this house. I want you to see her, to talk to her—”

“Any you like,” he replied. “Tell her, anyway, that her game is up. We know that she knows where those diamonds are. Now we mean to have them! We have given her time to reflect, but now we’re going to trifle with her no longer. Will you see her?”

“I will see her whenever you like,” I answered. “But—not as your ambassador! I must have a free hand.”

“Go and see her,” he said. “Talk as freely as you like. You’re both in our hands.”

I had only just got outside the room when a sudden thought struck me, and with a word to my escort I turned back. Twidale sat where I had left him; he had just taken a fresh cigar from the box in front of him and was in the act of lighting it. He interrupted the act to look up and give me a sharp inquiry.

“I have been frank with you,” I said; “may I ask you for a plain answer to a plain question? I take it that you believe that Mrs. Vansidine either has the Ellingshurst diamonds—”

“Not on her!” he said, cynically. “You may be sure we’d have known that!”

“You know what I mean,” I continued. “Either has them somewhere, at her disposal, or can give information which will get them in your possession. Will you tell me—as you are making use of me—what you propose to do with them?”

“You may take it, Mr. Camberwell, that we shall know what to do with them when we get them—as get them we shall!” he replied. “I might point out, incidentally, that there is a reward offered of five thousand pounds.”

“Five thousand pounds is not a great sum, divided amongst three people,” I observed, pointedly.

“The five thousand may be increased to ten thousand,” he remarked coolly. “These diamonds are family heirlooms.”

“You intend, then, if I can persuade Mrs. Vansidine to say where the diamonds are or to tell what she knows of them, to apply for the reward, whatever it may be?” I asked. “So that is what I am to understand?”

“What you are to understand, Mr. Camberwell, is that, having put your foot into the den of thieves (if you like to call us so), the thieves are making use of you and your knowledge of this case and of your powers of persuasion,” he said. “Your job is to see this lady, who up to now has shown more than her share of feminine stupidity and obstinacy, and to advise her to—well, to put it into one word, to split! If she won’t—”

He rose from the table, crossed over to the hearth, and, standing with his back to the fire, gave me a steady look.

“Then—we’ll make her!” he replied quietly. “It won’t be pleasant. Now go see her.”

The two—let us call them accomplices—had followed me into the room and had remained standing behind me during this conversation; they now turned and, marching me out into the hall, led me towards a staircase at the extreme end. We went up two flights of stairs and along a corridor; suddenly the leader stopped and pointed to a door, indicating that I should knock. A faint reply coming from within, he produced a bunch of keys and, fitting one to the lock, turned it. I opened the door and walked in, to confront a large screen which shut off most of the room; before I had rounded this, the door was locked behind me.

I walked round the screen into a big, roomy apartment, fitted up as a bed-sitting-room. There was a fire burning on the hearth, and by it sat Mrs. Vansidine—an incongruous figure, for she was still wearing the evening finery in which she had walked out of the Asclepia Club that evening of her disappearance, and while it looked none the better for several days’ continual use, it was made still more unsuited to its wearer’s present surroundings by the addition of what was obviously a blanket, taken from the bed, and worn shawl-wise, round Mrs. Vansidine’s shapely shoulders. All together, Mrs. Vansidine presented a very different appearance from her usual one, and though I believed her to be an adventuress, probably a thief, and possibly a murderess, I felt very sorry for her.

She sprang to her feet with something like a scream as she recognized me. I put my finger to my lips and gave a warning glance at screen and door, and she understood and sank back in her chair again.

“If you must know, Mrs. Vansidine,” I replied, “at the point of a pistol—or, to be correct, two pistols. Revolvers!”

“Nobody knows I am here, Mrs. Vansidine,” I said, “except you—and the men outside this room and the man downstairs. No one!”

She stared at me with eyes gradually widening from an expression of surprise to one of horror and began to rock herself slowly in her seat and to moan.

“Oh, why, why didn’t you take some precaution?” she said. “We shall be murdered—that will be the end of it! They—they’ll stick at nothing. Why didn’t you bring help, bring the police, and break in?”

“I wanted to look round first, to be sure of my ground,” I answered. “Then I should have made my plans. But—I was caught unawares!”

“And—no one knows; no one?” she went on, her eyes growing wider. “No one at all?”

“Oh!” she cried, “what shall I do—what shall I do? Why, why weren’t you more careful? Why didn’t you—”

“Mrs. Vansidine,” I interrupted sternly, “it’s not a scrap of good asking me why I did this and didn’t do that. What’s done, is done—the thing to do now is to be sensible and consider what can be done! Now, pull yourself together and just answer a few questions. Who is the man downstairs, the dark, tall man?”

“Twidale,” she answered. “Twidale! I wish to Heaven I’d never known him—”

“Never mind that now,” I said. “He’s a member of your club, isn’t he? Yes—very well; who are the other two men, the young ones?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know at all,” she replied. “I never saw them before that night—the night we were kidnapped. Twidale said they were friends of his—he mentioned some names—I’ve forgotten.”

“Mr. Raikes—Bertie Raikes. He—he’s here now, I suppose. I’ve never seen him since we were brought here. Bertie Raikes and I had been driving together. Then we went to the club, the Asclepia. We left there together—I forget what time it was—after eleven o’clock, at any rate. We hadn’t got far from the club—I forget which street it was in—when we met Twidale and those two boys. They were all in evening clothes, and they’d got a big touring car—one of the boys was at the wheel; the other was on the pavement talking to Twidale. Twidale saw us and called us over and asked us to come along somewhere in the car for something—I forget what it was. We got in the car; Bertie and I had the back seat; Twidale and the other boy sat opposite. We went off, and I never noticed for some time that we seemed to be going a long way—we were all laughing and talking. Then Bertie Raikes suddenly wanted to know where we were off to—we seemed to be outside the town. And then it came out!”

“Twidale told us so—in so many words. That he knew I either had the Ellingshurst diamonds or knew where they then were. That he was going to have them, by hook or crook, and that he’d hold me and Bertie Raikes till he got them. That we hadn’t a cat’s chance, and that everything had been planned so perfectly that all the police in Europe couldn’t find us.”

“What could we say—with a couple of men holding revolvers in front of us? We had to go. And—here we are. And now there you are, and we’re worse off than ever! Oh, why didn’t you—”

“Stop that!” I said, firmly. “That’s no good now! Tell me—how did you get that letter off—the letter to me?”

“That window is barred,” she said, “but the sashes open. I began to watch through it. I found out that a boy came round the side of the house every day at the same time, with bread. I tore a leaf out of one of those old books and found a dirty envelope in a drawer. Then, when I’d written the letter, I watched for the boy and took the risk of calling to him. I dropped the letter down with some money—two half-crowns—and asked him to post it. And you got it, and you should have—”

“Once for all, Mrs. Vansidine, stop that talk about what I should have done! We’re in the power of this man Twidale and his gang, and we must be practical if we want to escape with our skins left intact. Now you must answer my questions, fully and truthfully. Let’s go straight to the point! Where are those diamonds?”

Considering the situation she was in, I was astonished at the change that came over her expression. Obstinacy?—that is a poor word with which to describe the look she gave me. Faced with a plain question, she became a different woman.

“They’ve asked you to ask that,” she muttered. “I won’t be bullied by anyone. This can’t go on—we shall be released—”

“Mrs. Vansidine,” I said, “you’ve told me already that we’re not safe. In my own opinion, these fellows will stick at nothing. You’ve hinted at murder—”

“What good would that do?” she retorted. “That wouldn’t give them the diamonds.”

“You know where the diamonds are?” I said. “I feel sure you do. Tell me—and let me use my discretion. There is a reward offered. It may be that these fellows want to get it. Tell me in confidence what you know. Come, now!”

“It’s impossible they should keep us here for ever,” she answered, sullenly. “Impossible!”

I made no answer to that; I had already realized that I was dealing with a sullen and obstinate woman who would not listen to reason and who was not likely to yield to anything but brute force. Presently she spoke again.

“It’s impossible!” she repeated. “Twidale can’t keep it up for ever. He’s no money—I know that. I’d wager anything he’s getting his supplies here on tick, and he’ll never pay for them. This—keeping me and Raikes here—is bound to come to an end. Twidale and those other fellows will be hounded out.”

“Mrs. Vansidine,” I said, “that may be—but a lot of things can happen before that—happen to you and Raikes and possibly to me. And you’re in a very dangerous position, in any case. There’s not only the theft of the diamonds, but the murder of Effie Boach! Now, just reflect a moment—”

She stared at me as if trying to get my thoughts. I let her stare, giving her back look for look.

“I know nothing about the murder of Effie Boach,” she said after a while. “Oh, why can’t you do something to get me out of this? I got that letter to you away—why can’t you write to somebody, that partner of yours, the police, anybody—”

“I could try the same means,” she answered. “The baker’s boy. He comes underneath this window every morning.”

I thought matters over, quickly. Chaney was too far off, in the very north of England; even Jalvane and Scotland Yard seemed remote from that room. But Wrenchester and the Superintendent of Police were close at hand . . .

“Quick, then,” I said. “Get me paper and an envelope and I’ll write now. Those fellows are outside the door; I don’t know how long they’ll give us.”

She rose from her chair at once and, going over to a side-table on which some bound volumes of illustrated papers were lying, tore out a fly-leaf from one of them. Opening a drawer in the table, she produced an old dirty envelope and handed it to me with the paper.

“That’s the only envelope there is,” she muttered. “There were two—I used the other for your letter. Whom will you write to?”

I never had the chance to write to anyone. There was a tap at the door, and I had only just time to secrete paper and envelope beneath the cushion of the chair in which I had been sitting before the key turned, the door opened, and our two jailers showed themselves. The elder beckoned to me.

I marched out and was duly marched downstairs and into the dining-room again. Twidale sat at the table in the position in which I had first seen him, a cigar between his teeth. He took it out, blew away a cloud of smoke, and spoke.

“I am of no use as your ambassador,” I replied. “Mrs. Vansidine will not tell me anything.”

He set his cigar in his mouth again and for a minute or two continued to puff at it.

“It was certainly in your interest to get her to speak,” he said at last. “We’ve nothing against you, Mr. Camberwell, and we don’t want to detain you any longer than is necessary for our own safety. However, a question—do you think she has the diamonds? You can take that to mean has she got them put away somewhere or does she know where they are to be found.”

“I feel sure she knows where the diamonds are,” I replied. “Whether she can set her hands on them I don’t know.”

He meditated a moment or two; then he nodded to the elder of the two younger men.

“I’m obliged to appear drastic in my methods, Mr. Camberwell,” he said. “This is nothing more or less than war. So be good enough to go and stand over there and remain there. It will be at your own peril if you interfere in—whatever you may hear or see. After all, this is not your affair, so be good to yourself, do as you’re told—and keep a whole skin.”

