Dorcas Dene, detective
Date: 2025-11-16T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Criminal investigation -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; English; Women private investigators -- Fiction

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Title: Dorcas Dene, detective

Her adventures

Author: George R. Sims

Release date: November 16, 2025 [eBook #77243]

Language: English

Original publication: London: F.V. White & Co, 1897

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77243

Credits: Payton D. Cooke

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DORCAS DENE, DETECTIVE ***

Dorcas Dene, Detective
Her Adventures

by George R. Sims

Table of Contents

I. | THE COUNCIL OF FOUR
II. | THE HELSHAM MYSTERY
III. | THE MAN WITH THE WILD EYES
IV. | THE SECRET OF THE LAKE
V. | THE DIAMOND LIZARD
VI. | THE PRICK OF A PIN
VII. | THE MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE
VIII. | THE EMPTY HOUSE
IX. | THE CLOTHES IN THE CUPBOARD
X. | THE HAVERSTOCK HILL MURDER
XI. | THE BROWN BEAR LAMP

I. THE COUNCIL OF FOUR

When I first knew Dorcas Dene she was Dorcas Lester. She came to me with a letter from a theatrical agent, and wanted one of the small parts in a play we were then rehearsing at a West End theatre.

She was quite unknown in the profession. She told me that she wanted to act, and would I give her a chance? She was engaged for a maid-servant who had about two lines to speak. She spoke them exceedingly well, and remained at the theatre for nearly twelve months, never getting beyond "small parts," but always playing them exceedingly well.

The last part she had played was that of an old hag. We were all astonished when she asked to be allowed to play it, as she was a young and handsome woman, and handsome young women on the stage generally like to make the most of their appearance.

As the hag, Dorcas Lester was a distinct success. Although she was only on the stage for about ten minutes in one act and five minutes in another, everybody talked about her realistic and well-studied impersonation.

In the middle of the run of the play she left, and I understood that she had married and quitted the profession.

It was eight years before I met her again. I had business with a well-known West End solicitor. The clerk, thinking his employer alone, ushered me at once into his room. Mr. — was engaged in earnest conversation with a lady. I apologised. "It's all right," said Mr. —, "the lady is just going." The lady, taking the hint, rose, and went out.

I saw her features as she passed me, for she had not then lowered her veil, and they seemed familiar to me.

"Who do you think that was?" said Mr. — mysteriously, as the door closed behind his visitor.

"I don't know," I said; "but I think I've seen her before somewhere. Who is she?"

"That, my dear fellow, is Dorcas Dene, the famous lady detective. You may not have heard of her; but with our profession and with the police, she has a great reputation."

"Oh! Is she a private inquiry agent, or a female member of the Criminal Investigation Department?"

"She holds no official position," replied my friend, "but works entirely on her own account. She has been mixed up in some of the most remarkable cases of the day—cases that sometimes come into court, but which are far more frequently settled in a solicitor's office."

"If it isn't an indiscreet question, what is she doing for you? You are not in the criminal business."

"No, I am only an old-fashioned, humdrum family solicitor, but I have a very peculiar case in hand just now for one of my clients. I am not revealing a professional secret when I tell you that young Lord Helsham, who has recently come of age, has mysteriously disappeared. The matter has already been guardedly referred to in the gossip column of the society papers. His mother, Lady Helsham, who is a client of mine, has been to me in the greatest distress of mind. She is satisfied that her boy is alive and well. The poor lady is convinced that it is a case of cherchez la femme, and she is desperately afraid that her son, perhaps in the toils of some unprincipled woman, may be induced to contract a disastrous mésalliance. That is the only reason she can suggest to me for his extraordinary conduct."

"And the famous lady detective who has just left your office is to unravel the mystery—is that it?"

"Yes. All our own inquiries having failed, I yesterday decided to place the case in her hands, as it was Lady Helsham's earnest desire that no communication should be made to the police. She is most anxious that the scandal shall not be made a public one. To-day Dorcas Dene has all the facts in her possession, and she has just gone to see Lady Helsham. And now, my dear fellow, what can I do for you?"

My business was a very trifling matter. It was soon discussed and settled, and then Mr. — invited me to lunch with him at a neighbouring restaurant. After lunch I strolled back with him as far as his office. As we approached, a hansom cab drove up to the door and a lady alighted.

"By Jove! it's your lady detective again," I exclaimed.

The lady detective saw us, and came towards us.

"Excuse me," she said to Mr. —, "I want just a word or two with you."

Something in her voice struck me then, and suddenly I remembered where I had seen her before.

"I beg your pardon," I said, "but are we not old friends?"

"Oh, yes," replied the lady detective with a smile; "I knew you at once, but thought you had forgotten me. I have changed a good deal since I left the theatre."

"You have changed your name and your profession, but hardly your appearance—I ought to have known you at once. May I wait for you here while you discuss your business with Mr. —? I should like to have a few minutes' chat with you about old times."

Dorcas Lester—or rather Dorcas Dene, as I must call her now—gave a little nod of assent, and I walked up and down the street smoking my cigar for fully a quarter of an hour before she reappeared.

"I'm afraid I've kept you waiting a long time," she said pleasantly, "and now if you want to talk to me you will have to come home with me. I'll introduce you to my husband. You needn't hesitate or think you'll be in the way, because, as a matter of fact, directly I saw you I made up my mind you could be exceedingly useful to me."

She raised her umbrella and stopped a hansom, and before I quite appreciated the situation, we were making our way to St. John's Wood as fast as a very bad horse could take us.

On the journey Dorcas Dene was confidential. She told me that she had taken to the stage because her father, an artist, had died suddenly and left her and her mother nothing but a few unmarketable pictures and the unpaid tradesmen's bills to settle.

"Poor dad!" she said. "He was very clever, and he loved us very dearly, but he was only a great big boy to the last. When he was doing well he spent everything he made and enjoyed life—and when he was doing badly he did bills and pawned things, and thought it was rather fun. At one time he would be treating us to dinner at the Café Royal and the theatre afterwards, and at another time he would be showing us how to live as cheaply as he used to do in his old Paris days in the Quartier Latin, and cooking our meals himself at the studio fire.

"Well, when he died I got on to the stage, and at last—as I daresay you remember—I was earning two guineas a week. On that I and my mother lived in two rooms in St. Paul's-road, Camden Town.

"Then a young artist, a Mr. Paul Dene, who had been our friend and constant visitor in my father's lifetime, fell in love with me. He had risen rapidly in his profession, and was making money. He had no relations, and his income was seven or eight hundred a year, and promised to be much larger. Paul proposed to me, and I accepted him. He insisted that I should leave the stage, and he would take a pretty little house, and mother should come and live with us, and we could all be happy together.

"We took the house we are going to now—a sweet little place with a lovely garden in Oak Tree-road, St. John's Wood—and for two years we were very happy. Then a terrible misfortune happened. Paul had an illness and became blind. He would never be able to paint again.

"When I had nursed him back to health I found that the interest of what we had saved would barely pay the rent of our house. I did not want to break up our home—what was to be done? I thought of the stage again, and I had just made up my mind to see if I could not get an engagement, when chance settled my future for me and gave me a start in a very different profession.

"In the next house to us there lived a gentleman, a Mr. Johnson, who was a retired superintendent of police. Since his retirement he had been conducting a high-class private inquiry business, and was employed in many delicate family matters by a well-known firm of solicitors who are supposed to have the secrets of half the aristocracy locked away in their strong room.

"Mr. Johnson had been a frequent visitor of ours, and there was nothing which delighted Paul more in our quiet evenings than a chat and a pipe with the genial, good-hearted ex-superintendent of police. Many a time have I and my husband sat till the small hours by our cosy fireside listening to the strange tales of crime, and the unravelling of mysteries which our kind neighbour had to tell. There was something fascinating to us in following the slow and cautious steps with which our kindly neighbour—who looked more like a jolly sea captain than a detective—had threaded his way through the Hampton Court maze in the centre of which lay the truth which it was his business to discover.

"He must have thought a good deal of Paul's opinion, for after a time he would come in and talk over cases which he had in hand—without mentioning names when the business was confidential—and the view which Paul took of the mystery more than once turned out to be the correct one. From this constant association with a private detective we began to take a kind of interest in his work, and when there was a great case in the papers which seemed to defy the efforts of Scotland Yard, Paul and I would talk it over together, and discuss it and build up our own theories around it.

"After my poor Paul lost his sight Mr. Johnson, who was a widower, would come in whenever he was at home—many of his cases took him out of London for weeks together—and help to cheer my poor boy up by telling him all about the latest romance or scandal in which he had been engaged.

"On these occasions my mother, who is a dear, old-fashioned, simple-minded woman, would soon make an excuse to leave us. She declared that to listen to Mr. Johnson's stories made her nervous. She would soon begin to believe that every man and woman she met had a guilty secret, and the world was one great Chamber of Horrors with living figures instead of waxwork ones like those of Madame Tussaud's.

"I had told Mr. Johnson of our position when I found that it would be necessary for me to do something to supplement the hundred a year which was all that Paul's money would bring us in, and he had agreed with me that the stage afforded the best opening.

"One morning I made up my mind to go to the agent's. I had dressed myself in my best and had anxiously consulted my looking-glass. I was afraid that my worries and the long strain of my husband's illness might have left their mark upon my features and spoilt my 'market value' in the managerial eye.

"I had taken such pains with myself, and my mind was so concentrated upon the object I had in view, that when I was quite satisfied with my appearance I ran into our little sitting-room, and, without thinking, said to my husband, 'Now I'm off! How do you think I look, dear?"

"My poor Paul turned his sightless eyes towards me, and his lip quivered. Instantly I saw what my thoughtlessness had done. I flung my arms round him and kissed him, and then, the tears in my eyes, I ran out of the room and went down the little front garden. When I opened the door Mr. Johnson was outside with his hand on the bell.

"'Where are you going?' he said.

"'To the agent, to see about an engagement.'

"'Come back; I want to talk to you.'

"I led the way back to the house, and we went into the dining-room which was empty.

"'What do you think you could get on the stage?' he said.

"'Oh, if I'm lucky I may get what I had before—two guineas a week. You see, I've never played anything but small parts.'

"'Well then, put off the stage for a little and I can give you something that will pay you a great deal better. I've just got a case in which I must have the assistance of a lady. The lady who had worked for me for the last two years has been idiot enough to get married, with the usual consequences, and I'm in a fix.'

"'You—you want me to be a lady detective—to watch people?' I gasped. 'Oh, I couldn't!'

"'My dear Mrs. Dene,' Mr. Johnson said gently, 'I have too much respect for you and your husband to offer you anything that you need be afraid of accepting. I want you to help me to rescue an unhappy man who is being so brutally blackmailed that he has run away from his broken-hearted wife and his sorrowing children. That is surely a business transaction in which an angel could engage without soiling its wings.'

"'But I'm not clever at—at that sort of thing!'

"'You are cleverer than you think. I have formed a very high opinion of your qualifications for our business. You have plenty of shrewd common sense, you are a keen observer, and you have been an actress. Come, the wife's family are rich, and I am to have a good round sum if I save the poor fellow and get him home again. I can give you a guinea a day and your expenses, and you have only to do what I tell you.'

"I thought everything over, and then I accepted—on one condition. I was to see how I got on before Paul was told anything about it. If I found that being a lady detective was repugnant to me—if I found that it involved any sacrifice of my womanly instincts—I should resign, and my husband would never know that I had done anything of the sort.

"Mr. Johnson agreed, and we left together for his office.

"That was how I first became a lady detective. I found that the work interested me, and that I was not so awkward as I had expected to be. I was successful in my first undertaking, and Mr. Johnson insisted on my remaining with him and eventually we became partners. A year ago he retired, strongly recommending me to all his clients, and that is how you find me to-day a professional lady detective."

"And one of the best in England," I said, with a bow. "My friend Mr. — has told me of your great reputation."

Dorcas Dene smiled.

"Never mind about my reputation," she said. "Here we are at my house—now you've got to come in and be introduced to my husband and to my mother and to Toddlekins."

"Toddlekins—I beg pardon—that's the baby, I suppose?"

A shade crossed Dorcas Dene's pretty womanly face, and I thought I saw her soft grey eyes grow moist.

"No—we have no family. Toddlekins is a dog."

* * * * * * *

It was difficult for me to imagine, as I glanced around the delightful little drawing-room and noted everywhere the evidences of artistic simplicity and refinement, that I was in the house of the famous lady detective. I had not been introduced to the blind husband many minutes before I felt that we were old friends. Paul Dene, the blind artist, interested me at once. A handsome man, well above the medium height, with a mass of fair waving hair; there was something in the blind, gentle face that riveted your attention and claimed your sympathy at once. He rose as his wife entered the room, a questioning look upon his face, for my footstep was unfamiliar to him. Dorcas Dene took his hand and led him towards me. "Paul, dear," she said, "this is an old friend of mine. This is the gentleman who gave me my first chance as an actress."

We chatted together for a few minutes, and then a buxom, grey-haired lady came bustling into the room, followed by a big brindle bulldog, wagging the whole of his body. He ran to his mistress with a little snort of joy, stood up on his hind-legs, and licked her hands affectionately, and then turned and looked at me inquiringly.

"Friends, Toddlekins," said his mistress. Then turning to me, she added with a smile, "You can pat him quite safely now I have introduced you."

"He would come in, Dorcas," exclaimed the middle-aged lady, "and I didn't know you had company."

"This is Mr. Saxon, the dramatist, mother."

The old lady gave me a rather distant bow, and eyed me somewhat suspiciously. "I've heard of you, sir," she said, "and I know how good you were to my daughter years ago, but I don't hold with melodramas, and I never shall; and how Christian people can pay money to see their fellow-creatures blown up with dynamite, and murdered, and condemned to death for what they never did, and turned out of house and home to die in the snow, is what I shall never understand."

I suppose I looked slightly uncomfortable, for Dorcas Dene broke in with a merry little laugh. "Mother doesn't mean any harm, Mr. Saxon, it's only her funny little way; she puts us all right here—don't you mother dear?"

"I always say what I think," replied the old lady. "It's old-fashioned I dare say, but I'm one of the old-fashioned sort. But I'd better take the dog out—Mr. Saxon's afraid of him."

"No, no, I assure you," I exclaimed, reddening, "I—I love dogs," and I stooped down and timidly patted Toddlekins, who was sniffing suspiciously at my calves.

"You needn't be ashamed of being afraid of Toddlekins," the old lady exclaimed, with evident disbelief in my disclaimer. "Most people are at first. He hates strangers coming to the place."

I saw a shade of annoyance pass over the blind artist's gentle face. "An old friend of my wife's won't be a stranger here very long," he said quietly, then gave a little whistle, and the bulldog ran quickly across the room and laid his great head on his master's knee.

"Well, I suppose I'm wrong as usual!" exclaimed the old lady, tossing her head, "but all the same, Mr. Saxon may just as well know that the dog nearly killed a man once, and I'm as certain as I am that I'm alive that one day he'll kill another if he's ever left alone with that young man that comes to wind up the clocks. He's taken a dislike to that young man, has Toddlekins, and, Dorcas, my dear, don't say I haven't warned you. When it does happen, don't expect me to interfere; I was never brought up to bite bulldogs' tails to make them leave go, and it's not the sort of thing you can ask a respectable servant to do." And with that, the old lady turned upon her heel and sailed out of the room, and her daughter followed her, evidently to pacify her.

"You mustn't mind Mrs. Lester," said Paul Dene, as the door closed behind them. "She's a dear, good soul, really, and I don't know what we should do without her; but she has an idea that she is the only person in the house who has any sense, and she has a mania for speaking what she calls 'her mind.' The dog's as gentle as a lamb, but he did once nearly kill a man, and that is how my wife came by him. He was reared from a puppy by a rough at the East End. This man was constantly ill-using his wife, to whom the dog was devotedly attached. One day the man, in a drunken frenzy, knocked his wife down. As she lay on the floor, he bent over her, and was about to strike her with a poker, when the dog suddenly sprang at him, and seized him by the throat, and held him till the neighbours rushed in. The dog had saved the woman's life, but the man was terribly injured, and it was a question with the police of having the dog killed, when my wife, who had heard the story, asked the officer in charge of the case to let her have him; and Toddlekins has been our faithful friend and guardian ever since."

I looked at Toddlekins, who had curled himself up at his master's feet and was sleeping with one eye open, and I made up my mind that when I said "Good-bye" to Dorcas Dene, I would put out my hand in a manner that should not admit of the slightest misinterpretation, and I was rather relieved when Paul Dene turned the conversation on to another topic.

He presumed I was aware of his wife's present profession. I explained how I had met her at the solicitor's, and that she had told me I might be of use to her in the case on which she was present engaged. Had he heard the particulars?

He said he had not, as his wife had only received her instructions that day, but in all business matters she invariably consulted him. "You see," he said, "my blindness is a very valuable quality. Seeing nothing physically, my mental vision is intensified. I can think a problem out undisturbed by the surroundings which distract people who have their eyesight. When people want 'a good think,' as they call it, they often shut themselves in a room and close their eyes. I am a man who is always thinking with closed eyes. In all her difficulties my wife comes to me, and generally we hold a council of four."

"Of four?"

"Yes, the council consists of myself, Dorcas, her mother, and Toddlekins."

I was obliged to give a little laugh. "I should hardly have thought that Mrs. Lester could have been of much service in unravelling a mystery."

"That is where you are wrong. Mrs. Lester often hits the right nail on the head before either of us. We are building up an elaborate theory, and she takes a plain, straightforward, matter-of-fact, common-sense view, and it turns out to be the right one. Detectives are only human, you know, and, like the rest of the world, they frequently go looking about in every direction for something that lies close to their hand all the time."

At that moment the door opened, and I started up in astonishment. A dark-skinned old gipsy woman, such as one meets on the racecourses, had come into the room.

I gave a nervous look at the bulldog, expecting him to spring at the intruder. But he only opened his eyes and wagged his tail, and then the truth suddenly flashed upon me.

It was Dorcas Dene. "Mr. Saxon," she said, "they are playing a gipsy play at the theatre; I want you to go with me to the manager, and get him to let me go on with the gipsy crowd at the end of the third act." And then she added with a little laugh, "I told you you would be useful to me."

"But I thought you were going to investigate the mysterious disappearance of young Lord Helsham?" I stammered.

"Exactly—that's why I want to get behind the scenes of the —— Theatre. Unless I am very much mistaken, that is where 'the lady in the case' is most likely to be found."

"But we can't go together through the street with you—ahem!—like that."

Dorcas Dene laughed. "No, I want you to meet me outside the theatre at eight o'clock, and get me engaged at once as a real gipsy super. I'm sure you can manage that for me. I thought, before you left, you had better see me exactly as I shall meet you to-night. And now, good afternoon and au revoir."

"You think you will find Lord Helsham, then? You have a clue to the mystery already?"

"I may find Lord Helsham to-night if you get me behind the scenes, but as to the clue to the mystery of his disappearance, that is quite another matter. And now I rely upon you. Until eight o'clock this evening, au revoir."

I shook hands cordially with Dorcas Dene and her blind husband, and patted Toddlekins respectfully. A minute afterwards, I was out in the quiet little road trying to think out the mystery for myself.

Here was a young nobleman, his own master, and free to do as he chose, and yet he had deliberately left his mother a prey to the greatest anxiety as to his whereabouts. There was no necessity for him to "disappear," to carry on an intrigue, or even to contract an undesirable marriage.

Not even in the days of my youthful romance had I waited so eagerly for the hour and the lady, as I waited that evening for eight o'clock and Dorcas Dene.

II. THE HELSHAM MYSTERY

I sat in the stalls watching the third act of the great gipsy drama, which had drawn all London to the —— Theatre. I had persuaded the manager, with whom I was on friendly terms, to allow Dorcas Dene, the famous lady detective, to have the use of his stage for her own purposes, disguised as a gipsy super.

But she had so far refused to tell me the name of the actress through whom she expected to run young Lord Helsham to earth that evening, or at least to be able to learn why he had disappeared.

It had been agreed between us that after the third act was over I should go behind, and she would then be able to communicate with me.

Directly the curtain was down the manager joined me, and took me through the private door and left me on the stage. The old gipsy woman was waiting about for me in a quiet corner.

"What success?" I asked eagerly.

Without replying to my question, Dorcas Dene gripped me excitedly by the arm.

"Get a hansom to the stage-door," she said. "I want you to come with me somewhere."

I glanced hesitatingly at her costume.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "The cloak I brought with me will cover all this, and I have a thick veil in my pocket."

I went out to get a hansom, and it was barely at the door before Dorcas Dene was by my side. She sprang lightly in and motioned me to follow, telling the cabman to drive to Grosvenor Square.

"You are going to see Lady Helsham?" I said.

"Yes, I must. Lord Helsham is on the point of committing suicide."

"How on earth have you found that out?" I gasped.

"By a very simple process. Lady Helsham, in our interview this morning, gave me a photograph which she had found among her son's papers. It was the photograph of a very beautiful girl taken in stage costume. On the back of it was written, 'To dearest Bertie, from Nella.' The photographer was Alfred Ellis, of Baker Street, who—it being a theatrical photograph taken for public sale—had printed beneath it, 'Miss Nella Dalroy, in "The Gipsy Wife."'"

"Ah, now I understand why you wanted to get behind the scenes to-night. You wanted to see Nella Dalroy."

"Exactly. Lord Helsham's name is Bertie. Now a girl who puts 'To dearest Bertie, from Nella,' is either engaged to him, or, for the sake of her morals, ought to be. You understand?"

"Yes—I begin to understand."

"To-night I was able to watch Miss Dalroy narrowly. I could see that she was prey to some great anxiety. Once she nearly broke down, and went on with her part with the greatest difficulty. I was sure then that young Lord Helsham's disappearance was not to the advantage of Nella Dalroy.

"During the second act she had to wait, and she stood at the wings. One of the young ladies of the company, evidently her friend, came and talked to her, and I managed to overhear a little of the conversation.

"'Haven't you heard anything more?' said her friend.

"'Yes—to-night just as I left home—a letter telling me that he sees no way out of his trouble, and that I must forget him, and that we shall never meet again—and—and'—here her voice quivered—'he says he has left me all that he has a right to leave me. Oh, what can he mean by that?'

"At that moment Miss Dalroy's cue came, and she went on the stage. It was fortunate for her that it was a tearful scene she was playing, or her agitation must have been noticeable."

Dorcas Dene leant back in the hansom, lost in thought.

After a moment's silence I ventured to ask her how she arrived at the conclusion that Lord Helsham contemplated suicide.

"What else can it mean?" she answered, half speaking to herself. "'I have left you all I have a right to leave.' If he thought of himself in the future as a living man, he would have said, 'I will give you all.'"

I shook my head, and murmured that I really couldn't see any possible reason why a wealthy young nobleman who was his own master should put an end to his life after making a will in favour of a pretty actress who was deeply in love with him.

"Nor I," replied Dorcas Dene. "But I am engaged to restore her son to Lady Helsham, and it is my duty to restore him alive if possible. But here we are at Grosvenor Square."

I got out and assisted Dorcas Dene to alight. "May I wait for you?" I said.

"Not here. But you will do me a great service if you will take the cab and go on to Oak Tree Road, and tell my husband I shall be home some time to-night."

* * * * * * *

It was past midnight when Dorcas Dene joined the little family circle at Oak Tree Road. Paul Dene, the blind artist, had invited me to stay and keep him company until his wife returned.

A few minutes later, the lady detective, divested of her war-paint, was leaning back in the arm-chair and "stating her case," in order that she might have the opinion of her husband and her mother upon it.

Briefly and concisely Dorcas Dene put her "points."

"Here is the case so far as I've gone," she said. "Lord Helsham left Grosvenor Square last week after a 'few words' with his mother. What those 'words' were about, she will not tell me. 'Family matters' is all the explanation I can get from her. He has not been to his club or to his country house, or any hotel in his right name, because inquiries in these directions had been exhausted before I was called in. He is in great distress of mind about something, because he has written a heart-broken letter to the girl he probably intended to marry. She is evidently still devoted to him, so that love has nothing to do with his mental condition. If love is not the cause of his extraordinary behaviour, what can be?"

The blind artist, who had sat silently listening, turned his sightless eyes towards his wife. "Mr. Saxon has told us, Dorcas, that you had an idea the poor fellow contemplated suicide, and he has told us how you arrived at that conclusion. If you reject love and insanity there is only one other thing that will drive a man to deliberate suicide."

"And that is?"

"Fear."

Dorcas laid her hand gently on her husband's arm. "Yes, your thought is mine, dear," she said softly, "but what does he fear?"

"What did his mother say to-night, when you told her what your discoveries had led you to believe?"

"Although, of course, she was horrified, and for a time upset, she really seemed—how shall I put it?—rather relieved in her mind!"

"Relieved to hear her son was likely to kill himself!" exclaimed Mrs. Lester indignantly.

"Well, perhaps relieved is hardly the word. She has seemed to me all along to be in a state of nervous terror as to something dreadful being likely to happen, and when I suggested suicide it seemed as though that was not the worst that she had contemplated. That's what I meant by its being a relief to her."

"Whatever is it that Lord Helsham fears," murmured the blind artist, "it is evident that his mother fears it also. No other theory would account for her being 'relieved'—as you call it—by the idea that he has suicide in his mind."

"Yes," said Dorcas Dene, "and she can only feel that relief for two reasons—either that his death would prevent his arrest for some crime, or would prevent the discovery of something which would bring terrible consequences to him."

"Or to her," said Paul, quietly.

Dorcas Dene started.

"Yes!" she cried, springing to her feet, "that's it—that would account for everything."

"What sort of person is this Lady Helsham?" I asked, venturing to join in the council.

Dorcas Dene drew her notebook from her pocket. "Here is the family history as I got it from Mr. — when I took up the case. The late Lord Helsham married a young Scotch lady who was a member of a travelling opera troupe."

"Heredity again!" murmured Paul. "The son falls in love with an actress."

"Two years after their marriage the Earl was killed by a fall from his horse in the hunting-field. The next heir was the Earl's younger brother, the Hon. John Farman, but the peerage had to remain in abeyance pending the accouchement of Lady Helsham, an event which occurred prematurely a month later."

"And the child born a month after its father's death was the present Lord Helsham?"

"Yes," said Dorcas Dene, "that is so. Here are some further particulars. Lady Helsham some years later adopted her sister's little girl, a child of the same age as her son, and the children were brought up together until lately, when her ladyship endeavoured to bring about a marriage between the two. But his lordship informed his mother that the idea was entirely repugnant to him, and eventually the young lady left the family mansion and went back to reside with her real mother in Scotland. Mr. — said he gave me these particulars as it was possible, though not probable, that ill-feeling had come between the mother and son through this young lady. And it was concerning her that the 'words' occurred which preceded Lord Helsham's departure from his home."

"And that view of the case you have not thought out at all, Dorcas?" asked Paul Dene.

"No, I thought it better to look for the girl Lord Helsham was likely to go after than for the one he was likely to avoid. But——" Dorcas Dene rose and began to pace the room. No one spoke a word. Suddenly she came up to me and held out her hand.

"Good-night," she said. "I am so much obliged to you for all your help to-day. Come and see us again soon, won't you?"

"But I should like to know more about this case," I said; "I am much interested in it, you know."

"Yes, I quite understand that," replied the lady detective, "but I am afraid it will turn out a far more difficult business than I imagined when I undertook it. Good-night."

There was nothing for me to do but shake hands all round and make as dignified an exit as was possible under the circumstances.

* * * * * * *

A few days afterwards business called me to Paris, and it was quite a fortnight later that sitting one evening outside the Café de la Paix reading the Daily Telegraph the name of Lord Helsham caught my eye, and I turned eagerly to an article headed, "A Mystery Cleared Up," and read the following:

"The mystery surrounding the strange disappearance of Lord Helsham has at last been elucidated. His lordship's clothes and watch and scarf-pin have been found in a small cave on the coast near Cromer. It is supposed that his lordship, who must have been staying in the neighbourhood incognito, and who was an expert swimmer, had gone out early in the morning to bathe from the shore. The supposition is that he was seized with cramp and sank unobserved, that part of the coast being a secluded and lonely one. It is not probable after this lapse of time that the body will be recovered. The missing nobleman was traced, and the discovery made, by the famous lady detective Mrs. Dorcas Dene. Lord Helsham is succeeded by his uncle, the Hon. John Farman, who is unmarried."

Immediately on my return to town I hastened to call at Oak Tree Road. Dorcas Dene was out in the pretty little garden at the back reading to her husband, who was sitting under the trees in a great wicker chair. Toddlekins, the bulldog, was lying stretched out in the sunshine.

As I looked at the little group from the dining-room window, I could not help thinking how far removed the loving and tender wife devoting herself to the blind husband seemed from the woman who had unravelled the mystery of the tragic fate of young Lord Helsham.

The servant took my card to her mistress, and Dorcas Dene came in smiling and happy, and gave me a sweet, womanly welcome.

"Won't you come into the garden? Paul will be so pleased," she said.

I shook my head. "Presently. But first I want to know about the Helsham case. I think you ought to tell me, because once—just for a little time—we were partners in this business, you know."

Dorcas Dene's gentle face became suddenly grave. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, "I suppose I ought to tell you. Sit down and you shall hear the story of what happened after you left that night in as few words as possible, for I want to get back to the book I am reading to Paul. It's a sweet book, and we're just in the middle of it. You ought to read it. It is 'The Man who was Good.'"

"Never mind about the man who was good, I want to hear about the woman who was clever. How did you find poor Lord Helsham, and what was the cause of his unhappy fate?"

"You remember our conversation the night we parted," said Dorcas Dene. "The next morning at nine o'clock I went straight to the residence of the Hon. John Farman, the person who would succeed to the title if anything happened to Lord Helsham. He had heard of the disappearance, but concluded it was some temporary feminine entanglement. I showed him how necessary it was that he should be one of the earliest to know of his nephew's fate, and begged him to tell me anything that would assist me in my enquiries. Having already certain ideas in my head, I asked him if he knew where Lord Helsham was born, and he told me that Lady Helsham was confined at the house of her sister, the wife of a captain in the merchant service, who had at the time just sailed for Australia. This sister was residing in Scotland, and Lady Helsham had gone to her in the early days of her widowhood. Mr. Farman himself was absent from England at the time on a hunting expedition in the Rockies, and it was not until a later period that he received the news of his brother's death and the birth of an heir.