As he spoke, his hand went down to the patch pocket of the Norfolk jacket he was wearing; when it came up again, it was grasping a service revolver, which he laid on the table before him. And there it lay, a prominent object, when Mrs. Vansidine was shown into the room.

Mrs. Vansidine had discarded the blanket and had thrown a scarf round her shoulders. Her face was drawn and haggard, and her eyes wide with apprehension, and when she confronted Twidale and the revolver and, turning, saw that the other two men had their revolvers in their hands, the colour left her face, and her lips paled. She made a half-movement towards me.

“Stand where you are!” said Twidale. “There! Now listen to me, Mrs. Vansidine, I’m going to give you another chance. Will you tell us where the Ellingshurst diamonds are?”

Mrs. Vansidine seemed to gasp for breath; for a second I thought she was going to faint. But I was all wrong. The colour suddenly came back to her face in a flood of crimson; her eyes blazed; she clenched her fists.

“No!” she muttered scornfully. “No! Because you can’t make me, Twidale, you damned scoundrel! You daren’t shoot me, for all your show of revolvers, and if you did, you’d be no better off. And you can’t keep this up—you’ll have the police here, and this house raided—”

Twidale raised his hand with a look which brought Mrs. Vansidine’s flood of eloquence to a sudden stop—she shrank back, and the crimson flush faded as quickly as it had come, and left her with white cheeks. Twidale looked at his two accomplices.

The two men marched out. Mrs. Vansidine stood, her hands supporting her on the edge of the long table, her eyes fixed on Twidale. And Twidale sat drumming his fingers on his edge of the table, looking at her, a smile on his lips which boded no good. As for me, my heart was beginning to beat like a sledgehammer on an anvil, for I foresaw murder.

The half-open door was shoved open again, and the two armed men entered, with a third man between them. I knew who he was, of course—Raikes. And I wished I had had a revolver in each hand, and another that I could have shoved into his! But his hands were pinioned behind him, and the two accomplices held him by the elbow in a firm grip. If Mrs. Vansidine in her evening finery had looked a forlorn object, Raikes in his present aspect looked still more forlorn. He was without coat or waistcoat; his dress shirt was crumpled and stained; his trousers the worse for several days’ continuous wearing; he had neither collar nor tie; and there was a growth of stubble on his cheeks and his chin which made him anything but presentable. Otherwise he was a good-looking, well-set-up young Englishman, a bit weak, perhaps, about mouth and chin, the sort that would easily be taken in by a clever, designing woman; and he stared round from one to another of us with the wondering inquiry of a schoolboy faced with some strange situation.

“Put him there!” said Twidale, pointing to the left side of the table. “Keep your grip on him.” He turned to Mrs. Vansidine. “Now, Mrs. Vansidine,” he said, quietly, “you see this lad. He’s your lover. Unless you tell me where the Ellingshurst diamonds are, at once, I shall shoot him dead where he stands! I give you exactly three minutes!”

As he spoke, Twidale drew out his watch, detached it from his waistcoat, and laid it on the table. There was a clock behind where I stood; I heard its loud tick . . . and I began to count the seconds. And underneath this sound I heard Mrs. Vansidine breathing and Raikes breathing. . . .

He picked up the revolver and bent over it. And then Raikes’s voice burst out.

Careless of Twidale’s admonition, I suddenly dashed forward, seeing what was going to happen. Mrs. Vansidine was beginning to sway. With a sharp catching of her breath, followed by muttered words of what I knew to be a surrender, she caught at the air and collapsed bodily across the table.

At a sign from Twidale, his two henchmen had Raikes out of the room at once; when they had gone, he and I set to work to bring Mrs. Vansidine round. She was hysterical when she came out of the dead faint into which she had fallen, and I myself was still trembling all over with the horror of the situation through which we had just passed. For I had never doubted for a second that Twidale would have carried out his threat if Mrs. Vansidine had not given way, and to see a man murdered in cold blood before one’s eyes, knowing oneself utterly powerless to help, was an experience which I had no wish to go through—and had only just escaped.

But Twidale’s mood had now changed—he showed the disturbed and frightened woman every consideration and somehow contrived to calm her down. She became quiet at last and sat quivering a little, but otherwise herself again, in the chair in which we had placed her, staring intently at Twidale. And he, in his turn, kept his eyes on hers—I began to have a queer, uncanny feeling that somehow or other he was exercising some sort of hypnotic influence over her.

“You’ll feel all the better for that, Mrs. Vansidine,” he said—it seemed to me that he spoke quite seriously and without any ironic meaning—“all the better, I say, for escaping a catastrophe. We couldn’t have gone on as we were doing, you know—things had got to come to a crisis. Now the crisis is over, so we’ll be practical. Answer my questions. Are those diamonds in your possession—I don’t mean here, because I know they aren’t—but in London, at your flat, or your bank, or elsewhere? Say, now!”

“They are hidden in a certain place in the woods above Ellingshurst Park,” she replied. “Buried!”

“Take Mrs. Vansidine back to her apartment,” he said. “Now, Mrs. Vansidine, listen to me. Prepare yourself for a journey. You’re going to show us, yourself, where those diamonds are hidden. Be ready in half an hour.”

Mrs. Vansidine followed her jailers without a word; all the fight appeared to have gone out of her. Twidale turned to me.

“You are not surprised to know—what she’s just told us, Camberwell?” he said, addressing me more familiarly.

“Well,” he continued, “those diamonds will be in my hands before morning. What’s the time?” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Half past ten. You are pretty well acquainted with these southern counties, I suppose? And you know where we are, here? Very well, how far do you make it, across country, from this spot to Ellingshurst?”

“You came here in your own car,” he went on. “I saw it outside the Ashner Arms. Where is it?”

I hesitated. Despite his advantage and his show of armed force I was beginning to feel restive.

“I’m expecting you to answer it, and you will answer it,” he replied. “You are in my power. And you have just seen that I stick at nothing.”

“Good!” he said. “We’ll commandeer it: there’s a touring car of our own in the garage at the back, but I’ve no wish that it should be seen, even by night. You’ll fetch your car down here—under escort. And for your own safety, Camberwell, don’t attempt any tricks, for at the least sign of one, you’ll have a bullet through your heart or brain—whichever your escort prefers to aim at.”

The other men had re-entered the room in time to hear the last half of the conversation, and Twidale turned to them.

“Take Mr. Camberwell up to the place where his car lies hidden,” he said. “He’ll bring it down here under your supervision. If he attempts to run off, either on his own legs or in his car, you know what to do, and you’ll do it instantly. But I think Mr. Camberwell, as a sensible man who appreciates a situation, will not do anything that he ought not to do.”

He gave me a glance, half-smiling, as he spoke, and I made no response to it. I was glad to be able to get out of that house, even as a prisoner in charge of two potential murderers. And there was always the chance that something unforeseen might happen: Fate might throw something in my way; the luck might suddenly turn. The prospect was not pleasant, to be sure: nobody would care to drive a car a hundred miles with a revolver threatening him from the side, and another from the back. But—something might happen, and anyway it was better to be out in the open than within the four walls of that old house.

My escort marched me out between them, out of the house, through the garden and grounds. One of them set open the gate; while he was doing this, the other made careless but meaningful play with his revolver. In silence we walked up the hill between the woods and round the corner to where I had left the car. Under the close and unpleasant surveillance of the two desperadoes I got it out, ran it on to the stretch of down, turned it, and went down the hill again, eventually pulling it up at the door of the house. And once more I was marched inside.

Twidale was in the room in which I had always seen him. Mrs. Vansidine was there too, still watching him as if fascinated. He had been busy during our absence. A basket of provisions stood on the table; rugs were laid out; he had even gone to the length of providing a stone hot-water bottle for the comfort of my lady passenger. Everything, in fact, was ready for a start—not forgetting a large garden-trowel, the purpose of which I guessed at. But when we were assembled at the door, in front of the car, Twidale’s last words were not addressed to Mrs. Vansidine, nor to me, but to his two lieutenants.

“Now, listen!” he said. “Mr. Camberwell will drive to Ellingshurst; one of you will sit by his side in front. Mrs. Vansidine will sit behind; the other one of you will sit by her. At the slightest attempt on the part of either to attract attention, or to escape, or to do anything that ought not to be done, and especially on the return journey, you know what to do, and you will not hesitate for one second to do it. Now—go!”

This was the first time in my life in which I had felt the absolute necessity of not merely yielding to armed force, but implicitly obeying the lightest word emanating from it. I hadn’t the ghost of a doubt about the intentions of the bloodthirsty young scoundrels to whose charge Mrs. Vansidine and I had been committed. We were safe enough, perhaps, until the Ellingshurst diamonds had been dug up from their temporary grave, but if we made any attempt to escape or to play any tricks after that, a speedy death would be the result—of that I was certain. It may be thought that, once the diamonds were unearthed and, virtually, at the command of these two, they would be indifferent to where we went or what became of us. But I knew better than that. Their grip on Mrs. Vansidine and me would not be relaxed in the slightest degree until we and the diamonds were safely lodged in Twidale’s hands again, and there would be no release for either of us until Twidale and his two confederates had arranged their own safety.

So I drove out of the grounds and up the hill and on to the wide expanse of downs at the top. The autumn night was chilly; overhead there was a fairly cloudless sky and the stars shone with a brightness that made one suspect frost. But there were banks of mist hanging about the heather-clad downs and amongst the plantations of pine and fir, and when we passed the edge of the downs and began to dip into the hollows beyond, we ran into masses of white fog. So the journey continued—it was an up-and-down course of fifty-odd miles that we had before us; a run over some of the most undulating country in the south of England. Sometimes we were deep down in hollows and valleys; sometimes we were high up on hill-tops or on wide-stretching moors. There was of course very little traffic on the roads at that hour of the night, and most of our route lay over by-roads rather than on a main highway; consequently I was able to keep up an average speed of thirty miles an hour. This, I calculated, would bring us to Ellingshurst at somewhere between half past twelve and one o’clock, and if Mrs. Vansidine could go straight to the place where she had secreted the diamonds, get them at once, and let us get off again, we should be back under Twidale’s roof before four. What was to happen after that was a question not worth considering just then—I was a mere automaton, controlled by overwhelming force as represented by a couple of revolvers. True, I had some wild dreams of possible escape. We might run into a police trap, or arouse suspicion in the breast of some country constable, or excite interest in some night patrol—personally, I should have been uncommonly glad to be stopped by the police. But such intervention was not likely and, as a matter of fact, was never in view, and as Ellingshurst Church clock struck the half-hour after midnight, we came to the outskirts of the village, and I began to pull up.