"'Had the child been a girl you would have inherited everything?'

"'With the exception of the income secured to Lady Helsham, yes. As it was a boy—'

"'You accepted the situation. And when Lady Helsham returned to London she brought her child with her, of course?'

"'Yes. I arrived a few days after her return. We were not friendly during my brother's lifetime, but I desired to show every courtesy I could to the widow.'

"'And as the child grew up you saw him——'

"'Frequently. He was very much attached to me, and latterly my nephew and myself have been on very friendly terms.'

"'But you have not assisted in any way in endeavouring to find him?'

"'No. I called on Lady Helsham, and she declared there was no cause for alarm. It was an entanglement. She begged me to do nothing for fear of making a scandal. That is why I am rather astonished to learn that she has employed professional assistance' (he bowed to me) 'and let me know nothing about it.'

"'And Lady Helsham's sister and the captain?'

"'The sister is the mother of the little girl Lady Helsham afterwards adopted. I understood when this young lady left Grosvenor Square, she had gone back to her mother, who is now a widow.'

"'And now will you tell me what sort of a young man Lord Helsham was. Was he flighty, weak-minded, dissipated, cunning?'

"'Oh, no,' replied Mr. Farman, 'he was a most lovable and amiable young fellow—highly strung, and sensitive to a degree—romantic undoubtedly, but the soul of honour.'

"I bade Mr. Farman good-day, promising him the earliest information, and went to the —— Theatre. There I ascertained the address of Miss Dalroy, and at once sought an interview with her, telling her frankly that I was trying to find her lover and restore him to his friends.

"With tears in her eyes she offered to give me any assistance she could. She told me Lord Helsham had promised to marry her, and she showed me the letters she had had since his disappearance. They all spoke of a great shock he had received, and one of them of 'a terrible discovery which must separate them for ever.' It was not concerning her, but a matter relating to his own family.

"By this time I was convinced that the idea which had come to me when I so rudely asked you to take your departure was the key to the mystery. I knew after reading those letters what the skeleton in the Helsham family cupboard was, and I understood the dilemma in which the high-spirited and honourable young man suddenly found himself.

"I asked Miss Dalroy to let me see the last envelope she had received. Fortunately she had kept the letter in it, and showed it to me.

"The letter had been posted in Dunkeld. Dunkeld was in Scotland. That was where Lady Helsham's adopted daughter was—that was where Lady Helsham's sister lived, the sister in whose house Lord Helsham had been born. It was there that I should probably get the latest news of him.

"I went home, and flinging a few things into a Gladstone bag, caught the first train North. Twelve hours later I was in Dunkeld. A few hurried inquiries of the railway porters at the station, and the solitary flyman outside, and at the little station hotel, told me that I was, as they say in the sensational detective stories, 'on the track.' A young gentleman answering the description I have of Lord Helsham had come there a few days previously. The flyman had driven him to the house of Mrs. —, the merchant captain's widow, which was nearly five miles from the station, and nothing had been seen of him since.

"When the flyman had deposited me at the house, I made my way up the pathway with a fluttering heart, for in spite of my profession, I have still that feminine weakness in moments of excitement. The door was opened by an old Scotch servant. I asked for Mrs. —, and without waiting for an answer walked straight into a room where I could hear voices.

"An elderly spectacled man was talking with a widow lady. As I entered I caught one sentence—but that was music in my ears.

"'There's not the slightest danger—it's a feverish cold—but the poor young fellow is very low and nervous. I should not leave him alone.'

"It was a doctor who was speaking. I didn't want to guess twice who the poor young gentleman was.

"The widow lady started as I entered and angrily asked me what I wanted.

"'A few words with you alone,' I answered. The doctor bowed and left us together.

"'Who are you?' exclaimed the widow, betraying her nervous agitation in her manner, 'and what do you want with me?'

"'My name is Dorcas Dene—I come from Lady Helsham with a message for her son.

"'You know——!' gasped the widow.

"'That he is here and upstairs ill—yes. This terrible discovery has been a severe shock to him.'

"At the words 'terrible discovery' the widow lady reeled and caught a chair for support.

"'You know that—Lady Helsham has told you?'

"'I had to know,' I answered, evading the question. 'Now for the sake of everybody we must decide what is the best to be done to avoid scandal. He talks of killing himself, but that is cowardly. What do you think can be done?'

"It was a trap and the woman fell into it.

"'I don't know,' she gasped. 'Bertie declares that if he lives he will not retain the title or the property. He says that his death is the only thing that can save me and my sister from—from——' She hesitated; then with a sudden terror that she had betrayed too much, she cried, 'But if you know—tell me what you know.'

"'Only what I was bound to know to be of any use in the case,' I said, quietly. 'That the child which Lady Helsham bore in this house was not the child she returned to London with as the heir. He has discovered that he has unwittingly dispossessed another of the title and estates, and he refuses to be a party to the fraud any longer. The only way in which he can restore them is by dying. To publish the truth now would be to put Lady Helsham in the dock, and, as you say, you also, for you were a party to the imposture.'

"'It was my sister who persuaded me—who took my baby boy from me and left the girl at home with me. My husband was away. Only the old servant you have just seen was with me, and she cannot read or write. It was so simple and—and——'

"'And the doctor?'

"She hesitated. 'Why do you ask these questions of me? If you know all Lady Helsham must have told you.'

"'I have come from Lady Helsham to find her son—the rest I have learned for myself. Now you must tell me everything or I cannot help you. If I abandon the case it will be taken up by the police.'

"I succeeded at last in showing the unhappy woman that she must make a clean breast of it, and she confessed everything. There was no idea of fraud at first. Lady Helsham came to her sister, who was alone and expecting her confinement. It was the coincidence of her own child being born prematurely, and within twenty-four hours of her sister's, that made Lady Helsham grasp at the idea. Had she confessed that her child was a girl she would have had to give up everything—except her allowance under the will—to her husband's brother. The captain's wife was attended by a local midwife. The doctor from the nearest town sent for to Lady Helsham was away at a consultation, and only returned twenty-four hours after the premature birth of her child. When he arrived he simply saw that his patient was doing well. The sisters had by that time agreed on the fraud with the assistance of the midwife, who received a good allowance from Lady Helsham for her assistance. The doctor left, fully assured that Lady Helsham had given birth to a son, and from that hour the fraud became a simple one. The only person who might have betrayed them was the simple Scotch servant, who probably was too ignorant to understand what had been done or too terrified to open her mouth afterwards, for fear of being looked upon as an accomplice.

"This was the Helsham mystery. Lady Helsham had, it seems, in her rage at her supposed son's refusal to marry her real daughter, whom she loved and desired to benefit, involuntarily revealed her secret, threatening the young fellow with the loss of everything if he refused.

"Thereupon he quitted the house, but he feared to tell the truth, because he would be giving up his own mother to a long term of penal servitude. In his overwrought frame of mind he saw only one loophole—suicide. His death would allow the title and estates to pass to the rightful owner without the fraud being discovered and the guilty parties punished.

"He had gone to bid his mother—whom he had hitherto only regarded as his aunt—farewell, and tell her what he intended to do, had broken down, and had been unable to leave the house again."

"But he committed suicide after all!" I exclaimed.

Dorcas Dene smiled. "No, I arranged that. I knew that for the young man's sake the real Lord Helsham would spare the guilty mother if possible. I persuaded the young man to let me take his watch and clothes. I selected a place as far away from the hiding place of the missing man as possible, and decided on the Norfolk coast, near Cromer. I found the clothes where I put them."

"And the real Lord Helsham knows?"

"Everything. No good purpose would have been served by prosecuting the two women. The new Lord Helsham insisted on a written confession from all concerned, which he retains for his own protection. As I was employed by one of the guilty parties, it would have been unprofessional of me to give them to justice."

"And the young man himself?"

"Is rapidly recovering from his illness in that quiet and lonely little house in his identity. Lord Helsham has behaved handsomely. He wishes his 'nephew' to marry in his real name the girl he loves, and the young couple will presently go by separate routes to America, and there be united, and, as they love each other, will be able to live happily on the income Lord Helsham will allow them. Of course if any difficulty should arise with regard to the succession the truth will have to be known. Until then it is 'our' secret. In the meantime Lady Helsham has wisely decided to live abroad, and only her solicitor is aware of her address.

"And now you know all about the Helsham mystery. Come into the garden and see Paul, and tell me what you think of the new collar I've bought Toddlekins for his birthday."

"But," I exclaimed, "the new Lord Helsham is compounding a felony, and—well, is it wise of him, seeing that the young man is still alive?"

Dorcas Dene shrugged her shoulders. "My dear Mr. Saxon," she said, "if everybody did the legal thing and the wise thing, there would be very little work left for a lady detective."

III. THE MAN WITH THE WILD EYES

I had become a constant visitor at Oak Tree Road. I had conceived a great admiration for the brave and yet womanly woman who, when her artist husband was stricken with blindness, and the future looked dark for both of them, had gallantly made the best of her special gifts and opportunities and nobly undertaken a profession which was not only a harassing and exhausting one for a woman, but by no means free from grave personal risks.

Dorcas Dene was always glad to welcome me for her husband's sake. "Paul has taken to you immensely," she said to me one afternoon, "and I hope you will call in and spend an hour or two with him whenever you can. My cases take me away from home so much—he cannot read, and my mother, with the best intentions in the world, can never converse with him for more than five minutes without irritating him. Her terribly matter of fact views of life are, to use his own expression, absolutely 'rasping' to his dreamy, artistic temperament."

I had plenty of spare time on my hands, and so it became my custom to drop in two or three times a week, and smoke a pipe and chat with Paul Dene. His conversation was always interesting, and the gentle resignation with which he bore his terrible affliction quickly won my heart. But I am not ashamed to confess that my frequent journeys to Oak Tree Road were also largely influenced by my desire to see Dorcas Dene, and hear more of her strange adventures and experiences as a lady detective.

From the moment she knew that her husband valued my companionship she treated me as one of the family, and when I was fortunate enough to find her at home, she discussed her professional affairs openly before me. I was grateful for this confidence, and frequently I was able to assist her by going about with her in cases where the presence of a male companion was a material advantage to her. I had upon one occasion laughingly dubbed myself her "assistant," and by that name I was afterwards generally known. There was only one drawback to the pleasure I felt at being associated with Dorcas Dene in her detective work. I saw that it would be quite impossible for me to avoid reproducing my experiences in some form or other. One day I broached the subject to her cautiously.

"Are you not afraid of the assistant one day revealing the professional secrets of his chief?" I said.

"Not at all," replied Dorcas (everybody called her Dorcas, and I fell into the habit when I found that she and her husband preferred it to the formal "Mrs. Dene"); "I am quite sure that you will not be able to resist the temptation."

"And you don't object?"

"Oh, no, but with this stipulation, that you will use the material in such a way as not to identify any of the cases with the real parties concerned."

That lifted a great responsibility from my shoulders, and made me more eager than ever to prove myself a valuable "assistant" to the charming lady who honoured me with her confidence.

* * * * * * *

We were sitting in the dining-room one evening after dinner. Mrs. Lester was looking contemptuously over the last number of the Queen, and wondering out loud what on earth young women were coming to with their tailor-mades and their bicycle costumes. Paul was smoking the old briar-root pipe which had been his constant companion in the studio when he was able to paint, poor fellow, and Dorcas was lying down on the sofa. Toddlekins, nestled up close to her, was snoring gently after the manner of his kind.

Dorcas had had a hard and exciting week, and had not been ashamed to confess that she felt a little played out. She had just succeeded in rescuing a young lady of fortune from the toils of an unprincipled Russian adventurer, and stopping the marriage almost at the altar rails by the timely production of the record of the would-be bridegroom, which she obtained with the assistance of M. Goron, the head of the French detective police. It was a return compliment. Dorcas had only a short time previously undertaken for M. Goron a delicate investigation, in which the son of one of the noblest houses in France was involved, and had nipped in the bud a scandal which would have kept the Boulevards chattering for a month.

Paul and I were conversing below our voices, for Dorcas's measured breathing showed us that she had fallen into a doze.

Suddenly Toddlekins opened his eyes and uttered an angry bark. He had heard the front gate bell.

A minute later the servant entered and handed a card to her mistress, who, with her eyes still half closed, was sitting up on the sofa.

"The gentleman says he must see you at once, ma'am, on business of the greatest importance."

Dorcas looked at the card. "Show the gentleman into the dining-room," she said to the servant, "and say that I will be with him directly."

Then she went to the mantel-glass and smoothed away the evidence of her recent forty winks. "Do you know him at all?" she said, handing me the card.

"Colonel Hargreaves, Orley Park, near Godalming." I shook my head, and Dorcas, with a little tired sigh, went to see her visitor.

A few minutes later the dining-room bell rang, and presently the servant came into the drawing-room. "Please, sir," she said, addressing me, "mistress says will you kindly come to her at once?"

When I entered the dining-room I was astonished to see an elderly, soldierly-looking man lying back unconscious in the easy chair, and Dorcas Dene bending over him.

"I don't think it's anything but a faint," she said. "He's very excited and over-wrought, but if you'll stay here I'll go and get some brandy. You had better loosen his collar—or shall we send for a doctor?"

"No, I don't think it is anything serious," I said, after a hasty glance at the invalid.

As soon as Dorcas had gone I began to loosen the Colonel's cravat, but I had hardly commenced before, with a deep sigh, he opened his eyes and came to himself.

"You're better now," I said. "Come—that's all right."

The Colonel stared about him for a moment, and then said, "I—I—where is the lady?"

"She'll be here in a moment. She's gone to get some brandy."

"Oh, I'm all right now, thank you. I suppose it was the excitement, and I've been travelling, had nothing to eat, and I'm so terribly upset. I don't often do this sort of thing, I assure you."

Dorcas returned with the brandy. The Colonel brightened up directly she came into the room. He took the glass she offered him and drained the contents.

"I'm all right now," he said. "Pray let me get on with my story. I hope you will be able to take the case up at once. Let me see—where was I?"

He gave a little uneasy glance at me. "You can speak without reserve before this gentleman," said Dorcas. "It is possible he may be able to assist us if you wish me to come to Orley Park at once. So far you have told me that your only daughter, who is five-and-twenty, and lives with you, was found last night on the edge of the lake in your grounds, half in the water and half out. She was quite insensible, and was carried into the house and put to bed. You were in London at the time, and returned to Orley Park this morning in consequence of a telegram you received. That is as far as you had got when you became ill."

"Yes—yes!" exclaimed the Colonel, "but I am quite well again now. When I arrived at home this morning shortly before noon I was relieved to find that Maud—that is my poor girl's name—was quite conscious, and the doctor had left a message that I was not to be alarmed, and that he would return and see me early in the afternoon.

"I went at once to my daughter's room and found her naturally in a very low, distressed state. I asked her how it had happened, as I could not understand it, and she told me that she had gone out in the grounds after dinner and must have turned giddy when by the edge of the lake and fallen in."

"Is it a deep lake?" asked Dorcas.

"Yes, in the middle, but shallow near the edge. It is a largish lake, with a small fowl island in the centre, and we have a boat upon it."