Our escorts and ourselves had not exchanged a word during this run of over fifty miles, except that the man sitting by me, revolver always in hand, had uttered a warning growl now and then as we passed, say, a village police station or a rural constable going his rounds in the dark lanes. But now it was necessary to talk.

“This is Ellingshurst,” I said, bringing the car to a halt. “You can see the church and houses of the village in front; these woods to our left are on the edge of the park. Now I want to know where to go. It will not do to drive the car into the village. Am I allowed to question Mrs. Vansidine?”

“Whereabouts is the particular place you want, Mrs. Vansidine?” I asked, turning to the back seat. “And, more important still, how near can I get to it with the car?”

“If you turn up the first lane on the left,” she replied, “and pull the car up when you come to a gate which admits to the woods, we shall be near the place I want. It’s lonely about there, too—no keepers’ cottages or anything.”

I started the car again, went on a little way, came to the lane, and turned up it. After covering half a mile in the shelter of the woods, we came to a gate.

I pulled up and sat awaiting orders. The elder of the two men assumed command. And I was disappointed to find that I was not to have my curiosity gratified as regarded the exact hiding-place of the stolen diamonds. Our chief escort had other ideas.

“Now, Mrs. Vansidine,” he said, “you will go straight to the place in which you have hidden this stuff, and you will get it and bring it here. My friend will go with you, to help—and to keep an eye on you. Don’t give him any trouble!”

Mrs. Vansidine and her escort left the car and entered the wood. My jailer, while keeping an eye on me, contrived to turn the other on our surroundings.

“You’ll have some little difficulty in turning your car here,” he remarked. “Better get to work on it while they’re away—I don’t want to be hanging about here longer than’s necessary. Get at it!”

I managed to turn the car, and we sat waiting. Within a quarter of an hour Mrs. Vansidine and her companion came back and climbed into their seats.

I drove off; in a few minutes we were clear of Ellingshurst. But it was not until we had gone some miles farther that our guardians allowed us to eat and drink from the basket which Twidale had placed in the car. And there I had the unique experience of seeing a man offer me a sandwich with one hand while he held a revolver in the other.

The night had become darker, more overclouded, since we set out, and in the valleys and hollows the fog had grown much denser; now and then, when we were down in some very low-lying spot, the front lights of the car showed literally nothing of the road in front. About half an hour after leaving Ellingshurst we came to the foot of an unusually steep hill: I remembered it from our inward journey not merely as being steep, but as having two hairpin bends, both difficult to negotiate either going up or coming down. I had to guess at the exact whereabouts of the first, which was nearly at the foot of the hill. But the guess was only half-formed when, with lightning-like suddenness, a great lumbering motor vehicle, driven on the wrong side of the road, flashed round the corner and swept into us with all the force and weight of an avalanche.

I have no recollection, and never have had, of what happened in that next moment, except that I was conscious of a terrific impact, of a flash of light, of being, as it were, caught up by a giant hand and violently whirled round and round, and then of a swift sinking into a chasm of utter blackness. What had happened, as I found out afterwards, was that a big motor-drawn furniture-van, carelessly driven through the fog, had swooped down on us across the road and pushed us on to the bank as a feather is flung by a sudden gust of wind. As is usual in these affairs, the whole thing had been over in a second.

There were men around me when I regained consciousness. I heard them talking—at first as if they were a long way off and speaking in whispers. Then I made certain words out, more clearly.

Suddenly I seemed to be myself again, and I struggled to a sitting posture and stared about me. There were several men there—a policeman, recognized by his uniform; a man in a velveteen coat, with a gun in the crook of his arm—I set him down as a gamekeeper; it was extraordinary how sharply observant my nerves seemed to have become—a man in a driver’s waterproof coat—whom I at once cursed inwardly as being the driver of the van—and others. I looked about me, here, there.

“But I do mind the rest!” I exclaimed impatiently, and with another effort to sit up. “I want to know. The others? Three others?”

I had lifted myself to a sitting posture by that time and was looking round. The fog wrapped everything, but several of the men carried lanterns, and the driver of the van had brought up one of his lamps. And suddenly, close by me, I saw a recumbent figure stretched on the roadside and very still. Somebody had laid a rug over the face and the upper part of the body. I pointed to it.

He pointed in another direction where lay a second figure, over which two men—one of them also a doctor—were bending. “Badly injured, that one,” he continued. “Not much chance for him, I’m afraid—we’ll get him off to the nearest hospital as soon as we can—we’ve sent for an ambulance. You’ve had a miraculous escape. No, you mustn’t try to stand yet—keep where you are and be quiet.”

But I seized his arm and pulled myself erect. And once on my legs, I shook his arm off and staggered a step or two.

There was a good ring of light round us, and in it I saw the men turn one to the other, staring wonderingly.

“There’s no woman here,” said the policeman. “We’ve never seen any woman. I was on the spot within a few minutes and I never saw—”

“There were four of us in the car!” I exclaimed. “Three men and a woman—a lady. Where is she? Who was on the spot first?”

The men looked at each other questioningly. None of them admitted to having been at the scene of the accident first. But I fastened on the man whom I took to be the driver of the big van.

“You must have been here first,” I said. “You and your mate! Properly too, for the accident was your fault.” I turned to the policeman. “He was on the wrong side of the road,” I went on. “You can see that for yourself—look at the wheel marks! And as there was nobody about but him and the man with him, he must have been here first.”

“We were going pretty fast downhill and it was some way before he could pull up,” he said. “We came back as quick as we could. There was no woman here when we came. Nothing but—what you see. Never saw any sign of a woman.”

“Help me across to those two men,” I said. “I must see them. If you won’t,” I went on, seeing him hesitate, “I’ll get on my knees and crawl there! It’s—you don’t know how important it is. Just help me to look them over.”

He gave in then and not only offered me his help on one side, but made the gamekeeper support me on the other. With their aid I tottered across to where the dead man lay. Somebody lifted the rug; I looked at his dead face. He was the elder one; the one who had kept guard over me, always keeping his revolver in his hand, ready. There was no revolver there now, and the hand would never be lifted again; as to where the revolver had got to I did not bother. And it was the other man I was most anxious about; the man who had kept his eye on Mrs. Vansidine and had gone with her to disinter the diamonds and, when they had disinterred them, had placed the package in his own pocket. They led me across to where he lay—and as we got close up, the doctor, bending over him, suddenly rose from his knees and, looking at his colleague, shook his head.

We went closer and stared at the second dead man. He looked very young, and he had been decent to me when he brought me my dinner, and polite to Mrs. Vansidine while he had her in charge, and I was sorry for him. But that was no time for pity or for sentiment.

“Feel in his pockets,” I said. “The left-hand outer pocket of his overcoat. There should be a package there, wrapped in oiled silk.”

“There’s nothing,” replied a man who still knelt by the dead body. “Nothing at all! Nor in the other pocket.”

Then, of course, I knew what had happened. By some good chance, little less than miracle, Mrs. Vansidine had escaped serious injury and, seeing the state in which her three companions lay, had possessed herself of the diamonds and vanished into the fog!

“Where are we?” I asked. “Where’s the nearest town—nearest telephone?”

Before he could answer, a car came dashing up the hill—an Inspector of Police and a Sergeant jumped out. I pulled the doctor across to them and, having introduced myself, hurriedly explained the situation as clearly as I could. The Inspector was quick to realize and understand. For we were still in the county of Kent, and the Ellingshurst affair was still the main topic of interest throughout its length and breadth.

“You’re the Mr. Camberwell that was engaged—” he began. “And—and this is the Mrs. Vansidine that has been advertised for as missing? And you think, Mr. Camberwell, that she has the Ellingshurst diamonds on her?”

“I’m sure of it,” I answered. “And she can’t be far away. She’ll not know where to go in this fog. She’ll hide and then try to get away. Do something!”

“We will, so,” he answered. “But you?—what’re you going to do with him, doctor? Is he badly hurt?”

“Shock,” replied the doctor, laconically. “I’ll take you home in my car, Mr. Camberwell, and put you to bed—leave everything else to the Inspector. Come along, now.”

I let myself be persuaded; truth to tell, now that I knew what had taken place, I felt myself done for, for a while at any rate. But before yielding myself up to medical care, I gave the Inspector Chaney’s present address and his permanent one and begged him also to phone to Scotland Yard and send Jalvane along.

Jalvane, snuff-box in hand, was sitting by my bedside when, hours later in that day, I woke and looked about me in a strange bedroom. I stared at Jalvane; he gave me a nod of reassurance.

“Good sleep?” he said in his laconic fashion. “Excellent thing! Lucky, you are. No bones broken—no inside damage—good shaking. All right again presently.”

“I’m all right now,” I retorted, and started up in bed, only to be suddenly made aware that every bone in my body felt as if it had been beaten to pulp. “At least—”

“You keep still,” he said, “till further orders. No need to get up yet awhile. No hurry—everything’s going on all right.”

“But what is going on?” I demanded. “Has anything been heard of her? Jalvane, she’s got the diamonds on her!”

“I know—I know,” he answered. “They’ve told me, here at the police station, all that you told them. And we’ve set everything to work. Search in London—strict watch at the ports, Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, so on—hue and cry everywhere. She can’t get far—impossible.”

“I don’t think she can,” I agreed. “She’s still in the evening clothes in which she left town, days ago. But—what time is it?”

“Then she’s had a good fourteen hours’ start!” I said. “Another question, Jalvane—where are we? I know where the smash occurred; at least, whereabouts we were on the road. But what place is this? I see a church tower through that window, and a lot of roofs and chimneys about it. Is it a town or what?”

“Biggish village—name of Tanderhurst,” replied Jalvane. “Two miles from where you smashed up.”

“I expect we’re within this,” he remarked. “Fifty-mile radius of Charing Cross. Here we are, Tanderhurst, Kent. Nearest town, Tunbridge Wells, six or seven miles away. Why?”

“I’m wondering where she’d made for?” I replied. “She’d probably go where she could get clothes. She couldn’t go wandering about the country in what she had on—at least she couldn’t without attracting a lot of notice. She’d nothing but a dinner dress on, and over it a man’s ulster, lent her by Twidale. And a woollen wrap sort of scarf, also lent by him, round her head and shoulders. If she meant—as she would—to get clear away, she’d have to procure proper things.”

“I want to hear all about Twidale and where you found her,” said Jalvane. “Tell!”

I told, concluding by reminding him that I’d described the house on Blackacre Down and its situation to the Inspector of Police who had come to the scene of our accident. Jalvane nodded.

“The Inspector phoned to the Superintendent at Wrenchester at five o’clock this morning,” replied Jalvane. “He gave him the tip to go out to the house at Blackacre Down at once. He went, with a man or two. Fruitless! Twidale wasn’t there. Only an old woman who said she didn’t know where he was.”

“Jalvane!” I exclaimed. “How the devil could Twidale have got news of the smash by that time? Impossible—he couldn’t!”

“I think I can see through that difficulty,” replied Jalvane. “What time would you have been back there at Blackacre Down if all had gone well?”

“We should have been back there well before four o’clock,” I answered. “Probably by half past three.”

“And Twidale would know that,” said Jalvane. “Well, I work it out this way: When you didn’t arrive by four, he’d get anxious. When you hadn’t got there at five, he’d become suspicious. When six o’clock came and there were no signs and no news of you, he’d take care to make himself safe. Probably he left the house and posted himself where he could watch all approaches to it. And when instead of your car he saw a car packed with police, he’d take still more care to remove himself elsewhere. But he didn’t get off by car—his car’s there, so they report from Wrenchester.”

I lay still, silent, thinking. I was not greatly concerned about Twidale. His schemes had gone wrong; he hadn’t secured possession of the diamonds; his two accomplices were dead. What occupied my thoughts was the whereabouts of Mrs. Vansidine. It was amazing to know that she had got away scatheless—apparently—from that awful smash. But it was still more amazing that fourteen hours should have elapsed without any news of her coming to hand.

Chaney turned up presently; he had travelled hotfoot from the north. Once more I had to tell my tale. And Chaney put aside all other features of it than the escape and present whereabouts of Mrs. Vansidine. He, Jalvane, and I entered on a maze of speculations as to where she had contrived to put herself.

In the middle of this, just as afternoon was fading into twilight, the local Inspector (on whom Chaney had already called) came in, evidently full of news.

“Here’s a phone message from Lord Ellingshurst,” he announced. “He asks if Camberwell and Chaney are here? If they are, will they go at once to Ellingshurst Abbey?”

Had the doctor in whose house I was at that moment safely in bed—with strict orders to stop there—been anywhere about just then, I should doubtless have been held prisoner, but he happened to be out on a round of country visits, and, despite the warnings of Chaney and Jalvane, I insisted on getting up and dressing, and within half an hour of the receipt of Lord Ellingshurst’s message I was on my way with them to Ellingshurst Abbey, wondering why we were sent for. That it had something to do with our accident and with the subsequent disappearance of Mrs. Vansidine (the news of which had, of course, been spread all over the country-side) I had little doubt. But what was the something?

Colonel Herwin was with Lord Ellingshurst when we were shown into his Lordship’s study, and one glance at their faces showed me that they were puzzled. Lord Ellingshurst went straight to the point.

“We have heard all about your accident near here, during the night, Camberwell,” he said, “and also that Mrs. Vansidine was with you and has escaped. There is also a rumour that she carried off the Ellingshurst diamonds. Is that true?”

“How came she to get possession of them—in your company?” he asked with some asperity.

I explained matters—briefly—from the time of my receipt of Mrs. Vansidine’s letter.

“Then she had hidden them here, in the woods?” he said. “Do you suppose she’d had them all the time, from the evening of the theft?”

“As to that, my Lord,” I answered, “I can’t say. I think she must have come into possession of them very soon after the theft. But, from all we know, it looks as if the diamonds, when they were taken from Lady Ellingshurst’s room, found their way at once to the Dower House. I think the truth probably is that Mrs. Vansidine got them from there, in Guest’s absence—we know why he was absent—and immediately hid them in the woods.”

“You think Mrs. Vansidine was the woman who was seen in the Dower House garden the night you kept watch there?” he continued. “The woman who shot at Boach?”

“In that case, what about the murder of Boach’s daughter?” he asked. “Do you now think that Mrs. Vansidine killed the girl?”

“Personally,” I replied, “I think it’s very likely. Mrs. Vansidine evidently found no difficulty while she was your Lordship’s guest of getting in and out of this house unperceived. That, of course, was not a matter of difficulty in a house like this where there are so many doors. Anyone who knew the house, as Mrs. Vansidine, I suppose, did, through her frequent visits, could get out, quietly, without anybody, family, fellow-guests, or servants, being any the wiser.”

“Just so,” muttered Chaney, approvingly. “Nothing easier, my Lord, than to get out of a big, rambling place like this absolutely unobserved.”

Lord Ellingshurst and Colonel Herwin exchanged glances which seemed to indicate that there was a secret between them, or, if not a secret, some knowledge of something in which we had no share. Then his Lordship gave us a cynical smile.

“Where it is easy to get out, it is, I suppose, easy to get in,” he said. “Well, I sent for you to tell you that I believe Mrs. Vansidine got in last night—or very early this morning.”

“Into this house,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “But as far as we can ascertain by a most exhaustive search, she’s not here now. Colonel Herwin and I, aided by certain of the servants, have searched the place from garret to basement without finding a trace of her. And yet I feel sure she did enter.”

“Your Lordship has, of course, some reason for thinking so?” suggested Chaney. “May we know what it is?”

Lord Ellingshurst moved over to the hearth and touched a bell. A footman appeared.

“Go to the conservatories and fetch Matson here,” said his Lordship. He turned to us when the footman had disappeared. “Matson,” he continued, “is the man who attends to the fires in the greenhouses; accordingly, he comes to his work very early in the morning. I want him to tell you, with his own lips, what he saw this morning when he came here at five o’clock. By the by, Camberwell, your motor smash occurred at Brambledown Hill, didn’t it?”

“Brambledown Hill,” he continued, “is, roughly speaking, nine miles from here. What time did the accident take place?”

“And Mrs. Vansidine, so I’m told, had completely disappeared when you yourself regained consciousness?” he asked.

“She had utterly vanished,” I answered. “The first thing I asked for when I came round was Mrs. Vansidine; not by name, of course. None of the men who were there had seen her. The men from the motor van which had run us down were the first on the spot; but after the collision they had gone right down to the extreme foot of the hill, and I don’t think they’d particularly worried themselves to come back to us. Anyway, they swear that when they reached the scene of the accident, there was no woman there, so I could only conclude that Mrs. Vansidine had not been seriously injured, if at all, and that she had taken advantage of the smash and the resultant confusion to slip off. The first thing I did then was to examine the pocket of the injured man who was carrying the diamonds—I knew which pocket of his overcoat he had them in. They were not in that pocket nor anywhere on or near him. I knew then she had carried them off. And a further examination of the two men’s clothing told me another thing. Each man had a revolver; Mrs. Vansidine had carried these off, too. So it will be as well to remember that, wherever she is, she is armed—and from what I have seen of her, she is likely, if brought to close quarters, to be dangerous!”

“No doubt of that,” assented Lord Ellingshurst. “But here is another matter: All that we have heard up to now has been by word of mouth—the talk circulated all over the country-side during the day. Is it true that Mrs. Vansidine is going about in an evening gown?”

“Mrs. Vansidine, my Lord,” I replied, “was, at the time of the accident, in the evening dress she was wearing when kidnapped in London some days ago. Over it, for the purposes of the journey here, she was wearing a man’s ulster, lent her by the man I have mentioned to your Lordship—Twidale.”

“That was your idea, Herwin, wasn’t it?” he said. “That she came in here to get a change of attire. But—”

Just then the footman came back with Matson—an intelligent-looking young workman on whose evidence I saw we could rely; the sort of man who would tell exactly what he knew to be in accordance with fact, without embellishment.

“Matson,” said Lord Ellingshurst, “I want you to tell these gentlemen exactly what you told me this morning. Sit down, and tell it in your own way.”

Matson obeyed his master’s order and told us his story in plain, direct fashion. He was, he said, in charge of the heating apparatus in the conservatories and greenhouses, and it was his custom to arrive in the gardens at a very early hour every morning in order to see to the fires. That morning he arrived at about his usual time, five o’clock. Very soon after that, when he was in a shed at the end of the principal conservatory, which stood at the end of the east wing of the house, he heard footsteps on the gravelled walk outside. Looking out, he saw the figure of a woman swiftly approaching the house, from the direction of the park. It was making for a side door which, Matson knew, admitted to the servants’ hall. A moment later he saw the figure stop at this door; then he heard a key fitted and turned, the door opened, and the figure disappeared inside. He heard the door closed, and he returned to his work.

“There is a full moon just now, sir—it was right up above the gardens—bright as day, you might say.”

“Earlier on, sir,” said Matson. “The fog had cleared when I came to work.”

“Well, this figure,” continued Chaney, “you’re sure it was a woman’s?”

“There’s a path that cuts right across the gardens, sir, from the park; she came along that.”

“Didn’t you think it a queer thing that a woman should let herself into the house at that hour of the morning?”

“Well, sir, I did, at first. Then I thought that it was one of the servants who’d been out all night, maybe to see somebody who was ill in the village, and so I thought no more about it.”

“When did you begin to think more about it—sufficiently to tell his Lordship?”

“Later on in the morning, sir, we heard about the motor accident at Brambledown Hill and about the missing lady. So then I came to the house and asked leave to speak to his Lordship, and I told what I’d seen.”

Chaney had no more questions to ask, neither had I, and as Jalvane showed no disposition to question Matson, he went away. Lord Ellingshurst asked Chaney what he thought of the story we had just heard.

“I immediately made inquiries,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “First of the butler, then of the housekeeper; they had heard nothing, seen nothing, knew nothing. I made them set afoot exhaustive inquiries amongst all the other servants. The same result!—no one knew anything of any woman’s having entered the house.”

“I have an idea—yes, here it is—that one of your menservants is always up all night, my Lord,” he said. “That is so, I suppose?”

“That is so,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “There is always a man on duty all night. I spoke to him myself this morning. But this is a big, rambling place, and if anyone had a key to a door which was merely secured by a lock, it would not be a difficult thing to enter the house without attracting the man’s attention. He told me that at five o’clock he was in the west wing—now Matson’s story is that the woman entered by a door at the extreme end of the east wing.”

“Has your Lordship inquired as to whether any of the women servants have missed any clothes?” asked Chaney.

“Yes—I thought of that at once,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “No one has missed anything. Mrs. Sutherland satisfied herself on that point.”

“Well, my Lord,” remarked Chaney, “there’s just one thing strikes me. Matson said that when he saw the woman let herself into the house, he thought she was one of the women servants. Perhaps his surmise was right. It may have been one of the women servants!”

“Mrs. Sutherland inquired into that,” said Lord Ellingshurst. “I feel sure that none of the women servants had left the house.”

“What does your Lordship wish us to do?” asked Chaney. “And does your Lordship really think the woman Matson saw was Mrs. Vansidine?”

“Considering all that I know now, about the accident to Camberwell’s car, I do,” replied Lord Ellingshurst. “My belief is that she made for this place and got in. But what did she do then? If there were any woman’s clothes missing—”

He paused, shaking his head. Jalvane, who had been having recourse to his snuff-box for the last five minutes, spoke out of the corner in which, on entering the room, he had seated himself.