"Probably it was a sudden fainting fit—such as you yourself have had just now. Your daughter may be subject to them."

"No, she is a thoroughly strong, healthy girl."

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," said Dorcas; "pray go on, for I presume there is something behind this accident besides a fainting fit, or you would not have come to engage my services in the matter."

"There is a great deal more behind it," replied Colonel Hargreaves, pulling nervously at his grey moustache. "I left my daughter's bedside devoutly thankful that Providence had preserved her from such a dreadful death, but when the doctor arrived he gave me a piece of information which caused me the greatest uneasiness and alarm."

"He didn't believe in the fainting fit?" said Dorcas, who had been closely watching the Colonel's features.

The Colonel looked at Dorcas Dene in astonishment. "I don't know how you have divined that," he said, "but your surmise is correct. The doctor told me that he had questioned Maud himself, and she had told him the same story—sudden giddiness and a fall into the water. But he had observed that on her throat there were certain marks, and that her wrists were bruised.

"When he told me this I did not at first grasp his meaning. 'It must have been the violence of the fall,' I said.

"The doctor shook his head and assured me that no accident would account for the marks his experienced eye had detected. The marks round the throat must have been caused by the clutch of an assailant. The wrists could only have been bruised in the manner they were by being held in a violent and brutal grip."

Dorcas Dene, who had been listening apparently without much interest, bent eagerly forward as the Colonel made this extraordinary statement. "I see," she said. "Your daughter told you that she had fallen into the lake, and the doctor assures you that she must have told you an untruth. She had been pushed or flung in by someone else after a severe struggle."

"Yes!"

"And the young lady, when you questioned her further, with this information in your possession, what did she say?"

"She appeared very much excited, and burst into tears. When I referred to the marks on her throat, which were now beginning to show discoloration more distinctly, she declared that she had invented the story of the faint in order not to alarm me—that she had been attacked by a tramp who must have got into the grounds, and that he had tried to rob her, and that in the struggle, which took place near the edge of the lake, he had thrown her down at the water's edge and then made his escape."

"And that explanation you do accept?" said Dorcas, looking at the Colonel keenly.

"How can I? Why should my daughter try to screen a tramp? Why did she tell the doctor an untruth? Surely the first impulse of a terrified woman rescued from a terrible death would have been to have described her assailant in order that he might have been searched for and brought to justice."

"And the police, have they made any inquiries? Have they learned if any suspicious persons were seen about that evening?"

"I have not been to the police. I talked the matter over with the doctor. He says that the police inquiries would make the whole thing public property, and it would be known everywhere that my daughter's story, which has now gone all over the neighbourhood, was untrue. But the whole affair is so mysterious, and to me so alarming, that I could not leave it where it is. It was the doctor who advised me to come to you and let the inquiry be a private one."

"You need employ no one if your daughter can be persuaded to tell the truth. Have you tried?"

"Yes. But she insists that it was a tramp, and declares that until the bruises betrayed her she kept to the fainting-fit story in order to make the affair as little alarming to me as possible."

Dorcas Dene rose. "What time does the last train leave for Godalming?"

"In an hour," said the Colonel, looking at his watch. "At the station my carriage will be waiting to take us to Orley Court. I want you to stay beneath my roof until you have discovered the key to the mystery."

"No," said Dorcas, after a minute's thought. "I could do no good to-night, and my arrival with you would cause talk among the servants. Go back by yourself. Call on the doctor. Tell him to say his patient requires constant care during the next few days, and that he has sent for a trained nurse from London. The trained nurse will arrive about noon to-morrow."

"And you?" exclaimed the Colonel, "won't you come?"

Dorcas smiled. "Oh, yes; I shall be the trained nurse."

The Colonel rose. "If you can discover the truth and let me know what it is my daughter is concealing from me I shall be eternally grateful," he said. "I shall expect you to-morrow at noon."

"To-morrow at noon you will expect the trained nurse for whom the doctor has telegraphed. Good evening."

I went to the door with Colonel Hargreaves, and saw him down the garden to the front gate.

When I went back to the house Dorcas Dene was waiting for me in the hall. "Are you busy for the next few days?" she said.

"No—I have practically nothing to do."

"Then come to Godalming with me to-morrow. You are an artist, and I must get you permission to sketch that lake while I am nursing my patient indoors."

* * * * * * *

It was past noon when the fly, hired from the station, stopped at the lodge gates of Orley Park, and the lodge-keeper's wife opened them to let us in.

"You are the nurse for Miss Maud, I suppose, miss?" she said, glancing at Dorcas's neat hospital nurse's costume.

"Yes."

"The Colonel and the doctor are both at the house expecting you, miss—I hope it isn't serious with the poor young lady."

"I hope not," said Dorcas, with a pleasant smile.

A minute or two later the fly pulled up at the door of a picturesque old Elizabethan mansion. The Colonel, who had seen the fly from the window, was on the steps waiting for us, and at once conducted us into the library. Dorcas explained my presence in a few words. I was her assistant, and through me she would be able to make all the necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood.

"To your people Mr. Saxon will be an artist to whom you have given permission to sketch the house and the grounds—I think that will be best."

The Colonel promised that I should have free access at all hours to the grounds, and it was arranged that I should stay at a pretty little inn which was about half a mile from the park. Having received full instructions on the way down from Dorcas, I knew exactly what to do, and bade her good-bye until the evening, when I was to call at the house to see her.

The doctor came into the room to conduct the new nurse to the patient's bedside, and I left to fulfil my instructions.

At "The Chequers," which was the name of the inn, it was no sooner known that I was an artist, and had permission to sketch in the grounds of Orley Park, than the landlady commenced to entertain me with accounts of the accident which had nearly cost Miss Hargreaves her life.

The fainting-fit story, which was the only one that had got about, had been accepted in perfect faith.

"It's a lonely place, that lake, and there's nobody about the grounds, you see, at night, sir—it was a wonder the poor young lady was found so soon."

"Who found her?" I asked.

"One of the gardeners who lives in a cottage in the park. He'd been to Godalming for the evening, and was going home past the lake."

"What time was it?"

"Nearly ten o'clock. It was lucky he saw her, for it had been dark nearly an hour then, and there was no moon."

"What did he think when he found her?"

"Well, sir, to tell you the truth, he thought at first it was suicide, and that the young lady hadn't gone far enough in and had lost her senses."

"Of course, he couldn't have thought it was murder or anything of that sort," I said, "because nobody could get in at night—without coming through the lodge gates."

"Oh! yes, they could at one place, but it'ud have to be somebody who knew the dogs or was with someone who did. There's a couple of big mastiffs have got a good run there, and no stranger 'ud try to clamber over—it's a side gate used by the family, sir—after they'd started barking."

"Did they bark that night at all, do you know?"

"Well, yes," said the landlady. "Now I come to think of it, Mr. Peters—that's the lodge-keeper—heard 'em, but they was quiet in a minute, so he took no more notice."

That afternoon the first place I made up my mind to sketch was the Lodge. I found Mr. Peters at home, and my pass from the Colonel secured his good graces at once. His wife had told him of the strange gentleman who had arrived with the nurse, and I explained that there being only one fly at the station and our destination the same, the nurse had kindly allowed me to share the vehicle with her.

I made elaborate pencil marks and notes in my new sketching book, telling Mr. Peters I was only doing something preliminary and rough, in order to conceal the amateurish nature of my efforts, and keep the worthy man gossiping about the "accident" to his young mistress.

I referred to the landlady's statement that he had heard dogs bark that night.

"Oh, yes, but they were quiet directly."

"Probably some stranger passing down by the side gate, eh?"

"Most likely, sir. I was a bit uneasy at first, but when they quieted down I thought it was all right."

"Why were you uneasy?"

"Well, there'd been a queer sort of a looking man hanging about that evening. My missus saw him peering in at the lodge gates about seven o'clock."

"A tramp?"

"No, a gentlemanly sort of man, but he gave my missus a turn, he had such wild, staring eyes. But he spoke all right. My missus asked him what he wanted, and he asked her what was the name of the big house he could see, and who lived there. She told him it was Orley Park, and Colonel Hargreaves lived there, and he thanked her and went away. A tourist, maybe, sir, or perhaps an artist gentleman, like yourself."

"Staying in the neighbourhood and examining its beauties perhaps."

"No; when I spoke about it the next day in the town I heard as he'd come by the train that afternoon; the porters had noticed him, he seemed so odd."

I finished my rough sketch and then asked Mr. Peters to take me to the scene of the accident. It was a large lake and answered the description given by the Colonel.

"That there's the place where Miss Maud was found," said Mr. Peters. "You see it's shallow there, and her head was just on the bank here out of the water."

"Thank you. That's a delightful little island in the middle. I'll smoke a pipe here and sketch. Don't let me detain you."

The lodge-keeper retired, and obeying the instructions received from Dorcas Dene, I examined the spot carefully.

The marks of hobnailed boots were distinctly visible in the mud at the side, near the place where the struggle, admitted by Miss Hargreaves, had taken place. They might be the tramp's—they might be the gardener's; I was not skilled enough in the art of footprints to determine. But I had obtained a certain amount of information, and with that, at seven o'clock, I went to the house and asked for the Colonel.

I had, of course, nothing to say to him, except to ask him to let Dorcas Dene know that I was there. In a few minutes Dorcas came to me with her bonnet and cloak on.

"I'm going to get a walk while it is light," she said; "come with me."

Directly we were outside I gave her my information, and she at once decided to visit the lake.

She examined the scene of the accident carefully, and I pointed out the hobnailed boot marks.

"Yes," she said, "those are the gardener's probably—I'm looking for someone else's."

"Whose?"

"These," she said, suddenly stopping and pointing to a series of impressions in the soil at the edge. "Look—here are a woman's footprints, and here are larger ones beside them—now close to—now a little way apart—now crossing each other. Do you see anything particular in these footprints?"

"No—except that there are no nails in them."

"Exactly—the footprints are small, but larger than Miss Hargreaves'—the shape is an elegant one, you see the toes are pointed, and the sole is a narrow one. No tramp would have boots like those. Where did you say Mrs. Peters saw that strange-looking gentleman?"

"Peering through the lodge gates."

"Let us go there at once."

Mrs. Peters came out and opened the gates for us.

"What a lovely evening," said Dorcas. "Is the town very far?"

"Two miles, miss."

"Oh, that's too far for me to-night."

She took out her purse and selected some silver.

"Will you please send down the first thing in the morning and buy me a bottle of Wood Violet scent at the chemist's. I always use it, and I've come away without any."

She was just going to hand some silver to Mrs. Peters, when she dropped her purse in the roadway, and the money rolled in every direction.

We picked most of it up, but Dorcas declared there was another half-sovereign. For fully a quarter of an hour she peered about in every direction outside the lodge gates for that missing half-sovereign, and I assisted her. She searched for quite ten minutes in one particular spot, a piece of sodden, loose roadway close against the right-hand gate.

Suddenly she exclaimed that she had found it, and, slipping her hand into her pocket, rose, and, handing Mrs. Peters a five-shilling piece for the scent, beckoned me to follow her, and strolled down the road.

"How came you to drop your purse? Are you nervous to-night?" I said.

"Not at all," replied Dorcas, with a smile. "I dropped my purse that the money might roll and give me an opportunity of closely examining the ground outside the gates."

"Did you really find your half-sovereign?"

"I never lost one; but I found what I wanted."

"And that was?"

"The footprints of the man who stood outside the gates that night. They are exactly the same shape as those by the side of the lake. The person Maud Hargreaves struggled with that night, the person who flung her into the lake and whose guilt she endeavoured to conceal by declaring she had met with an accident, was the man who wanted to know the name of the place, and asked who lived there—the man with the wild eyes."

IV. THE SECRET OF THE LAKE

"You are absolutely certain that the footprints of the man with the wild eyes, who frightened Mrs. Peters at the gate, and the footprints which are mixed up with those of Miss Hargreaves by the side of the lake, are the same?" I said to Dorcas Dene.

"Absolutely certain."

"Then perhaps, if you describe him, the Colonel may be able to recognise him."

"No," said Dorcas Dene, "I have already asked him if he knew anyone who could possibly bear his daughter a grudge, and he declares that there is no one to his knowledge. Miss Hargreaves has scarcely any acquaintances."

"And has had no love affair?" I asked.

"None, her father says, but of course he can only answer for the last three years. Previously to that he was in India, and Maud—who was sent home at the age of fourteen, when her mother died—had lived with an aunt at Norwood."

"Who do you think this man was who managed to get into the grounds and meet or surprise Miss Hargreaves by the lake—a stranger to her?"

"No; had he been a stranger, she would not have shielded him by inventing the fainting fit story."

We had walked some distance from the house, when an empty station fly passed us. We got in, Dorcas telling the man to drive us to the station.

When we got there, she told me to go and interview the porters and try and find out if a man of the description of our suspect had left on the night of the "accident."

I found the man who had told Mr. Peters that he had seen such a person arrive, and had noticed the peculiar expression of his eyes. This man assured me that no such person had left from that station. He had told his mates about him, and some of them would be sure to have seen him. The stranger brought no luggage, and gave up a single ticket from Waterloo.

Dorcas was waiting for me outside, and I gave her my information.

"No luggage," she said; "then he wasn't going to an hotel or to stay at a private house."

"But he might be living somewhere about."

"No; the porters would have recognised him if he had been in the habit of coming here."

"But he must have gone away after flinging Miss Hargreaves into the water. He might have got out of the grounds again and walked to another station, and caught a train back to London."

"Yes, he might," said Dorcas, "but I don't think he did. Come, we'll take the fly back to Orley Park."

Just before we reached the park Dorcas stopped the driver, and we got out and dismissed the man.

"Whereabouts are those dogs—near the private wooden door in the wall used by the family, aren't they?" she said to me.

"Yes, Peters pointed the spot out to me this afternoon."

"Very well, I'm going in. Meet me by the lake to-morrow morning about nine. But watch me now as far as the gates. I'll wait outside five minutes before ringing. When you see I'm there, go to that portion of the wall near the private door. Clamber up and peer over. When the dogs begin to bark, and come at you, notice if you could possibly drop over and escape them without someone they knew called them off. Then jump down again and go back to the inn."

I obeyed Dorcas's instructions; and when I had succeeded in climbing to the top of the wall, the dogs flew out of their kennel, and commenced to bark furiously. Had I dropped I must have fallen straight into their grip. Suddenly I heard a shout, and I recognised the voice—it was the lodge-keeper. I dropped back into the road and crept along in the shadow of the wall. In the distance I could hear Peters talking to someone, and I knew what had happened. In the act of letting Dorcas in, he had heard the dogs, and had hurried off to see what was the matter. Dorcas had followed him.

* * * * * * *

At nine o'clock next morning I found Dorcas waiting for me.

"You did your work admirably last night," she said. "Peters was in a terrible state of alarm. He was very glad for me to come with him. He quieted the dogs, and we searched about everywhere in the shrubbery to see if anyone was in hiding. That man wasn't let in at the door that night by Miss Hargreaves; he dropped over. I found the impression of two deep footprints close together, exactly as they would be made by a drop or jump down from a height."

"Did he go back that way—were there return footprints?"

I thought I had made a clever suggestion, but Dorcas smiled, and shook her head. "I didn't look. How could he return past the dogs when Miss Hargreaves was lying in the lake? They'd have torn him to pieces."