“This,” he said, oracularly, “is a very big house, an old house. There must be some odd nooks and corners in it. Hundreds of years old, I take certain parts of it to be. I suggest that we search it—with his Lordship’s approval.”

“Search it from end to end, from top to bottom!” said Lord Ellingshurst. “Go wherever you like. It is quite true that there are all sorts of queer places in it, especially in the remains of the old monastic buildings. But you’ll want a guide—Colonel Herwin knows the house well.”

After a little further conversation we set out in Colonel Herwin’s charge. But I felt no confidence in our attempt. I was beginning to think that if the woman seen by Matson to enter the house was really Mrs. Vansidine—and I felt sure it was she—there was some secret behind her coming back there. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if, amongst all that crowd of servants, upper and lower, from butler to page-boy, Mrs. Vansidine might not have, and might not always have had, some accomplice. Pleading my weakness from the motor smash, I excused myself from accompanying the search-party and asked a footman to fetch the butler to speak to me.

Gadd came to me presently and, at my request for a word in private with him, took me away to the butler’s pantry, a snug retreat in a quiet part of the big house. I was glad enough to drop into an easy chair before the fire, for the effects of the car accident were beginning to tell on me. The butler, of course, had heard of it, and shook his head when I sank down into the cushions of what was no doubt his own favourite seat. He was, as I have already told you, an elderly man, of grave and precise manners and speech, and had he been attired in an episcopal apron and gaiters would have passed very well for a bishop.

“You should have been, or should be, in bed, sir,” he said. “The effects of an accident such as the one you have fortunately survived do not, I am told, manifest themselves at once, but later on. I suppose the excitement keeps one up for the time being, and when that is over, the inevitable collapse comes. May I suggest a little refreshment, sir?—I have some very excellent and sound old whisky—”

Chaney and I made a rule of never accepting what Gadd called refreshment when we were on duty, but all rules are made to be broken when good reason arises, and I let him give me a whisky and soda—with beneficial results.

“Gadd,” I said, when I had thanked him and had got him to sit down, “I wanted to have a talk with you. You know that Mrs. Vansidine escaped from my car when we had the smash on Brambledown Hill this morning? The news of that has been spread about pretty freely.”

“I have heard of it, sir—oh, yes,” he replied. “It is, sir, as you say, freely spoken of.”

“And you’re also aware that Matson saw a woman enter this house at five o’clock this morning,” I continued, “and that there’s a strong belief that she was Mrs. Vansidine?”

“Yes, sir, I have heard that, too,” he answered. “Matson, sir, is a thoroughly truthful and dependable man.”

“Well, Gadd,” I said, “Lord Ellingshurst tells us that a very careful search of the house has been made, and that there isn’t a trace of Mrs. Vansidine. Now this is a very big place, a rambling place, and a very, very old place—some parts of it, anyway—and I think I should have to live in it a long time before I could truthfully say I knew it. I want to ask you—how long have you known it?”

“Then I take it that you know it better than your master does, for all his archæological knowledge?” I suggested.

“I knew it before my Lord was born, sir,” he answered. “I think I may say—yes, I feel sure I may say—that I do know it better than his Lordship does. Of course, sir, I could not presume to say that I could give a name to its architectural features as my Lord can, but for all practical purposes—”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Well, now, look here, Gadd, I want to know this. Is it possible for anybody who knows the place to remain hidden here without any risk of discovery?”

“It is possible, sir, for anyone who knows this house, or who is harboured (as the saying is, I believe) in it by one who does know it, to remain hidden in it for months without the least risk of discovery,” he said. “And especially, sir, in the very old parts of the place. This, sir, as you are doubtless aware, was one of the greatest religious houses in the country, and a great deal of the original monastic building still remains. And, as I say, there are places, known to me, in which a man or a woman could hide or be hidden for weeks, months, ay, years—if—”

“There are always ifs in a case, sir,” he continued, smiling. “If he or she, as the case might be, were supplied with food.”

There seemed to be some significant meaning in the tone in which he said this, and I looked narrowly at him, pausing before I spoke again.

“You mean that Mrs. Vansidine could easily be hidden in this house if somebody supplied her with food, Gadd?” I said. “Is that it?”

“If Mrs. Vansidine is hidden here,” I went on, “and somebody is supplying her with food, it means that under this roof she has an accomplice, Gadd?” I asked. “Man or woman?”

“I could think of several people who might be, sir,” he answered. “Family and domestic staff, there are thirty of us, men and women, at Ellingshurst Abbey. Might be—yes; but, sir, I don’t know of anyone who is!”

“Be candid with me, Gadd,” I said. “Do you suspect anyone? Have you ever suspected anyone? This is a very serious matter, you know.”

But again he shook his head, and I saw that whatever was or might have been in his mind would not be shown to me—then, at any rate.

“I am quite aware, sir, that it is a very serious matter,” he replied. “A much more serious matter than it appears to be on the mere face of it, sir, for, as I understand it, the murder of that unfortunate girl comes in! But in my position, sir, if I had suspicions—I don’t say, sir, that I have, and I don’t say that I may not have had or might not have again—if I had suspicions, sir, I repeat, it would not do for me to express them. My position, sir, is a very onerous one, especially as my Lord doesn’t employ a house-steward. I have much to see to, sir, and of course, I hear a great deal, see a great deal, and draw many conclusions which I keep to myself. A butler’s, sir, is a very arduous task in a big house like this, and it wouldn’t do for me to say all that I think. If I were not to keep my own counsel, sir—”

At that moment Gadd’s philosophic remarks were cut short by a tap at his door, followed by the entrance of the housekeeper, Mrs. Sutherland. At sight of me she made to withdraw.

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed. “I’d no idea you were engaged, Mr. Gadd—I only wanted to ask a question.”

Now that was exactly what I wanted to do—to ask a question. And I wanted to ask it of Mrs. Sutherland. I rose from my chair.

“I am sure Mr. Gadd won’t mind if I ask you to come in, Mrs. Sutherland,” I said. “I was going to seek you when Mr. Gadd and I had had our little talk. We might as well have it here—if you have no objection?” I added, turning to the butler.

“Oh, none, sir, none!” replied Gadd, drawing forward a chair for Mrs. Sutherland. “Quite at your service, I’m sure.”

Mrs. Sutherland looked doubtful for a moment, and when she took the chair which Gadd offered her, it was with the air of one who sits down for form’s sake, but lets it be seen that an almost immediate retreat is to be expected.

“I’m very much pushed for time,” she said. “Her Ladyship, who has been away for a few days, has just phoned to say that she’s coming home this afternoon, two days before we expected her, so my arrangements are rather upset. What did you wish to say to me, Mr. Camberwell?”

“I shan’t detain you very long, Mrs. Sutherland,” I said. “You’re aware of all that’s going on, and you know that there’s an idea that Mrs. Vansidine let herself into the house last night? I want to know what you, personally, think?”

The housekeeper remained silent for a minute or so. I had never had much to do with her up to then, but I had seen her on several occasions and had said to myself that she looked to be a person of character and determination—what one usually calls a very superior person. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of a striking figure and bearing, and her features indicated that she possessed more than ordinary faculties; had I seen her elsewhere and not known who she was, I should have set her down as being matron of a hospital or something of that sort. And I presently found that while the butler was inclined to prolixity, the housekeeper favoured plain and direct speech.

“Are you asking me if I myself think it was Mrs. Vansidine that Matson saw entering the house at five o’clock this morning?” she asked. “Just that?”

“I believe Matson saw a woman,” she replied. “But I don’t believe he saw Mrs. Vansidine.”

Mrs. Sutherland glanced at the butler. Gadd shook his head and turned his attention to the ceiling, with a sigh.

“Mr. Camberwell,” said the housekeeper, “Mr. Gadd will agree with me that in positions like his and mine one can’t say all one would like. We have to hear and see, and say very little, or, better still, nothing. However, as I suppose all this is strictly private—”

“Strictly private and confidential,” she continued, “I don’t mind saying that in my opinion the woman whom Matson saw was one of our maidservants. But which I don’t know.”

“I do,” she said. “Consider the situation for yourself, Mr. Camberwell. We have fifteen women servants in this house, and it takes me all my time to look after them by day; I can’t be expected to watch them all night. Some of them have relations in the village; some have friends. Without going into details, let me point out to you that it is quite possible for one of the women servants to remain out all night and to let herself in before the rest of the household is up in the morning—quite possible. Mr. Gadd will agree with me.”

“Oh, quite possible, quite possible,” murmured Gadd. “Very easy matter, sir.”

“Have you any idea which of the women servants it may have been, then, Mrs. Sutherland?” I asked. “Matson described her as a tall woman.”

“We have several women servants who could be so described,” replied the housekeeper. “But even if I had a strong suspicion as to which particular woman it may have been, Mr. Camberwell, what good would it do to accuse her? I couldn’t prove that it was she. As a matter of fact, it may have been one of four of the women servants that I could name, but it’s useless to name any. Several of the servants have rooms of their own—what easier than to leave them after the household has retired and return to them before their absence is noticed?”

“She would have nothing to do but take the key of that door with her,” she said. “That’s very easy, Mr. Camberwell.”

“And the man who is on duty, as a sort of night-porter, every night?” I continued. “What of him?”

“I don’t think the night-porter would present any insuperable difficulty, Mr. Camberwell,” she answered. “Do you, Mr. Gadd?”

“I fear not—I fear not,” assented the butler. “This is, sir, a very rambling house—the man has some hundreds of yards of corridors and passages—”

“No,” I said, “I only wanted to know if you believed that Mrs. Vansidine—”

“I don’t,” she interrupted. “Why should she? I don’t know as much about it as you must know, but I should think Mrs. Vansidine is in London.”

She left the room then, and feeling that there was nothing more to be got out of Gadd, I soon followed her example. Presently I met Colonel Herwin, Chaney, and Jalvane, still busy with their search; when I encountered them, they were on their way from one wing of the old house to another. Chaney pulled me aside for a moment’s conference, and I told him of my talk with the housekeeper.

“That’s as may be, Camberwell,” he remarked. “However, I’ve already seen this much—if the Vansidine woman did come in here this morning, she could remain hidden here in complete safety from now till next Christmas, and I dare say the Christmas after that, if—”

“If somebody in the place feeds her,” he said. “That’s just about it! This old spot—the older parts, anyhow—is a rabbit-warren.”

“Well, that’s just what the butler says,” I answered. “I mean that she could hide here quite successfully if somebody gives her food. But—if that’s so, who’s her accomplice?”

I didn’t go with him. I was tired, and I found a comfortable corner in the big hall and waited developments. The afternoon passed, and still the search went on. Then Lady Ellingshurst came home; she arrived with her maid, a pile of luggage, and a couple of pet dogs, while Lord Ellingshurst, Colonel Herwin, Jalvane, Chaney, and I were having yet another conference, in the hall. She had heard something already; now she wanted to know everything. And when she had been told, she bade the lot of us follow her upstairs. Leading us to a small room close to her own, she pointed us to a trunk placed in a recess, bearing on its side the initials C. V.

I dare say that Lady Ellingshurst saw that we all looked a little puzzled by this peremptory command, for she hastened to explain it.

“When Cora Vansidine left here,” she said, “she left that trunk behind her. That’s a usual thing with her—she generally leaves something in case she comes down again in a hurry. I know what she left in that trunk, too, for I saw her pack it in her own room before it was brought into this. And if she came to this house last night—or, as you say, early this morning—I’ve a very good idea what she came for. It would be to get things out of that trunk; probably a tweed coat and skirt which she left in it. You say she was in evening clothes when she left your car, Mr. Camberwell? Of course, she couldn’t go about the country-side dressed like that, even if she had a man’s ulster over her gown. Open that trunk—we’ll soon see.”

The trunk, had a pretty stout lock, and we had to seek tools for forcing it. Presently, however, Chaney threw the lid back, and we all craned forward to look inside. And the first thing we saw was the coat which Twidale had lent to Mrs. Vansidine and in which she had made her hurried departure from the scene of the accident at Brambledown Hill. Underneath that, thrown into the trunk anyhow, was the evening dress in which I had seen her in captivity. But the tweed coat and skirt of which Lady Ellingshurst had spoken were gone.

“There!” exclaimed her Ladyship, triumphantly. “What did I tell you? So she has been here! It was she that Matson saw. But there’s one thing puzzles me about her coming. How did she get, and when did she get, a key to open that side door? Because she must have had that key in her pocket, which means that she had it before she left here after her recent visit. Why should she have a key to that particular door? You’d better inquire into that.”

I left the rest of them talking there and went down to the door myself, for I, too, was wondering about the questions which Lady Ellingshurst had just raised. It seemed odd that Mrs. Vansidine should possess a key of that door—what was she doing with the key of a door in Ellingshurst Abbey at all? But on my way downstairs a sudden idea came into my head. There was strong presumptive evidence that Mrs. Vansidine was the mysterious cloaked and hooded figure which had been seen at the Dower House in the dead of night; it now looked as if she had possessed herself of the key of that side door at that time. But if that were so, how was it that the key had never been missed?

I went then alone to look at the door. It was at the end of a short passage which opened out of the main ground-floor corridor; it gave access, as I already knew, to a quiet part of the gardens, close to the conservatories. And, as I half-expected to find, there was no key in the lock. What was more, and what very much surprised me, there was no other means of fastening that door but by its lock and key—no bolt, bar, or chain.

“Gadd,” I said, “who is responsible for locking up this house every night?”

“Well, sir,” he answered, “you see, the house never is locked up. It would necessitate a great deal of work and take a great deal of time to do that, sir. Well acquainted as I am with the place, having been here, boy and man, for many years, I couldn’t say offhand how many doors we have, and certainly not how many windows. No, sir—I don’t think any doors are locked. You see, we have a man on duty all night, always.”

“That accounts for the ease with which an entrance was effected this morning,” I said. “You’ll be having a visit from a real professional burglar, Gadd.”

I left him and went back towards the big hall, and on the way met Chaney, who was dangling something from his finger. He held it up as I approached, and I saw it was a key.

“Just found this, laid aside, in the room in which we saw the trunk,” he said. “She’d evidently no further use for it. Where’s that door, Camberwell? We’ll see if the key fits.”

The key did fit; that point was easily settled. And then Chaney noticed what I had already noticed—that the door had neither bolt nor chain. I told him what the butler had just told me, and he shook his head.

“The fact is, Camberwell,” he said, “it’s as easy as can be to get into this house, and therefore just as easy to get out of it. If this woman is still in the place—and she may be, for I never saw a house with more opportune places for hiding oneself—she’ll have no difficulty about getting away from it when she wants to.”

“If we only knew—as a certainty—that she is hidden here,” I said, “we could arrange accordingly.”

“Pretty big order, my lad!” he remarked. “You’d want a cordon of a hundred men round this place. There’s not only the new part of the house, and the old—which is a veritable rabbit-warren—but the outbuildings, cottages, garages, outside servants’ quarters, and so on. However, that’s the affair of the local police, not ours.”

Jalvane came up just then. We had some more talk and then decided to go down to the village and find out if anything had been heard of Mrs. Vansidine at the police station. Before going we saw Lord Ellingshurst and pointed out to him the necessity of seeing that his night-watchman should be particularly attentive to his duties during the coming night. Lord Ellingshurst, however, was by this time convinced that Mrs. Vansidine was neither in Ellingshurst Abbey nor anywhere near it. Since the discovery that she had been there and had taken clothes from her trunk, he had come to the conclusion that she had gone away at once after effecting the change of garments and had either made her way to an adjacent station or had hired a car at one of the many roadside garages in the neighbourhood and got herself driven to London—or possibly to one of the Channel ports, of which there were three, Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, all within easy distance. There was a good deal to be said for this theory. Once within the house, Mrs. Vansidine could have exchanged the clothes she was wearing for those in the box in a few minutes and have got away as quickly as she had come. Knowing the country round about Ellingshurst quite well, she would know where the railway stations of that district were; she would also know where she could hire a car. It would be her policy to get away as quickly as possible, especially if she wanted to reach the Continent. And all we could do, after hearing what Lord Ellingshurst had to say, was to go down to the village and find out if anything had been heard of her there.

But at the village police station they had heard nothing. The Chief Constable himself had been there most of the day and with various other officials had been awaiting possible information from any sources—London, the Channel ports, anywhere. He had just gone when we turned in, but he had left certain assistants behind him in charge of further investigations, and from them we learned that full inquiry for a woman answering the description of Mrs. Vansidine had been made at every railway station within a radius of ten miles from Ellingshurst, and at every garage in every neighbouring village, and along all the bus routes, and all with no result. More than that, the local police had completed what was practically a house-to-house visitation of Ellingshurst village itself and had also made further and equally exhaustive inquiries at all the outlying farmsteads and private houses in the district: they, too, had been disappointed in their endeavour.

It was now getting late in the evening. Jalvane, Chaney, and I repaired to the village inn and, after securing rooms for the night, turned our attention to food and drink. At nearly ten o’clock, as we were sitting over the last stages of an improvised but very good and welcome supper, the waitress entered the room and asked which of us was Mr. Camberwell? On my replying to her question, she came up to me in what I thought a mysterious manner and whispered that outside, in the hall, there was a boy who wanted to see me, in person.

I went out. Near the front door, still wide open, for it was not yet, though it was very near, closing time, stood a youthful rustic who stared his hardest at me and, I thought, looked suspicious. I went up to him.

“Mr. Camberwell?” he asked. “I wasn’t to give any message to other than him.”

“There’s a gentleman up the road there wants to speak to you,” he said. “You’re to say nothing to anybody. That’s all.”

“Go and tell him I’m coming,” I said. “At once.” I turned to take down my hat and overcoat from a peg in the hall. But the boy shook his head.

I fished a shilling out of my pocket, and with a word of thanks, he went out into the darkness and away to the left. Without a word to Chaney and Jalvane, I followed him out and turned up the road to the right.

The inn stood a little way out of the village, on the side of the main road which led past the entrance gates of Ellingshurst Abbey. Consequently, when I left its lighted windows, I was very soon plunged into the darkness of a late autumn night. I walked on twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred yards and saw no one, heard nothing. Then when I came into a thicker darkness, caused by the big trees which overshadowed the road on either side, I heard a faint movement near the hedgerow, and my name spoken in low tones, and suddenly I made out a man’s figure, close to me. My name was spoken again, and I recognized the voice as that of Gadd. And I knew that Gadd was nervous and agitated; he laid a hand on my arm, and I could feel that he was trembling.

“What is it, Gadd?” I whispered, lowering my voice in sympathy with his mood. “Something wrong?”

Without speaking, he pulled me away to the side of the road, under the trees, and when at last his voice came, his usually precise mode of speech deserted him.

“I don’t want a soul to know that I came here—that I told you anything,” he said, hurriedly. “My position, Mr. Camberwell, my position, you know! But I felt I’d got to come. Mr. Camberwell, you’re here for the night?”

“I can’t say anything for certain,” he went on, still more hurriedly; “I don’t know anything that’s certain; but I’ve an idea—I’ve put things together—I think I can tell you something. Mr. Camberwell, let you and your friends, and the police, keep an eye on our garage tonight! From, say, midnight. You know where our garage is, sir—in the old stable-yards? Watch there! But, Mr. Camberwell, whatever comes of it—and of course I can’t say and don’t know—keep my name out of it, won’t you? I beg it of you, Mr. Camberwell. Not a word of me, sir—if you please!”

“There shall not be one word of you, Gadd,” I said. “Now or at any time.”

He gave my elbow a squeeze, whispered a word of farewell, and slipped away into the darkness. Within a minute I heard his footsteps no longer, and I turned back to the inn.

I found the local Inspector of Police with Chaney and Jalvane; he had called in at the inn to find out if we had discovered anything further; he himself had had no news of Mrs. Vansidine from anywhere. I knew that we could do nothing towards carrying out Gadd’s mysterious suggestions without his help, but before telling what I had just heard, I got Chaney out of the room and communicated my new information to him.

“Gadd’s discovered something!” said Chaney. “Or heard something, or seen something. We must act on it, Camberwell, whether it come to anything or not; we can’t afford to ruin any opportunity. But we shall want the help of these local police. We’d better tell the Inspector. Wait a minute, though—do you know this garage that Gadd spoke of?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s really part of the old stable-yard of the Abbey. A big place—built, I suppose, in the days when they had no end of horses and carriages. It makes a great four-square building, with a quadrangle in the middle, and it’s some little way from the house, between the conservatories and the Home Wood. Part of it’s used for its proper purpose, stables, coach-houses, rooms for menservants, and so on; another, modernized part is turned into a big garage.”

“There are four,” I answered. “One on each side. But I know which is the one through which cars are brought out; it’s that facing the wood. There’s a turret over that, with a clock in it.”

“Gadd didn’t mention any particular time tonight?” he asked. “No? Well, come and tell the others. We’d better be doing something at once.”

We went back into the parlour, and I told Jalvane and the Inspector what I had just told Chaney, keeping the butler’s name out of it. The Inspector pricked up his ears and immediately began to form a theory.

“That,” he said, “looks as if your informant knew that something’s going to happen tonight. You’re sure he’s to be trusted, Mr. Camberwell? Or perhaps it’s a she?”