"And you still think this man with the wild eyes is guilty? Who can he have been?"

"His name was Victor."

"You have discovered that!" I exclaimed. "Has Miss Hargreaves been talking to you?"

"Last night I tried a little experiment. When she was asleep, and evidently dreaming, I went quietly in the dark and stood just behind the bed, and in the gruffest voice I could assume, I said, bending down to her ear, 'Maud!'

"She started up, and cried out, 'Victor!'

"In a moment I was by her side, and found her trembling violently. 'What's the matter, dear?' I said, 'have you been dreaming?'

"'Yes—yes,' she said. 'I—I was dreaming.'

"I soothed her, and talked to her a little while, and finally she lay down again and fell asleep."

"That's something," I said "to have got the man's Christian name."

"Yes, it's a little, but I think we shall have the surname to-day. You must go up to town and do a little commission for me presently. In the meantime, pull that boat in and row me across to the fowl island. I want to search it."

"You don't imagine the man's hiding there," I said. "It's too small."

"Pull me over," said Dorcas, getting into the boat.

I obeyed, and presently we were on the little island.

Dorcas carefully surveyed the lake in every direction. Then she walked round and examined the foliage and the reeds that were at the edge and drooping into the water.

Suddenly pushing a mass of close overhanging growth aside, she thrust her hand deep down under it into the water and drew up a black, saturated, felt hat.

"I thought if anything drifted that night, this is where it would get caught and entangled," said Dorcas.

"If it is that man's hat, he must have gone away bareheaded."

"Quite so," replied Dorcas, "but first let us ascertain if it is his. Row ashore at once."

She wrung the water from the hat, squeezed it together and wrapped it up in her pocket-handkerchief and put it under her cloak.

When we were ashore, I went to the lodge and got Mrs. Peters on to the subject of the man with the wild eyes. Then I asked what sort of a hat he had on, and Mrs. Peters said it was a felt hat with a dent in the middle, and I knew that our find was a good one.

When I told Dorcas she gave a little smile of satisfaction.

"We've got his Christian name and his hat," she said; "now we want the rest of him. You can catch the 11.20 easily."

"Yes."

She drew an envelope from her pocket and took a carte de visite from it.

"That's the portrait of a handsome young fellow," she said. "By the style and size I should think it was taken four or five years ago. The photographers are the London Stereoscopic Company—the number of the negative is 111,492. If you go to Regent Street, they will search their books and give you the name and address of the original. Get it, and come back here."

"Is that the man?" I said.

"I think so."

"How on earth did you get it?"

"I amused myself while Miss Hargreaves was asleep by looking over the album in her boudoir. It was an old album, and filled with portraits of relatives and friends. I should say there were over fifty, some of them being probably her school-fellows. I thought I might find something, you know. People have portraits given them, put them in an album, and almost forget they are there. I fancied Miss Hargreaves might have forgotten."

"But how did you select this from fifty? There were other male portraits, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, but I took out every portrait and examined the back and the margin."

I took the photo from Dorcas and looked at it. I noticed that a portion of the back had been rubbed away and was rough.

"That's been done with an ink eraser," said Dorcas. "That made me concentrate on this particular photo. There has been a name written there or some word the recipient didn't want other eyes to see."

"That is only surmise."

"Quite so—but there's a certainty in the photo itself. Look closely at that little diamond scarf-pin in the necktie. What shape is it?"

"It looks like a small V."

"Exactly. It was fashionable a few years ago for gentlemen to wear a small initial pin. V. stands for Victor—take that and the erasure together, and I think it's worth a return fare to town to find out what name and address are opposite the negative number in the books of the London Stereoscopic Company."

* * * * * * *

Before two o'clock I was interviewing the manager of the Stereoscopic Company, and he readily referred to the books. The photograph had been taken six years previously, and the name and address of the sitter were "Mr. Victor Dubois, Anerley Road, Norwood."

Following Dorcas Dene's instructions, I proceeded at once to the address given, and made enquiries for a Mr. Victor Dubois. No one of that name resided there. The present tenants had been in possession for three years.

As I was walking back along the road I met an old postman. I thought I would ask him if he knew the name anywhere in the neighbourhood. He thought a minute, then said, "Yes—now I come to think of it there was a Dubois here at No. —, but that was five years ago or more. He was an oldish, white-haired gentleman."

"An old gentleman—Victor Dubois!"

"Ah, no—the old gentleman's name was Mounseer Dubois, but there was a Victor. I suppose that must have been his son as lived with him. I know the name. There used to be letters addressed there for Mr. Victor most every day—sometimes twice a day—always in the same hand-writing, a lady's—that's what made me notice it."

"And you don't know where M. Dubois and his son went to?"

"No, I did hear as the old gentleman went off his head, and was put in a lunatic asylum; but they went out o' my round."

"You don't know what he was, I suppose?"

"Oh, it said on the brass plate, 'Professor of Languages.'"

I went back to town and took the first train to Godalming, and hastened to Orley Court to report the results of my enquiries to Dorcas.

She was evidently pleased, for she complimented me. Then she rang the bell—we were in the dining-room—and the servant entered.

"Will you let the Colonel know that I should like to see him?" said Dorcas, and the servant went to deliver the message.

"Are you going to tell him everything?" I said.

"I am going to tell him nothing yet," replied Dorcas. "I want him to tell me something."

The Colonel entered. His face was worn, and he was evidently worrying himself a great deal.

"Have you anything to tell me?" he said eagerly. "Have you found out what my poor girl is hiding from me?"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you yet. But I want to ask you a few questions."

"I have given you all the information I can already," replied the Colonel a little bitterly.

"All you recollect, but now try and think. Your daughter, before you came back from India, was with her aunt at Norwood. Where was she educated from the time she left India?"

"She went to school at Brighton at first, but from the time she was sixteen she had private instruction at home."

"She had professors, I suppose, for music, French, etc.?"

"Yes, I believe so. I paid bills for that sort of thing. My sister sent them out to me to India."

"Can you remember the name of Dubois?"

The Colonel thought a little while.

"Dubois? Dubois? Dubois?" he said. "I have an idea there was such a name among the accounts my sister sent to me, but whether it was a dressmaker or a French master I really can't say."

"Then I think we will take it that your daughter had lessons at Norwood from a French professor named Dubois. Now, in any letters that your late sister wrote you to India, did she ever mention anything that had caused her uneasiness on Maud's account?"

"Only once," replied the Colonel, "and everything was satisfactorily explained afterwards. She left home one day at nine o'clock in the morning, and did not return until four in the afternoon. Her aunt was exceedingly angry, and Maud explained that she had met some friends at the Crystal Palace—she attended the drawing class there—had gone to see one of her fellow students off at the station, and sitting in the carriage, the train had started before she could get out and she had had to go on to London. I expect my sister told me that to show me how thoroughly I might rely upon her as my daughter's guardian."

"Went on to London?" said Dorcas to me under her voice, "and she could have got out in three minutes at the next station to Norwood!" Then turning to the Colonel, she said, "Now, Colonel, when your wife died, what did you do with her wedding ring?"

"Good heavens, madam!" exclaimed the Colonel, rising and pacing the room, "what can my poor wife's wedding ring have to do with my daughter's being flung into the lake yonder?"

"I am sorry if my question appears absurd," replied Dorcas quietly, "but will you kindly answer it?"

"My wife's wedding ring is on my dead wife's finger in her coffin in the graveyard at Simla," exclaimed the Colonel, "and now perhaps you'll tell me what all this means!"

"To-morrow," said Dorcas. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll take a walk with Mr. Saxon. Miss Hargreaves' maid is with her, and she will be all right until I return."

"Very well, very well!" exclaimed the Colonel, "but I beg—I pray of you to tell me what you know as soon as you can. I am setting spies upon my own child, and to me it is monstrous—and yet—and yet—what can I do? She won't tell me, and for her sake I must know—I must know."

"You shall, Colonel Hargreaves," said Dorcas, going up to him and holding out her hand. "Believe me, you have my sincerest sympathy."

The old Colonel grasped the proffered hand of Dorcas Dene.

"Thank you," he said, his lips quivering.

* * * * * * *

Directly we were in the grounds Dorcas Dene turned eagerly to me.

"I'm treating you very badly," she said, "but our task is nearly over. You must go back to town to-night. The first thing to-morrow morning go to Somerset House. You will find an old fellow named Daddy Green, a searcher in the inquiry room. Tell him you come from me, and give him this paper. When he has searched, telegraph the result to me, and come back by the next train."

I looked at the paper, and found written on it in Dorcas's hand:

"Search wanted.

Marriage—Victor Dubois and Maud Eleanor Hargreaves—probably between the years 1890 and 1893—London."

I looked up from the paper at Dorcas Dene.

"Whatever makes you think she is a married woman?" I said.

"This," exclaimed Dorcas, drawing an unworn wedding-ring from her purse. "I found it among a lot of trinkets at the bottom of a box her maid told me was her jewel-case. I took the liberty of trying all her keys till I opened it. A jewel-box tells many secrets to those who know how to read them."

"And you concluded from that——?

"That she wouldn't keep a wedding-ring without it had belonged to someone dear to her or had been placed on her own finger. It is quite unworn, you see, so it was taken off immediately after the ceremony. It was only to make doubly sure that I asked the Colonel where his wife's was."

* * * * * * *

I duly repaired to Somerset House, and soon after midday Daddy Green, the searcher, brought a paper and handed it to me. It was a copy of the certificate of the marriage of Victor Dubois, bachelor, aged twenty-six, and Maud Eleanor Hargreaves, aged twenty-one, in London, in the year 1891. I telegraphed the news, wording the message simply "Yes," and the date, and I followed my wire by the first train.

When I arrived at Orley Park I rang several times before anyone came. Presently Mrs. Peters, looking very white and excited, came from the grounds and apologised for keeping me waiting.

"Oh, sir—such a dreadful thing!" she said—"a body in the lake!"

"A body!"

"Yes, sir—a man. The nurse as came with you here that day, she was rowing herself on the lake, and she must have stirred it pushing with her oar, for it come up all tangled with weeds. It's a man, sir, and I do believe it's the man I saw at the gate that night."

"The man with the wild eyes!" I exclaimed.

"Yes sir! Oh, it is dreadful—Miss Maud first, and then this. Oh, what can it mean!"

I found Dorcas standing at the edge of the lake, and Peters and two of the gardeners lifting the drowned body of a man into the boat which was alongside.

Dorcas was giving instructions. "Lay it in the boat, and cover it with a tarpaulin," she said. "Mind, nothing is to be touched till the police come. I will go and find the Colonel."

As she turned away I met her.

"What a terrible thing! Is it Dubois?"

"Yes," replied Dorcas. "I suspected he was there yesterday, but I wanted to find him myself instead of having the lake dragged."

"Why?"

"Well, I didn't want anyone else to search the pockets. There might have been papers or letters, you know, which would have been read at the inquest, and might have compromised Miss Hargreaves. But there was nothing—"

"What—you searched!"

"Yes, after I'd brought the poor fellow to the surface with the oars."

"But how do you think he got in?"

"Suicide—insanity. The father was taken to a lunatic asylum—you learned that at Norwood yesterday. Son doubtless inherited tendency. Looks like a case of homicidal mania—he attacked Miss Hargreaves, whom he had probably tracked after years of separation, and after he had as he thought killed her, he drowned himself. At any rate, Miss Hargreaves is a free woman. She was evidently terrified of her husband when he was alive, and so—"

I guessed what Dorcas was thinking as we went together to the house. At the door she held out her hand. "You had better go to the inn and return to town to-night," she said. "You can do no more good, and had better keep out of it. I shall be home to-morrow. Come to Oak Tree Road in the evening."

* * * * * * *

The next evening Dorcas told me all that had happened after I left. Paul had already heard it, and when I arrived was profuse in his thanks for the assistance I had rendered his wife. Mrs. Lester, however, felt compelled to remark that she never thought a daughter of hers would go gadding about the country fishing up corpses for a living.

Dorcas had gone to the Colonel and told him everything. The Colonel was in a terrible state, but Dorcas told him that the only way in which to ascertain the truth was for them to go to the unhappy girl together, and attempt, with the facts in their possession, to persuade her to divulge the rest.

When the Colonel told his daughter that the man she had married had flung her into the lake that night, she was dumbfounded, and became hysterical, but when she learned that Dubois had been found in the lake she became alarmed and instantly told all she knew.

She had been in the habit of meeting Victor Dubois constantly when she was at Norwood, at first with his father—her French master—and afterwards alone. He was handsome, young, romantic, and they fell madly in love. He was going away for some time to an appointment abroad, and he urged her to marry him secretly. She foolishly consented, and they parted at the church, she returning to her home and he going abroad the same evening.

She received letters from him clandestinely from time to time. Then he wrote that his father had become insane and had to be removed to a lunatic asylum, and he was returning. He had only time to see to his father's removal and return to his appointment. She did not hear from him for a long time, and then through a friend at Norwood who knew the Dubois and their relatives she made enquiries. Victor had returned to England, and met with an accident which had injured his head severely. He became insane and was taken to a lunatic asylum.

The poor girl resolved to keep her marriage a secret for ever then, especially as her father had returned from India, and she knew how bitterly it would distress him to learn that his daughter was the wife of a madman.

On the night of the affair Maud was in the grounds by herself. She was strolling by the lake after dinner, when she heard a sound, and the dogs began to bark. Looking up, she saw Victor Dubois scaling the wall. Fearful that the dogs would bring Peters or someone on the scene, she ran to them and silenced them, and her husband leapt down and stood by her.

"Come away!" she said, fearing the dogs might attack him and begin to bark again, and she led him round by the lake which was out of sight of the house and the lodge.

She forgot for the moment in her excitement that he had been mad. At first he was gentle and kind. He told her he had been ill and in an asylum, but had recently been discharged cured. Directly he regained his liberty he set out in search of his wife, and ascertained from an old Norwood acquaintance that Miss Hargreaves was now living with her father at Orley Park, near Godalming.

Maud begged him to go away quietly, and she would write to him. He tried to take her in his arms and kiss her, but instinctively she shrank from him. Instantly he became furious. Seized with a sudden mania, he grasped her by the throat. She struggled and freed herself.

They were at the edge of the lake. Suddenly the maniac got her by the throat again, and hurled her down into the water. She fell in up to her waist, but managed to drag herself towards the edge, but before she emerged she fell senseless—fortunately with her head on the shore just out of the water.

The murderer, probably thinking that she was dead, must have waded out into the deep water and drowned himself.

Before she left Orley Park Dorcas advised the Colonel to let the inquest be held without any light being thrown on the affair by him. Only he was to take care that the police received information that a man answering the description of the suicide had recently been discharged from a lunatic asylum.

We heard later that at the inquest an official from the asylum attended, and the local jury found that Victor Dubois, a lunatic, got into the grounds in some way, and drowned himself in the lake while temporarily insane. It was suggested by the coroner that probably Miss Hargreaves, who was too unwell to attend, had not seen the man, but might have been alarmed by the sound of his footsteps, and that this would account for her fainting away near the water's edge. At any rate, the inquest ended in a satisfactory verdict, and the Colonel shortly afterwards took his daughter abroad with him on a Continental tour for the benefit of her health.

But of this of course we knew nothing on the evening after the eventful discovery, when I met Dorcas once more beneath her own roof-tree.

Paul was delighted to have his wife back again, and she devoted herself to him, and that evening had eyes and ears for no one else—not even for her faithful "assistant."

V. THE DIAMOND LIZARD

I had received a little note from Dorcas Dene, telling me that Paul and her mother had gone to the seaside for a fortnight, and that she was busy on a case which was keeping her from home, so that it would not be of any use my calling at Oak Tree Road at present, as I should find no one there but the servants and whitewashers.

It had been a very hot July, but I was unable to leave town myself, having work on hand which compelled me to be on the spot. But I got away from the close, dusty streets during the daytime as frequently as I could, and one hot, broiling afternoon I found myself in a brown holland suit on the terrace of the "Star and Garter" at Richmond, vainly endeavouring to ward off the fierce rays of the afternoon sun with one of those white umbrellas which are common enough on the Continent, but rare enough to attract attention in a land where fashion is one thing and comfort another.

My favourite "Star and Garter" waiter, Karl, an amiable and voluble little German, who, during a twenty years' residence in England, had acquired the English waiter's love of betting on horse-races, had personally attended to my wants, and brought me a cup of freshly-made black coffee and a petit verre of specially fine Courvoisier, strongly recommended by Mr. James, the genial and obliging manager. Comforted by the coffee and overpowered by the heat, I was just dropping off into a siesta, when I was attracted by a familiar voice addressing me by name.

I raised my umbrella, and at first imagined that I must have made a mistake. The voice was undoubtedly that of Dorcas Dene, but the lady who stood smiling in front of me was to all outward appearance an American tourist. There was the little courier bag attached to the waist-belt, with which we always associate the pretty American accent during the great American touring season. The lady in front of me was beautifully dressed, and appeared through the veil she was wearing to be young and well-favoured, but her hair was silvery grey and her complexion that of a brunette. Now Dorcas Dene was a blonde with soft brown wavy hair, and so I hesitated for a moment, imagining that I must have fallen into a half doze and have dreamed that I heard Dorcas calling me.

The lady, who evidently noticed my doubt and hesitation, smiled and came close to the garden seat on which I had made myself as comfortable as the temperature would allow me.

"Good afternoon," she said. "I saw you lunching in the restaurant, but I couldn't speak to you then. I'm here on business."

It was Dorcas Dene.

"I have half an hour to spare," she said. "My people are at the little table yonder. They've just ordered their coffee, so they won't be going yet."

She sat down at the other end of the garden seat, and, following a little inclination of her parasol, I saw that the "people" she alluded to were a young fellow of about three-and-twenty, a handsome woman of about five-and-thirty, rather loudly dressed, and a remarkably pretty girl in a charming tailor-made costume of some soft white material, and a straw hat with a narrow red ribbon round it. The young lady wore a red sailor's-knot tie over a white shirt. The red of the hat-band and the tie showed out against the whiteness of the costume, and were conspicuous objects in the bright sunlight.

"How beautiful the river is from here," said Dorcas, after I had inquired how Paul was, and had learnt that he was at Eastbourne in apartments with Mrs. Lester, and that the change had benefited his health considerably.

As she spoke Dorcas drew a small pair of glasses from her pocket, and appeared very much interested in a little boat with a big white sail, making its way lazily down the river, which glistened like a sheet of silver in the sunlight.

"Yes," I said, "it's a scene that always delights our American visitors, but I suppose you're not here to admire the beauties of the Thames?"

"No," said Dorcas, laughing. "If I had leisure for that I should be at Eastbourne with my poor old Paul. I've a case in hand."

"And the case is yonder—the young man, the lady, and the pretty girl with the red tie?"

Dorcas nodded assent. "Yes—she is pretty, isn't she? Take my glasses and include her in the scenery, and then, if you are not too fascinated to spare a glance for anybody else, look at the young gentleman."

I took the hint and the glasses. The young lady was more than pretty; she was as perfect a specimen of handsome English girlhood as I had ever seen. I looked from her to the elder lady, and was struck by the contrast. She was much too bold-looking and showy to be the companion of so modest-looking and bewitching a damsel.

I shifted my glasses from the ladies to the young gentleman.

"A fine, handsome young fellow, is he not?" said Dorcas.

"Yes. Who is he?"

"His name is Claude Charrington. He is the son of Mr. Charrington, the well-known barrister, and I am at the present moment a parlour-maid in his stepmother's service."

I looked at the silver-haired, smart American lady with astonishment.

"A parlour-maid! Like that!" I exclaimed.

"No; I've been home and made up for Richmond. I have a day out. I should like you to see me as a parlour-maid at the Charringtons—the other servants think I can't have been in very good places; but they are very kind to me, especially Johnson, the footman, and Mrs. Charrington is quite satisfied."

"Does she know you are not really a parlour-maid?"

"Yes. It was she who engaged me to investigate a little mystery which is troubling her very much. I had to be in the house to make my inquiries, and she consented that I should come as a parlour-maid. It is a very curious case, and I am very interested in it."

"Then so am I," I said, "and you must tell me all about it."

"About ten days ago," said Dorcas, "just as I had arranged to have a fortnight at the seaside with Paul, a lady called on me in a state of great agitation.

"She told me that her name was Mrs. Charrington, that she was the second wife of Mr. Charrington, the barrister, and that she was in great distress of mind owing to the loss of a diamond and ruby bracelet, a diamond and ruby pendant, and a small diamond lizard, which had mysteriously disappeared from her jewel case.

"I asked her at once why she had not informed the police instead of coming to me; and she explained that her suspicions pointed to a member of her own family as the thief, and she was terrified to go to the police for fear their investigations would be a terrible one.

"I asked her if she had informed her husband of her loss, and if the servants knew of it, and she told me that she had only just discovered it, and had not said a word to anyone but her own family solicitor, who had advised her to come to me at once, as the matter was a delicate one. Her husband was away in the country, and she dreaded telling him until she was quite sure the person she suspected was innocent, and she had not yet said anything to the servants, as, of course, if she did they would have a right to insist on the matter being investigated in order that their characters might be cleared. It was a most unpleasant situation, apart from the loss of the valuable jewels, which had been given to her a few days previously as a birthday present. She was in the position of being compelled to conceal her loss for fear of bringing the guilt home to a member of her family."

"And whom does she suspect?" I asked.

"The young gentleman who is paying such marked attention yonder to the pretty girl in the red tie—her stepson, Mr. Claude Charrington," answered Dorcas, picking up her glasses and surveying the "scenery."

"Why does she suspect him?" I asked, following her gaze.

"Mrs. Charrington tells me that her stepson has lately caused his father considerable anxiety owing to his extravagance and recklessness. He has just left Oxford, and is going to the Bar, but he has been very erratic, and lately has evidently been pressed for money. Mrs. Charrington is very fond of him, and he has always appeared to return her affection, and has frequently come to her with his troubles. Mr. Charrington is an irritable man, and inclined to be severe with his son, and the stepmother has frequently acted as peacemaker between them. She has always endeavoured to make Claude look upon her as his own mother.

"A few days before the robbery was discovered Claude laughingly told her that he was 'in a devil of a mess' again, and that in order to get a little ready money to carry on with he had had to pawn his watch and chain for ten pounds. His father had recently given him a sum of money to satisfy some pressing creditors, but had insisted on deducting a certain amount monthly from his allowance until it was paid. Claude showed Mrs. Charrington the ticket for the watch and chain, and jokingly said that if things didn't get better with him he would have to give up all idea of the Bar and go to South Africa and look for a diamond mine. He had told her that he hadn't dared tell the Governor how much he owed, and that the assistance had only staved off the more pressing of his creditors.

"Mrs. Charrington urged him to make a clean breast of everything on his father's return. He shook his head, and presently laughed the matter off, saying perhaps something would turn up. He wasn't going to the Governor again if he could possibly help it.

"That was the situation of affairs two days before the robbery was discovered. But two days after he had let his stepmother see the ticket for his watch and chain, Claude Charrington was in funds again. Mrs. Charrington discovered it quite accidentally. Claude took out a pocket-book at the breakfast table to look for a letter, and in taking out an envelope he pulled out a packet of banknotes. He said, 'Oh, I've had a stroke of luck,' but he coloured up and looked confused. That evening Mrs. Charrington—who, by the bye, I should tell you was in mourning for her brother, who had just died in India—went to her jewel case, and to her horror discovered that a diamond and ruby bracelet, a diamond and ruby pendant, and a diamond lizard had disappeared. The cases were there, but empty.

"Instantly the idea occurred to her that Claude, knowing she was in mourning, and not likely to wear the jewels for some time, had abstracted them and pawned them—perhaps intending to put them back again as soon as he could get the money.

"She was strengthened in her suspicion by his acquisition of banknotes at a time when, according to his own account, he had pawned his watch to tide over until his allowance became due; his confusion when she noticed the banknotes; and finally by her suddenly remembering that two evenings previously after she had dressed for dinner and was in the drawing-room, she had gone upstairs again to fetch her keys, which she remembered having left on the dressing-table. Outside her room she met Claude with his dog, a fox-terrier, at his heels.

"'I've been hunting all over the place for Jack, Mater,' he said, 'and I heard him in your room. The little beggar was scratching away at the wainscoting like mad. There must be rats there. I had to go in to get him away—I was afraid he'd do some damage.'

"Mrs. Charrington found her keys on the dressing-table, and thought no more of Claude and his explanation until she missed the jewellery. Then it occurred to her that Claude had been in her room and had had an opportunity of using her keys, which not only opened the drawer in which she kept her jewel case, but the case itself."

Dorcas finished her story, and I sat for a moment gazing at the young fellow, who seemed supremely happy. Could it be possible that if he were guilty his crime could trouble him so little?

"The circumstances are very suspicious," I said, presently, "but don't you think Mrs. Charrington ought at once to have taxed her stepson, and given him an opportunity of clearing himself?"

"He would naturally have denied the charge under any circumstances. But presuming him to be innocent, the bare idea that his stepmother could have thought him guilty would have been most painful to him. That is the sort of mistake one can never atone for. No, Mrs. Charrington did the wisest thing she could have done. She decided, if possible, to be sure of his guilt or innocence before letting anyone—even her husband—know of her loss."

"And how far do your investigations go in other directions?"

"So far, I am still in the dark. I have had every opportunity of mixing with the servants and studying them, and I don't believe for a moment that they are concerned in the matter. The footman bets, but is worried because he has not paid back a sovereign he borrowed last week to put on a 'dead cert.,' which didn't come off. The lady's maid is an honourable, high-minded girl, engaged to be married to a most respectable man who has been in a position of trust for some years. I cannot find the slightest suspicious circumstances connected with any of the other servants."

"Then you are inclined to take Mrs. Charrington's view?"

"No, I am not. And yet—— Well, I shall be able to answer more definitely when I have found out a little more about that young lady with the red tie. I have had no opportunity of making inquiries about her. I found out that Claude Charrington was coming to the 'Star and Garter' this morning when Johnson came downstairs with a telegram to the manager, 'Reserve window table for two o'clock'; and when I got here the little party were already at luncheon."

"But the young lady may have nothing to do with the matter. When a young man pawns someone else's jewellery to provide himself with ready money, surely the last person he would tell would be the young lady he is entertaining at the 'Star and Garter.'"

"Quite so," said Dorcas, "but I have seen the young lady rather more closely than you have. I sat at the next table to them in the restaurant. Let us take a little stroll and pass them now."

Dorcas rose, and with her parasol shading her face strolled down on the terrace, and I walked by her side.

As we passed quite close to Claude Charrington and his friends I looked at the young lady. The end of her red necktie was fastened to the shirt with a diamond lizard.

"Good heavens!" I said to Dorcas when we were out of hearing, "is that part of the missing jewellery?"

"If it is not, it is at least a curious coincidence. Claude Charrington has access to his stepmother's room and the keys of her jewel case. Jewellery is missing. One of the articles is a diamond lizard. He is here to-day with a young lady, and that young lady has on jewellery which exactly answers the description of one of the missing articles. Now you know why I am going to find out a little more concerning that young lady and her female companion."

"Do you want an 'assistant'?" I said eagerly.

Dorcas smiled. "Not this time, thank you," she said; "but if I do later I will send you a wire. Now I think I must say good-day, for my 'people' look like making a move, and I mustn't lose them."

"Can't I see you this evening?"

"No, this evening I expect I shall be back at Mrs. Charrington's—you forget I am only a parlour-maid with a day out."

Dorcas nodded pleasantly, and I took the hint and left her.

A few minutes later I saw the Charrington party going back into the hotel, and Dorcas Dene following them at a respectful distance.

I sat down once again on my old seat and fell into a reverie, which was interrupted by Karl the waiter, who came ostensibly to know if there was anything he could get me, but really to have a few minutes' chat on his favourite subject—the Turf. Did I know anything good for to-morrow at Sandown?

I told Karl that I did not, and then he told me that he had had a good tip himself—I ought to get on at once. I shifted the conversation from the Turf to general gossip, and then quite innocently I asked him if he knew who the people were who had lunched at the window table and had just left the terrace.

Oh, yes, he knew the young gentleman. That was Mr. Claude Charrington. He was a frequent customer and had often given Karl a good tip. Only a few days ago he had given him a horse at long odds and it had come off.

"And the young lady with the red tie?"

Karl wasn't quite sure—he had seen her only once or twice before. He thought the young lady was an actress at one of the Comic Opera theatres. The elder lady used to be often there years ago, but she hadn't been for some time until to-day. He remembered her when she was one of the handsomest women of the day.

I lit a cigarette and said carelessly that I supposed they came with Mr. Charrington.

"No," said Karl; "they were here when he came, and he seemed rather surprised to see the elder lady. I suppose," said Karl, with a grin, "the young gentleman had only invited the younger lady to lunch, and he thought that two was company and three was none, as your English proverb says."

A white napkin waved from the balcony of the restaurant summoned Karl back to his duties, and looking at my watch I found that it was four o'clock, and time for me to make a start for town, where I had an appointment at six.

I thought of nothing but the mystery of the Charrington jewellery in the train, but when I got out at Waterloo I was still unable to find any theory which would satisfactorily reconcile the two opposing difficulties. If Claude Charrington had stolen his stepmother's jewellery to raise money on it he wouldn't have given it away; and if he had given it away it could have nothing to do with his sudden possession of a bundle of banknotes, which his stepmother considered one of the principal proofs of his guilt.

* * * * * * *

Two days later I received a telegram just before noon:

"Marble Arch, four o'clock.—DORCAS."

I was there punctually to the time, and a few minutes later Dorcas joined me, and we turned into the park.

"Well," I said, "you've found out who the young lady is. You've traced the jewellery—and I suppose there can be no doubt that Claude Charrington is the culprit?"

"I've found out that the young lady is a Miss Dolamore. She is a thoroughly good girl. Her mother, the widow of a naval officer, is in poor circumstances and lives in the country. Miss Dolamore, having a good voice, has gone on the stage. She is in lodgings in Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square. The house is kept and let out in apartments by an Italian, one Carlo Rinaldi, married to an English woman—the English woman is the woman who was with Miss Dolamore at the 'Star and Garter' that day."

"Then the elder woman was her landlady?"

"Yes."

"And Claude Charrington is in love with Miss Dolamore!"