“I’ve no doubt whatever of my informant’s veracity, Inspector,” I replied, “nor that my informant knew a great deal more than he—or, as you say it might be, she—chose to communicate. And I’m quite sure we shall do well to get to work at once and set a watch on the old stable-yard at the Abbey.”

“Oh, we’ll do that,” he said readily. “But I say, look here!—what do you expect? Is it about this woman, this Mrs. Vansidine?”

“My idea, Inspector,” I answered, “is that Mrs. Vansidine is hidden in the Abbey or somewhere near, and that my informant has discovered that she’s likely to make her escape tonight, possibly in one of Lord Ellingshurst’s cars.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “But that would mean that she’d somehow got round one of the chauffeurs—his Lordship has three, you know.”

“Possibly she has,” I assented. “She’s a woman of resource. But we shall find that out—if my surmise is correct. I suggest we get to work.”

“Stop a minute,” he said. “Let’s know what we’re doing. Do I understand that when this woman made her escape after your smash at Brambledown Hill last night, or, rather, this morning, she carried off a couple of revolvers as well as those diamonds?”

“As far as I’m aware, yes, she did,” I replied. “Anyway, the two men who were with her and me in my car both had revolvers when the smash occurred, and both the revolvers, like the diamonds, were gone when I recovered consciousness and examined the men’s pockets.”

“Then we’d better be prepared,” he said, rising from his chair. “I’ll go round and get a couple of my men; there’ll be six of us, then. But we’d better be careful about approaching the spot. There are several outdoor servants living in that stable-yard, and if we’re seen—”

“We’d better not go there in a body,” I interrupted. “I know the whereabouts well enough, and I can get Chaney and Jalvane and myself there without anybody being the wiser. If you and your men can get into the Home Wood quietly and make your way to the stable-yard, we can all meet in front of the clock tower and keep watch there. That’s the really important point, because the doorway under the tower, by which anything must leave the yard for the main road, opens on the carriage drive, and all we’ve got to do is to post ourselves in the wood exactly opposite the doorway. Be prepared for a considerable wait, Inspector—no special time was mentioned to me.”

He nodded his comprehension and went off to make his arrangements, and we made ours, by putting some food in our pockets and refilling Chaney’s capacious pocket-flask. We also looked to our revolvers, Chaney, always prepared for eventualities, having furnished me with one since his arrival. It then being close on eleven o’clock, we set out, and I utilized my knowledge of the neighbourhood by taking my companions by a roundabout way to that part of the Home Wood which flanked the southern front of the old stable-yard. Here, behind a fence of holly and laurel bushes, set loosely together, we posted ourselves and waited.

This, unlike the preceding one, was a clear night, free of mist or fog, and from our places behind the hedge we had a full view of the gateway from which any egress from the stable-yard must necessarily be made by anyone who wished to drive straight on to the main road by way of the carriage drive. That gateway had something of the mediæval about it; it was, I fancy, a remnant of the original monastic buildings and took the form of two towers, with a curtain wall between, which was pierced by a high arch in which was set a double door of heavy timber; over the curtain wall was a sort of turret, with a clock in it. There were rooms in both towers. Whether these rooms were occupied by any of the menservants I did not know, but there was no light in any of the windows. Everything about the place, indeed, was dark, and there was not a sound to be heard—until, somewhere behind us, I heard stealthy footsteps in the wood. These prefaced the appearance of the Inspector, who presently stole up to us, whispering.

“I’ve got a couple of my men here,” he said, “so there’s now six of us and the thing is—had we better watch that doorway from here or spread ourselves about? There are other ways of leaving that yard than the one in front.”

“If there’s going to be an attempted escape from the yard,” I said, “the objective will be the main road, and this is the shortest way to it. I suggest that we three stop here exactly in front, and that you and your men post yourselves a little lower down the carriage drive, outside the hedge. If a car comes out and we fail to stop it at the entrance, then you’ll come in.”

“Not much chance of stopping a car driven at any speed,” he said. “They’d be past us in a flash.”

“Fire a warning shot and then cover the driver,” I said. “And if he doesn’t pull up, put a bullet or two through the tires—that’ll bring him to his senses. But we shall have dealt with the car before it reaches you.”

“Supposing there isn’t any car,” he said, as if sceptical. “There mayn’t be.”

“What other way of escape is there?” I asked. “Escape is what my informant hinted at, and from this stable-yard. It’ll be a car, you’ll find.”

He said no more and went off to post his men, lower down the hedge-side; and Chaney, Jalvane, and I settled down to waiting. But instead of hiding behind the hedge and within the wood, we came out on the drive and took up our stand under the shelter of a thick clump of holly, where in that half-light we could not be seen from any of the windows in the twin towers. And there we settled down to an indefinite period of waiting.

An hour or more passed. It was very cold, and we were glad of a nip from Chaney’s flask. Still the time went on, and from the big quadrangle behind the walls and towers in front no sound came. Eventually, from the Abbey clock and from that in the turret above us, there came two dull strokes; that was the third time we had heard the hour struck. The sound had scarcely died away when Chaney suddenly started.

From somewhere—we could not tell from which direction at first—came the throbbing of a motor engine; it grew louder, more distinct.

But the doors remained shut. And suddenly, round the angle of the four-square building and away to our right, a car appeared, its lights on and already being driven at a fair speed. I saw at once what had happened. The car had been kept in waiting at some place outside the stable-yard and, its occupant having entered, had been driven round the outer wall on the east side, over the lawns, and into the carriage drive. Now there was a clear run to the main road. . . .

I knew, from the rate at which the car was being driven, that there was small chance of stopping it, but in the same second in which I recognized this, I also remembered what I should have thought of before. Fifty yards away, down the carriage drive, and not half that distance from where the Inspector and his men had posted themselves, there stood a lodge, and in front of it heavy gates that barred all egress—if they were shut. But were they? Probably not—whoever was escaping in that car would have taken good care to see that they were open. Without a word to the other two, I turned and dashed towards the police, whose figures I could now see plainly as they came out into the open and stretched themselves cordon-fashion across the road.

Whether the driver of the car heard me (and probably he did, for I shouted at the top of my voice, and the night was very still) or not I don’t know, but as the man I was calling and signalling to began to run in the direction of the lodge, the car accelerated and came on at top speed, and the next thing I knew was that it had swept by Chaney and Jalvane, both being obliged to jump hastily to get out of its way, and then by me, and was heightening its speed still more as it neared the gate. Dashing after it, with Chaney and Jalvane in my rear, I saw that the policeman who was running towards the lodge was nearly there; a few more strides and he had his hand on one of the big iron gates and was struggling to pull it to. Then the car was on him, and from its left-hand window there was the flash of a revolver. The man staggered and fell, but he had succeeded in releasing the catch of the heavy gate, and it swung to the middle; the car crashed into it, slewed round with the impact, and came to a standstill. The rest of us were on the spot within the next minute, and it needed nothing to show us that we were in for a fight. The car had wedged itself against the big iron gate, and its driver had leaped from its seat and was frantically endeavouring to force the gate back so that he could clear a way for escape. The occupant of the car (I had made out that there was an occupant and only one as it dashed past me) was intent on keeping us off while he worked at the gate. Once more there was a flash as the Inspector and his second man ran up; another as Chaney, Jalvane, and I joined them; a third as the five of us closed in. And with each flash I saw that the figure inside the car was that of a woman. . . .

We had all drawn our revolvers, and at this word of command we fired, and fired again, aiming at the wheels, which were broadside to us. The crack of the revolvers was followed by a sharp explosion, and the driver, struggling with the heavy gate, suddenly gave up his attempt, slipped through the narrow opening between it and the car, and rushed away down the drive. As he fled, the Inspector went nearer to the car, calling on its occupant to surrender. There was no answer, but as we all gathered round, another shot rang out—inside.

It was Chaney who tore open the door and flashed the light of a police lamp on the woman who now lay huddled up in the back seat. I looked past him—and found myself staring at the housekeeper, Mrs. Sutherland.

The events of the next few minutes were more like the piled-up confusions of a nightmare than like any doings of reality. Mrs. Sutherland was dead, with a bullet through her brain, and the policeman who had managed to throw the gate to and had come under the range of her revolver had another bullet in his shoulder. And next came back the driver of the car, trembling and whimpering. The Inspector flashed a lamp on his face.

“You, Gibson!” he exclaimed. “How came you to be mixed up in this? Come on, now—out with it!”

“It’s no fault of mine, sir,” answered the man. “I’ve nothing to do with it. She—” he cast a terrified glance at the dead woman, whom we had laid on a rug by the roadside—“she sent for me this evening and told me that she’d got to go up to London during the night on a very special job for his Lordship, and nothing was to be known about it. I was to bring my car to the far side of the stable-yard near the Dutch garden at two o’clock in the morning and be ready for her—I was to be sure and leave this lodge gate open as I came through. But I was a bit suspicious, Mr. Inspector, because there’s a lot of talk in the village about this lady that’s said to have come to the Abbey and hidden herself, and so I contrived to get a word or two on the quiet with Mr. Gadd, the butler, and I told him what the housekeeper had ordered me to do, and asked him about it. And he said to do what she’d told me and to say nothing to anybody.”

So that was how Gadd had got his information! He had evidently thought it best to let matters go to a crisis—probably he had had the idea that Mrs. Sutherland would be accompanied by Mrs. Vansidine, and that we, warned to keep a sharp look-out, would catch the two of them in the very act of making off—with the diamonds!

“I was to set her down in Grosvenor Square, sir,” replied the driver. “That’s where his Lordship’s town house is. I’ve driven her there once or twice, gentlemen, though not of late.”

Jalvane pointed to a hand-bag which had been taken from the car and laid by the dead woman’s side.

We all gathered round while, in the light of the policemen’s lanterns, the Inspector opened the hand-bag. Within a minute, from the folds of a wrapping of tissue paper and wash-leather, he had revealed the Ellingshurst diamonds; all, as far as Chaney and I could tell, were there, with the exception of the loose stones.

Leaving the dead woman’s body in charge of the policemen, whom he directed to carry it into the lodge, the keeper of which, with his wife, aroused by the shots, had now appeared on the scene, the Inspector bade Jalvane, Chaney, and me to follow him up to the Abbey. I was not surprised to find Gadd in evidence when we got there. Drawing me aside, he told me that he had purposely kept awake, suspicious of what might happen; it was plain, however, that what he had expected was the attempted escape of Mrs. Vansidine, and I could see that he was genuinely horrified when he learned the truth.

“Then—then it must have been she, Mr. Camberwell!” he exclaimed. “She who—but I daren’t speak or think of it, sir. And no one suspected her!”