"Exactly. They have been about together a great deal. He calls frequently to see her and take her out. It is understood in the house that they are engaged."

"How have you ascertained all this?"

"I visit the house. The second floor was to let and I took it yesterday morning for a friend of mine and paid the rent in advance. I am getting little odds and ends and taking them there for her. There is a delightfully communicative Irish housemaid at the Rinaldi's."

"Then of course it's quite clear that Claude Charrington gave Miss Dolamore that diamond lizard. Have you found out if she has the bracelet and the pendant too? If she hasn't, the lizard may be merely a coincidence. There are plenty of diamond lizards about."

"The bracelet and the pendant are at Attenborough's. They were pawned some days ago by a person giving the name of Claude Charrington and the Charringtons' correct address."

"By Claude Charrington, of course?"

"No; whoever the guilty party is it is not Claude Charrington."

"Not Claude Charrington!" I exclaimed, my brain beginning to whirl. "What do you mean? The jewels were in Mrs. Charrington's case—she misses them—one article is in the possession of Claude's sweetheart, a young lady who is on the stage, and the others are pawned in the name of Claude Charrington, and yet you say Claude Charrington had nothing to do with it. Whatever makes you come to such a strange conclusion as that?"

"One fact—and one fact alone. On the very day that we were at Richmond Mr. Charrington, the barrister, returned to town. He arrived in the afternoon, and seemed worried and out of sorts. His wife had made up her mind to tell him everything, but he was so irritable that she hesitated.

"Yesterday she had an extraordinary story to tell me. When her husband had gone to his chambers in the morning she began to worry about not having told him. She felt that she really ought to do so now he had come back. She went to her jewel case to go over everything once more in order to be quite sure nothing else was missing before she told him her trouble, and there, to her utter amazement, was all the missing property, the bracelet, the pendant, and the diamond lizard."

"Then," I said with a gasp, "Claude Charrington must have redeemed them and put them back!"

"Not at all. The diamond lizard is still in Miss Dolamore's possession, and the diamond bracelet and pendant are still at Attenborough's."

I stared at Dorcas Dene for a moment in dumb amazement. When at last I could find words to speak my thoughts I exclaimed: "What does this mean? What can it mean? We shall never know now because Mrs. Charrington has her jewels again and your task is ended."

"No—my task is a double one now. Mrs. Charrington engaged me to find out who stole her jewels. When I can tell her that I shall be able to tell her also who endeavoured to conceal the robbery by putting a similar set back in their place. This is no common case of jewel stealing. There is a mystery and a romance behind it—a tangled skein which a Lecoq or a Sherlock Holmes would have been proud to unravel—and I think I have a clue."

VI. THE PRICK OF A PIN

When Dorcas told me that she had a clue to the mystery of the Charrington jewels, I pressed her to tell me what it was.

"All in good time," she said; "meanwhile you can help me if you will. There is a club in —— Street, Soho, of which most of the members are foreigners. It is called 'The Camorra.' Carlo Rinaldi, the landlord of the house in which Miss Dolamore is staying, spends his evenings there. It is a gambling club. Visitors are admitted, and the members are by no means averse to female society. I want you to take me there to-morrow night."

"But, my dear Dorcas—I—I'm not a member."

"No, but you can be a visitor."

"But I don't know a member."

"Oh, nonsense," said Dorcas, "you know a dozen. Ask your favourite waiter at any foreign restaurant, and he will be pretty sure to be able to tell you of one of his fellow-employés who can take you."

"Yes," I said, after I had thought for a moment. "If that is so, I think I can arrange it."

"That's a bargain, then," she said. "I will meet you and your friend the member outside Ketner's, in Church Street, to-morrow night at ten o'clock. Till then, good-bye."

"One question more," I said, retaining the hand that was placed in mine. "I assume that your object in going to this club is to watch Miss Dolamore's landlord; but if you have taken his second floor, won't he recognise you and be suspicious?"

Dorcas Dene smiled. "I'll take care there is no danger of his recognising the lady of the second floor at the Camorra to-morrow night. And now, good afternoon. The Charringtons dine at eight, and I have to wait at table to-night."

Then, with a little nod of adieu, she walked quickly away and left me to think out my plans for capturing a member of the Camorra.

* * * * * * *

I had very little difficulty in finding a waiter who was a member. He turned up in a very old acquaintance, Guiseppe, of a well-known Strand café and restaurant. Guiseppe easily obtained an evening off, but he demurred when I told him that I wanted him to introduce a lady friend of mine as well as myself to the club. He was nervous. Was she a lady journalist? I pacified Guiseppe, and the preliminaries were satisfactorily arranged, and at ten o'clock, leaving Guiseppe round the corner, I strolled on to Ketner's, and looked for Dorcas Dene.

There was no trace of her, and I was beginning to think she had been detained, when a stout, rather elderly-looking woman came towards me. She was dressed in a black silk dress, the worse for wear, a shabby black velvet mantle, and a black bonnet, plentifully bedecked with short black ostrich plumes, upon which wind and weather had told their tale. At her throat was a huge cameo brooch. As she came into the light she looked like one of the German landladies of the shilling table d'hôte establishments in the neighbourhood. The woman looked at me searchingly, and then asked me in guttural broken English if I was the gentleman who had an appointment there with a lady.

For a moment I hesitated. It might be a trap.

"Who told you to ask me?"

"Dorcas Dene."

"Indeed," I said, still suspicious, "and who is Dorcas Dene?"

"I am," replied the German frau. "Come, do you think Rinaldi will recognise his second floor?"

"My dear Dorcas," I gasped, as soon as I had recovered from my astonishment, "why did you leave the stage?"

"Never mind about the stage," said Dorcas. "Where's the member of the Camorra?"

"He's waiting at the corner."

I had all my work to keep from bursting into a roar of laughter at Guiseppe's face when I introduced him to my lady friend, "Mrs. Goldschmidt." He evidently didn't think much of my choice of a female companion, but he bowed and smiled at the stout, old-fashioned German frau, and led the way to the club. After a few rough-and-ready formalities at the door, Guiseppe signed for two guests in a book which lay on the hall table, and we passed into a large room at the back of the premises, in which were a number of chairs and small tables, a raised platform with a piano, and a bar. A few men and women, mostly foreigners, were sitting about talking or reading the papers, and a sleepy-looking waiter was taking orders and serving drinks.

"Where do they play cards?" I said.

"Upstairs."

"Can I play?"

"Oh, yes, if I introduce you as my friend."

"May ladies play?"

Guiseppe shrugged his shoulders. "If they have money to lose—why not?"

I went to Dorcas. "Is he here?" I whispered.

"No; he's where the playing is, I expect."

"That's where we are going," I said.

Dorcas rose, and she and I and Guiseppe made our way to the upstairs room together.

On the landing we were challenged by a big square-shouldered Italian. "Only members pass here," he said, gruffly.

Guiseppe answered in Italian, and the man growled out, "All right," and we entered a room which was as crowded as the other was empty.

One glance at the table was sufficient to show me that the game was an illegal one.

Dorcas stood by me among a little knot of onlookers. Presently she nudged my elbow, and I followed her glance. A tall, swarthy Italian, the wreck of what must once have been a remarkably handsome man, sat scowling fiercely as he lost stake after stake. I asked her with my eyebrows if she meant this was Rinaldi, and she nodded her head in assent.

A waiter was in the room taking orders, and bringing the drinks up from the bar below.

"Order two brandies and sodas," whispered Dorcas.

Then Dorcas sat down at the end of the room away from the crowd, and I joined her. The waiter brought the brandies and sodas and put them down. I paid unchallenged.

A dispute had arisen over at the big table, and the players were shouting one against the other. Dorcas took advantage of the din, and said, close to my ear, "Now you must do as I tell you—I'm going back to the table. Presently Rinaldi will leap up; when he does, seize him by the arms, and hold him—a few seconds will do."

"But——"

"It's all right. Do as I tell you."

She rose, taking her glass, still full of brandy and soda, with her. I wondered how on earth she could tell Rinaldi was going to jump up.

The stout old German frau pushed in among the crowd till she was almost leaning over Rinaldi's shoulder. Suddenly she lurched and tilted the entire contents of her glass into the breast pocket of his coat. He sprang up with a fierce oath, the rest of the company yelling with laughter. Instantly I seized him by the arms, as though to prevent him in his rage striking Dorcas. The German woman had her handkerchief out. She begged a thousand pardons, and began to mop up the liquid which was dripping down her victim. Then she thrust her hand into his inner pocket.

"Oh, the pocket-book! Ah, it must be dried!"

Quick as lightning she opened the book, and began to pull out the contents and wipe them with her handkerchief.

Carlo Rinaldi, who had been bellowing like a bull, struggled from me with an effort, and made a grab at the book. Dorcas, pretending to fear he was going to strike her, flung the book to him, and, giving me a quick glance, ran out of the room and down the stairs, and I followed, the fierce oaths of Rinaldi and the laughter of the members of the Camorra still ringing in my ears.

I hailed a cab and dragged Dorcas into it.

"Phew!" I said, "that was a desperate game to play, Dorcas. What did you want to see in his pocket-book?"

"What I found," said Dorcas quietly. "A pawnticket for a diamond and ruby bracelet and a diamond and ruby pendant, pawned in the name of Claude Charrington. I imagined from the description given me at the pawnbroker's that the man was Rinaldi. Now I know that he pawned them on his own account, because he still has the ticket."

"How did he get them? Did Claude Charrington give them to him or sell them to him, or——"

"No. The person who gave them to Rinaldi is the person who put the new set back in their place."

"Do you know who that is?"

"Yes, now. The fact of Rinaldi having the ticket in his possession supplied the missing link. You remember my telling you how Mrs. Charrington discovered just as she was going to tell her husband of her loss that the jewels were no longer missing."

"Yes; she found them the day after her husband's return."

"Exactly. Directly she told me I asked her to let me examine the drawer in which the jewel-case was kept. It lay at the bottom of the left-hand top drawer of a chest of drawers near the bed. It was locked, and the keys were carried about by Mrs. Charrington and put on the dressing-table at night after the bedroom door had been bolted.

"As soon as possible I went with Mrs. Charrington to the bedroom. Then I took the keys and opened the drawer. The box she told me was where it was always kept, at the bottom of the drawer underneath layers of pocket-handkerchiefs and several cardboard boxes of odds and ends which she kept in the drawer.

"I turned the things over carefully one by one, and on a handkerchief which lay immediately on the top of the jewel-case I saw something which instantly attracted my attention. It was a tiny red spot, which looked like blood. Opening the jewel-case, I carefully examined the jewellery inside, and I found that the pin of the diamond lizard extended slightly beyond the brooch and was very sharp at the point.

"I then examined the keys, and upon the handle of the key of the jewel-box I found a tiny red smear. What had happened was as clear as noonday. Whoever had put the jewels back had pricked his or her finger with the pin of the lizard. The pricked finger had touched the handkerchief and left the little blood-mark. Still bleeding slightly, the finger had touched the key in turning it in the lock of the jewel-case.

"Saying nothing to Mrs. Charrington, who was in the room with me, I cast my eyes searchingly in every direction. Suddenly I caught sight of a tiny mark on the sheet which was turned over outside the counterpane. It was a very minute little speck, and I knew it to be a blood-stain.

"'Who sleeps on this side near the chest of drawers?' I asked Mrs. Charrington, and she replied that her husband did.

"'Did he hear no noise in the night?'

"'In the night!' she exclaimed with evident astonishment. 'Good gracious! no one could have come into the room last night without our hearing them. Whoever put my jewels back did it in the daytime.'

"I didn't attempt to undeceive her, but I was certain that Mr. Charrington himself had replaced the jewels. He had probably done it in the night when his wife was fast asleep. A night-light burnt all night—she was a heavy sleeper—he had risen cautiously—the matter was a simple one. Only he had pricked his finger with the brooch-pin."

"But what was his motive?" I cried.

"His motive! That was what I wanted to make sure to-night, and I did so when I found the pawnticket in the name of Claude Charrington in the pocket-book of Carlo Rinaldi—Claude Charrington is the father's name as well as the sons."

"Then you think Rinaldi pawned the original jewels for Mr. Charrington? Absurd!"

"It would be absurd to think that," said Dorcas, "but my theory is not an absurd one. I have ascertained the history of Carlo Rinaldi from sources at my command. Rinaldi was a valet at the West End. He married a rich man's cast-off mistress. The rich man gave his mistress a sum of money as a marriage portion. He gave her up not only because he had ceased to care for her, but because he had fallen in love and was about to marry again. He was a widower. He lost his first wife when their only child, a son, was a few months old, and he was himself quite a young man. The mistress was Madame Rinaldi, the rich man was Mr. Claude Charrington."

"Well, where does that lead you?"

"To this. During the time that Mrs. Charrington is sure that the jewels were not in her case I trace them. I find the diamond lizard in the possession of a young lady who lodges in the house of Madame Rinaldi. I find the pendant and bracelet at Attenborough's, and to-night I have seen the pawnticket for them in the possession of Madame Rinaldi's husband. Therefore, there is no doubt in my mind that whoever took the jewels out of Mrs. Charrington's case gave them to the Rinaldis. I have proved by the prick of the finger and the blood-stain that Mr. Charrington put a similar set of jewels to those abstracted back into the empty cases in his wife's jewel-box, therefore he must have been aware that they were missing. Mrs. Charrington has not breathed a word of her loss to anyone but myself, therefore he must have been privy to their abstraction, and it is only reasonable to conclude that he abstracted them himself."

"But the lizard in Miss Dolamore's possession must have been given her by Claude, her sweetheart, and he was suddenly flush of money just after the theft—remember that!"

"Yes; I have ascertained how he got that money. Johnson, the footman, told me that the young fellow had given him a tip for the Leger. 'And he gets good information sometimes from a friend of his,' said Johnson. 'Why, only last week he backed a thirty-three to one chance, and won a couple of hundred. But don't say anything to the missis,' said Johnson. 'She might tell the governor, and Mr. Claude isn't in his good books just at present.'"

I agreed with Dorcas that that would account for the young fellow's confusion when his step-mother saw the notes, but I urged there was still the lizard to get over.

"I think that is pretty clear. The Irish housemaid tells me that Madame is very friendly with Miss Dolamore. I shouldn't be surprised if she went down to Richmond with her that day to show Claude the lizard and get him to buy it for more than it was worth. I know the Rinaldis were pressed at the time for ready money."

I confessed to Dorcas that her theory cleared Claude Charrington of suspicion, but it in no way explained why Mr. Charrington, senior, should send his former mistress his present wife's jewels.

At that moment the cab stopped. We were at Oak Tree Road. Dorcas got out and put out her hand. "I can't tell you why Mr. Charrington stole his wife's jewellery," she said, "because he hasn't told me."

"And isn't likely to," I replied with a laugh.

"You are mistaken," said Dorcas. "I am going to his chambers to-morrow to ask him, and then my task will be done. If you want to know how it ends, come to Eastbourne on Sunday. I am going to spend the day there with Paul."

* * * * * * *

The sunshine was streaming into the pretty seaside apartments occupied by the Denes, the midday Sunday meal was over, and Paul and Dorcas were sitting by the open window.

I had only arrived at one o'clock, and Dorcas had postponed her story until dinner was over.