I knew what he meant. He was thinking of the murder of Effie Boach. But I had already thought of that. Indeed, as we walked up from the lodge gates to the Abbey, I had worked the whole secret out—in my own way. Mrs. Sutherland had been the confederate of the mysterious tenant of the Dower House. It was her hand that had removed the Ellingshurst diamonds from the Countess’s room; her hand that had transferred the case to Guest, waiting outside the house; she was the tall woman who had been seen to meet Guest in the park; it was she who had haunted the Dower House and had fired on Boach. As regards Effie, I took it that the unfortunate girl in her capacity of housemaid on that particular floor had seen Mrs. Sutherland remove the case and had been unwise enough to tell her what she knew. From that moment Effie was doomed, and within a few hours had paid the penalty of her temerity.

But what share had Mrs. Vansidine in all this? We could not ascertain that until she was found. But now a further search quickly brought her to light. During the searches of the previous day, nobody had dreamt of invading the suite of rooms which the housekeeper occupied—Mrs. Sutherland’s words that she had neither seen nor heard of Mrs. Vansidine had been accepted as a matter of course. Now, however, that Mrs. Sutherland was dead by her own hand, an examination of her rooms was the first thing undertaken. And there, in an inner room, we found Mrs. Vansidine. She appeared to be asleep. But no success attended our efforts to awaken her, and the Inspector, hastily affirming that Mrs. Sutherland had poisoned her and that she was now slowly dying, telephoned for a doctor. He, arriving very quickly, decided that Mrs. Vansidine was not poisoned, but drugged, and would remain under the influence of the drug for some hours. So she did, the doctor remaining in constant attendance. She came out of her stupor at last, about noon of that day—and I have often wondered what she thought when, her consciousness being fully restored, she found herself being watched, not only by the doctor, but also by two policemen.

From the moment in which the law then took charge of Mrs. Vansidine, Chaney and I had no further personal dealings with her. She twice endeavoured to secure a visit from me while she was on remand; the authorities refused her request on both occasions. I have always thought that she wanted to make a clean breast to me of her connexion with Mrs. Sutherland and her doings, probably because I had been mixed up with her adventures. But, as I have just said, I never had a chance of exchanging a word with her. Still, when she was duly tried at the Maidstone assizes—on the double charge of (1) being accessory after the fact to the murder of Effie Boach, and of (2) complicity in the theft of the Ellingshurst diamonds—I managed, from the evidence she gave in her own defence, to piece together an epitome of facts, which I now reproduce from my note-book:

Memoranda relating to Mrs. V.’s share in the Ellingshurst affair

1. Mrs. Vansidine knew nothing whatever of the original theft of the diamonds.

2. She had no real grounds of suspicion of anybody until the afternoon on which I took her into the Dower House.

3. While I was elsewhere in the house and she was left alone in Guest’s study, examining his pictures, she made a discovery which she kept to herself. Guest’s tobacco-pouch was lying on his desk, and she noticed that the corner of what appeared to be a scrap of paper was slightly protruding from it. She drew this out and found that a half-sheet of paper, taken from the stationery case on the desk, had been twisted up and placed in the pouch. There was a pencilled message written on this. It ran: “Do let me know as soon as you return. Have been down each night.” Mrs. Vansidine recognized the handwriting, which had marked peculiarities, as being that of Lord Ellingshurst’s housekeeper, Mrs. Sutherland.

4. Mrs. Vansidine said nothing to me about this note—which she at once put in her pocket. Awaiting an opportunity, she got Mrs. Sutherland to herself and, having accused her, point-blank, of complicity in the theft of the diamonds, threatened to tell what she knew to Lord Ellingshurst at once unless Mrs. Sutherland gave her a share in the proceeds of whatever sale of the diamonds could be effected.

5. Mrs. Vansidine swore that the murder of Effie Boach was never so much as mentioned between her and Mrs. Sutherland. But she admitted in cross-examination that her threat of exposure to Lord Ellingshurst might have been understood by Mrs. Sutherland as meaning that she would denounce Mrs. Sutherland as the murderess.

6. Mrs. Vansidine and Mrs. Sutherland came to terms about the diamonds. Mrs. Vansidine was to take charge of them, carry them to London, and effect their sale either in London or on the Continent. The proceeds were to be equally shared.

7. Mrs. Vansidine, insisting on the diamonds being handed over to her, put the loose stones in her hand-bag and then hid the bulk of the stolen property in Ellingshurst Park. She then returned to London and began to make arrangements for the sale of the diamonds. But in the mean time Twidale, having read a great deal in the newspapers about the theft, formed the opinion that Mrs. Vansidine was in possession of the diamonds, and made preparations for watching and kidnapping her. This, with the assistance of two accomplices, he carried out, having first taken the old house on Blackacre Down.

8. When the accident to my car took place on Brambledown Hill, Mrs. Vansidine was the only occupant who escaped uninjured. She saw her opportunity not only for securing the diamonds, but for escape. Taking the diamonds from the pocket of the man who had seen her unearth them, and the revolvers from the pockets of both men (she swore that she almost at once threw the revolvers away, and told where they would be found), she made her way to Ellingshurst Abbey, knowing that she could enter the house unobserved and could get a change of clothing from the trunk she had left there; she also knew that Mrs. Sutherland could easily hide her until she could get away. Her idea was to get from Ellingshurst to the Continent.

9. Mrs. Vansidine got into the house unobserved, as she believed, and, after changing her clothes, went to Mrs. Sutherland’s rooms and told her of all that had happened. From that moment she was in Mrs. Sutherland’s hands. Mrs. Sutherland told her exactly what to do—which was merely to remain quietly in the housekeeper’s rooms. Mrs. Sutherland saw to it that no one came near her. Mrs. Sutherland told her that she was planning her escape, and that there would be no difficulty or danger. She and Mrs. Sutherland had supper on the night after her arrival at the Abbey. Mrs. Vansidine remembered feeling very tired afterwards and very sleepy, and being helped to bed by Mrs. Sutherland. After that she remembered no more until she came to herself and found the doctor and the policemen at her bedside.

I saw no reason to doubt Mrs. Vansidine’s testimony on these various matters, nor did Chaney, who had a distinct prejudice against her. Nor, apparently, did the jury. She was acquitted on the charge of being accessory after the fact to the murder of Effie Boach, and found guilty—after an amending of the original charge—of being in unlawful possession of the diamonds—and she escaped with a fairly light sentence. Then there was little mystery left about her. The unexplained mystery in the case hangs around Guest. Neither the police nor ourselves have ever been able to get one scrap of information about his antecedents, or as to who he was, or where his life had been spent, nor have we succeeded in finding out if he knew Mrs. Sutherland before he came as tenant to the Dower House. That he was an accomplished thief and burglar our discoveries left us no room to doubt.

CHAPTER		PAGE
I	THE ELLINGSHURST DIAMONDS	3
II	CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE THEFT	15
III	LADY ELLINGSHURST	25
IV	MRS. VANSIDINE	35
V	THE HOME WOOD	45
VI	THE DOWER HOUSE	54
VII	IS IT A GHOST?	63
VIII	THE FLASH-LIGHT	73
IX	WHO IS MR. GUEST?	83
X	POPULAR OPINION	93
XI	THE POLICE THEORY	103
XII	SIR JOHN PETT INTERVENES	115
XIII	SECRET TREASURE	125
XIV	THE SURPRISE VIEW	135
XV	STILL MORE IMPORTANT	145
XVI	THE PAPER BAG	156
XVII	WHERE ARE THEY?	166
XVIII	VANISHED!	176
XIX	MAN IN PLUS-FOURS	186
XX	CAUGHT!	195
XXI	BARRED WINDOWS	204
XXII	THE TRUMP CARD	216
XXIII	NIGHT JOURNEY	229
XXIV	BUT WHERE?	239
XXV	THE SIDE DOOR	249
XXVI	WAS IT MRS. VANSIDINE?	259
XXVII	WATCH!	269
XXVIII	THE LODGE GATE	278
XXIX	THE CLEARING UP	287

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE ELLINGSHURST DIAMONDS

CHAPTER II
CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE THEFT

CHAPTER III
LADY ELLINGSHURST

CHAPTER IV
MRS. VANSIDINE

CHAPTER V
THE HOME WOOD

CHAPTER VI
THE DOWER HOUSE

CHAPTER VII
IS IT A GHOST?

CHAPTER VIII
THE FLASH-LIGHT

CHAPTER IX
WHO IS MR. GUEST?

CHAPTER X
POPULAR OPINION

CHAPTER XI
THE POLICE THEORY

CHAPTER XII
SIR JOHN PETT INTERVENES

CHAPTER XIII
SECRET TREASURE

CHAPTER XIV
THE SURPRISE VIEW

CHAPTER XV
STILL MORE IMPORTANT

CHAPTER XVI
THE PAPER BAG

CHAPTER XVII
WHERE ARE THEY?

CHAPTER XVIII
VANISHED!

CHAPTER XIX
MAN IN PLUS-FOURS

CHAPTER XX
CAUGHT!

CHAPTER XXI
BARRED WINDOWS

CHAPTER XXII
THE TRUMP CARD

CHAPTER XXIII
NIGHT JOURNEY

CHAPTER XXIV
BUT WHERE?

CHAPTER XXV
THE SIDE DOOR

CHAPTER XXVI
WAS IT MRS. VANSIDINE?

CHAPTER XXVII
WATCH!

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE LODGE GATE

CHAPTER XXIX
THE CLEARING UP

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I THE ELLINGSHURST DIAMONDS

CHAPTER II CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE THEFT

CHAPTER III LADY ELLINGSHURST

CHAPTER IV MRS. VANSIDINE

CHAPTER V THE HOME WOOD

CHAPTER VI THE DOWER HOUSE

CHAPTER VII IS IT A GHOST?

CHAPTER VIII THE FLASH-LIGHT

CHAPTER IX WHO IS MR. GUEST?

CHAPTER X POPULAR OPINION

CHAPTER XI THE POLICE THEORY

CHAPTER XII SIR JOHN PETT INTERVENES

CHAPTER XIII SECRET TREASURE

CHAPTER XIV THE SURPRISE VIEW

CHAPTER XV STILL MORE IMPORTANT

CHAPTER XVI THE PAPER BAG

CHAPTER XVII WHERE ARE THEY?

CHAPTER XVIII VANISHED!

CHAPTER XIX MAN IN PLUS-FOURS

CHAPTER XX CAUGHT!

CHAPTER XXI BARRED WINDOWS

CHAPTER XXII THE TRUMP CARD

CHAPTER XXIII NIGHT JOURNEY

CHAPTER XXIV BUT WHERE?

CHAPTER XXV THE SIDE DOOR

CHAPTER XXVI WAS IT MRS. VANSIDINE?

CHAPTER XXVII WATCH!

CHAPTER XXVIII THE LODGE GATE

CHAPTER XXIX THE CLEARING UP