"Now," said Dorcas, as she filled Paul's pipe and lighted it for him, "if you want to know the finish of the 'Romance of the Charrington Jewels,' smoke and listen."

"Did you go to Mr. Charrington as you said you would?" I asked as I lit my cigar.

"Smoke and listen!" said Dorcas with mock severity in her tone of command. "Of course I went. I sent up my card to Mr. Charrington.

"Ushered into his room he gave me a searching glance and his face changed.

"'This card says 'Dorcas Dene, Detective'?' he exclaimed. 'But surely—you—you are very like someone I have seen lately!'

"'I had the pleasure of being your wife's parlour-maid, Mr. Charrington,' I replied quietly.

"'You have dared to come spying in my house!' exclaimed the barrister angrily.

"'I came to your house, Mr. Charrington, at your wife's request. She had missed some jewellery which you presented to her a day or two before you went into the country. Circumstances pointed to your son Claude as the thief, and your wife, anxious to avoid a scandal, called me in instead of the police.'

"The barrister dropped into his chair and rubbed his hands together nervously.

"'Indeed—and she said nothing to me. You are probably aware that you have been investigating a mare's nest—my wife's jewellery is not missing.'

"'No, it is not missing now, because when you returned from the country you put a similar set in its place.'

"'Good heavens, madame!' exclaimed Mr. Charrington, leaping to his feet, 'what do you mean?'

"'Pray be calm, sir. I assure you that I have come here not to make a scandal but to avoid one. After you gave your wife the jewellery, you for some reason secretly abstracted it. The jewellery you abstracted passed into the possession of Mrs. Rinaldi, whose husband pawned two of the articles at Attenborough's. As your wife is quite aware that for many days her jewellery was missing, I am bound to make an explanation of some kind to her. I have come to you to know what I shall say. You cannot wish her to believe that your son took the jewellery?'

"'Of course Claude must be cleared—but what makes you believe that I put the jewellery back?'

"'On the night you did it you pricked your finger with the pin of the lizard. You left a small bloodstain on the linen that was in the drawer, and when you turned down the sheet to get back into bed again your finger was still bleeding, and left its mark as evidence against you. Come Mr. Charrington, explain the circumstances under which you committed this rob— well, let us say, made this exchange, and I will do my best to find a means of explaining matters to your wife.'

"Mr. Charrington hesitated a moment, and then, having probably made up his mind that it was better to have me on his side than against him, told me his story.

"At the time that he kept up an irregular establishment he made the lady who is now Mrs. Rinaldi many valuable presents of jewellery. Among them were the articles which had resulted in my becoming temporarily a parlour-maid under his roof. When the lady married Rinaldi, he provided for her. But the man turned out a rascal, squandered and gambled away his wife's money, and forced her to pawn her jewellery for him. He then by threats compelled her to forward the tickets to her former protector, and implore him to redeem them for her as she was without ready money to do so herself. The dodge succeeded two or three times, but Mr. Charrington grew tired, and on the last occasion redeemed the jewellery and put it in a drawer in his desk, and replied that he could not return it, as it would only be pawned again. He would keep it until the Rinaldis sent the money to redeem it, and then they could have it.

"Then came his wife's birthday, and he wished to make her a present of some jewellery. He selected a bracelet and a pendant in diamonds and sapphires and a true-lovers'-knot brooch in diamonds, and ordered them to be sent to his chambers.

"He was busy when they came, and put them away for safety in a drawer immediately below the one in which he had some weeks previously placed the jewellery belonging to Mrs. Rinaldi. Mrs. Rinaldi's jewellery, each article in its case, he had wrapped up in brown paper and marked outside 'jewellery,' to distinguish it from other packets which he kept there, and which contained various articles belonging to his late wife.

"On the eve of his wife's birthday he found he would have to leave town for the day without going to his office. He had to appear in a case at Kingston-on-Thames, which had come on much sooner than he had expected. Knowing he would not be back till late at night, he sent a note and his keys to his clerk, telling him to open his desk, take out the jewellery which had recently been forwarded from Streeter's, and send it up to him at his house. He wished his wife many happy returns of the day, apologised for not having his present ready, but said it would be sent up, and she should have it that evening.

"The clerk went to the desk and opened the wrong drawer first. Seeing a neatly tied-up parcel labelled 'jewellery,' he jumped to the conclusion that it was the jewellery wanted. Not caring to trust it to a messenger, he went straight up to the house with it, and handed it to Mrs. Charrington herself, who concluded it was her husband's present. When she opened the parcel she noticed that the cases were not new, and supposed that her husband had bought the things privately. She was delighted with the jewellery—a bracelet and pendant in diamonds and rubies and a diamond lizard.

"When her husband returned to dinner he was horrified to find his wife wearing his former mistress's jewellery. But before he could say a word she kissed him and told him that these things were just what she wanted.

"He hesitated after that to say a mistake had been made, and thought that silence was best. The next day Mrs. Charrington received news of her brother's death, and had to go into deep mourning. The new jewellery was put away, as she would not be able to wear it for many months.

"That afternoon at Mr. Charrington's chambers Rinaldi called upon him. Desperately hard up, he had determined to try and bully Mr. Charrington out of the jewellery. He shouted and swore, and talked of an action at law and exposure, and was delighted to find that his victim was nervous. Mr. Charrington declared that he could not give him the jewellery back. Whereupon Mr. Rinaldi informed him that if by twelve o'clock the next day it was not in his possession he should summon him for detaining it.

"Mr. Charrington rushed off to his jewellers. How long would it take them to find the exact counterpart of certain jewellery if he brought them the things they had to match? And how long would they want the originals? The jewellers said if they had them for an hour and made a coloured drawing of them they could make up or find a set within ten days.

"That night Charrington abstracted the birthday present he had given his wife from her jewel-box. The next morning at ten o'clock it was in the hands of the jewellers, and at mid-day when Rinaldi called to make his final demand the jewellery was handed over to him.

"Then Mr. Charrington went out of town. On his return the new jewellery was ready and was delivered to him. In the dead of the night while his wife was asleep he put it back in the empty cases. And that," said Dorcas, "is—as Dr. Lynn, at the Egyptian Hall, used to say—'how it was done.'"

"And the wife?" asked Paul, turning his blind eyes towards Dorcas; "you did not make her unhappy by telling her the truth?"

"No, dear," said Dorcas. "I arranged the story with Mr. Charrington. He went home and asked his wife for her birthday present. She brought the jewels out nervously, wondering if he had heard or suspected anything. He took the bracelet and the pendant from the cases.

"'Very pretty, indeed, my dear,' he said. 'And so you've never noticed the difference?'

"'Difference?' she exclaimed. 'Why—why—what do you mean?'

"'Why, that I made a dreadful mistake when I bought them and only found it out afterwards. The first that I gave you, my dear, were imitation. I wouldn't confess to you that I had been done, so I took them without your knowing and had real ones made. The real ones I put back the other night while you were fast asleep.'

"Oh, Claude, Claude,' she cried, 'I am so glad. I did miss them, dear, and I was afraid there was a thief in the house, and I dared not tell you I'd lost them. And now—oh, how happy you've made me!'"

* * * * * * *

Two months later Dorcas told me that young Claude Charrington was engaged to Miss Dolamore with his father's consent, but he had insisted that she should leave Fitzroy Street at once, and acting on private information which Dorcas had given him, he assured Claude that diamond lizards were unlucky, and as he had seen Miss Dolamore with one on he begged to offer her as his first present to his son's intended a very beautiful diamond true-lovers'-knot in its place. At the same time he induced his wife to let him have her diamond lizard for a much more valuable diamond poodle with ruby eyes.

So those two lizards never met under Mrs. Charrington's roof, and perhaps, all things considered, it was just as well.

VII. THE MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE

I had received an invitation to spend the evening at Oak Tree Road, but I had been detained by business, and it was past nine o'clock when my cabman, making a mistake in the number, pulled up at a house short of the Denes'. While I was feeling in all my pockets for the odd sixpence to make up the cabman's fare—as usual with the fraternity he had no change—the door opened, and an elegantly-dressed lady came hurriedly out.

She started back nervously as she saw me, and I at once jumped to the conclusion that it was a lady who was paying her first visit to a private detective, and was fearful that someone might see her and recognise her.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, till she saw me hand the fare to the cabman, then she hailed him and got in, lifted the trap door, and said, "Drive to St. John's Wood Chapel."

"She'll tell him where to drive her when she gets to the chapel," I said to myself, as I stood and watched the cab out of sight.

The lady, in her agitation, had forgotten to pull the door to, so I entered without ringing, walked up the little garden path, and found Dorcas waiting for me in the hall with the house door wide open.

"You've been having a good look at my lady visitor, Mr. Saxon," she said with a smile. "Well, she will probably think you are another client."

"And pray how do you know that I have been having 'a good look,' as you call it, at your visitor?" I said laughingly.

"I heard your cab drive up just as I was letting her out; she left the door ajar, and you would have come in at once if you had not been otherwise engaged. You didn't even come in, you know, when the cab drove away, so I conclude that you looked after it for some time, probably making a mental note of the number."

"You have guessed exactly what passed in my mind. I saw you had an aristocratic visitor, and a nervous one, and I wondered if there was anything for me to do this time."

"I don't know yet," said Dorcas, "but come into the drawing-room. Mother is spending the evening with some friends of hers, and Paul has been alone for nearly an hour. My new client's first visit has been rather a long one."

Dorcas led the way to the drawing-room, where Paul was sitting on the sofa with Toddlekins, the bulldog, stretched out across his knees.

Paul put the dog gently down, and rising as I entered, held out his hand. "We expected you two hours ago," he said, "but better late than not at all. I thought Dorcas's visitor was going to stay for hours, and that you weren't coming, and that I should really begin to recognise the value of Mrs. Lester as a conversationalist in my solitary condition."

"I'm awfully sorry, dear," said Dorcas, taking her husband's arm, and drawing him gently down on the sofa beside her, "but it's always the way. Directly I've made up my mind to have a quiet evening with you, somebody is sure to call."

"Is it a case?" asked Paul.

"Yes, and I'm afraid it will be rather a difficult one; but it won't take me away from home altogether, thank goodness. At least, I hope not. But I'll tell you all about it, and see what you think. I haven't made up my mind yet how to start on my task."

"Oh, it isn't a pressing case, then?" I said. "I was hoping that I'd arrived just in the nick of time for an 'engagement.'"

"It isn't particularly pressing now," replied Dorcas, looking at the clock on the mantelpiece, "but it will be at midnight, for at that hour I have to be under a lamp-post in Berkeley Square."

"Under a lamp-post in Berkeley Square at midnight! Then I'm sure Paul will agree with me that it is a case for my assistance. I'm to be under that lamp-post with Dorcas, am I not, Paul?"

Paul smiled. "That's for Dorcas to say, old fellow. She knows her business better than we do. But we'll leave the lamp-post for further consideration. Let us have the case, Dorcas."

"It is simple so far," said the famous lady detective, "but none the less mysterious for that. The lady who has just left me is the wife of Mr. Judkins Barraclough."

"What—the mysterious millionaire, who three years ago fell apparently from the clouds and descended on London in a shower of gold?—the Crœsus who seems to have discovered the royal road to the perpetual paragraph?"

"The same."

"Then the lady I met at the gate was Lady Anna Barraclough. He married her about a year ago. She was a young widow. Her first husband ran through all his money on the turf and left her very badly off when he died at the age of seven-and-twenty of—let me see, what did they call it?—typhoid, I think."

"Quite right," said Dorcas, "your account agrees with the short sketch of her career Lady Anna Barraclough has already given me."

"What could she have married a man like Judkins Barraclough for?—his money, I suppose. He must be five-and-forty, and he has all the worst qualities of the ostentatious parvenu. Is it about him that she has come to you?"

"Yes, poor girl—for she is only five-and-twenty now—she made me feel quite sorry for her when she told me her story. She has had a terrible experience of marriage. Her first husband she loved, and he spent every shilling of her money as well as his own. When Mr. Judkins Barraclough met her she was dependent on a married brother, the Earl of Dashton, whose wife detested her. When the millionaire proposed to her, the poor girl, worried and embittered by the constant humiliation of her dependent position, accepted his offer in the recklessness of despair. She didn't expect to be happy with a man whom she felt it was impossible she could ever love, but at least she hoped for peace. And now—guess why she has come to me to-night."

"To get a divorce, I should think. It would be about the best thing you could get for her, if all I hear of Mr. Judkins Barraclough's manners and habits is correct. I suppose he married her because he thought a wife who was a lady of title would be a good advertisement for him. Is it to get a divorce she has come to you?"

"No, Lady Anna has a haunting suspicion that the man she married is not her legal husband—that he had a wife living when he married her."

"Then if she thinks that why doesn't she go to the police?"

Dorcas shook her head. "You forget the man is a millionaire living in Berkeley Square—the police would hardly take up a charge against him made by his wife merely because she suspects. 'If I am really this man's wife,' said Lady Anna, 'I have no right to go to the police, for he is my husband. I have come to you to find out everything for me first. Oh, if you can only tell me that I am a free woman, that I owe no further allegiance to this wretch whom I despise—whom I loathe—you will have done me the greatest service one woman can do for another!' Poor girl! It was a cry from the heart. I felt sorry for her, and I promised that I would do anything I could to ease her mind, or, at any rate, to put an end to the dreadful state of suspicion and uncertainty in which she is at present living. Oh!" said Dorcas, with a shudder, "how horrible it must be, to have to go about before the world with a smiling face bearing the name of a man you detest—to have to submit alike to the curses and the caresses of a man whom in your heart you believe to be the husband of another woman!"

"And what is your idea?" I said, looking scrutinisingly at Dorcas's face.

"To-night I shall start on my voyage of discovery. I shall see Mr. Judkins Barraclough, the famous millionaire, and then I shall begin to trace him back and back until I find out——"

"What?"

"Who he was before he arrived in London from South America and set up as a millionaire."

"But you say Lady Anna Barraclough suspects her husband of being a bigamist—what has put such an unpleasant idea into her head?"

"Something that has occurred lately. Mr. Judkins Barraclough, who has been coarse and cruel for some time past, has suddenly altered his demeanour. He has lost all his old over-bearing brutality. He is nervous, and has evidently something on his mind. One night her ladyship retired late to her own apartment, which is separated from her husband's by his dressing-room. At two in the morning she heard the front door close, and a few minutes later she heard her husband enter the dressing-room. It seemed to her that he must be in pain, for she distinctly heard him every now and then utter a low groan.

"She rose and went quietly into the dressing-room and found Mr. Judkins Barraclough washing a wound in his right arm with Condy. Lady Anna Barraclough saw at once that the wound looked like a bite—the marks of teeth were distinctly visible.

"Mr. Judkins Barraclough stammered out an explanation. A savage dog had attacked him as he was coming through a back street on his way home. He had raised his umbrella to beat it off, and it had flown at him and fastened its teeth in his arm. Then, somewhat angrily, he told his wife to go back to her own room; he was all right.

"Instantly Lady Anna Barraclough's suspicions were aroused. If a dog had bitten him her husband would have gone to a doctor's at once and had the wound dressed. Why should he come home and attend to it himself? There was only one solution—that the bite had been received under circumstances which he would be unable to explain satisfactorily."

"Ah," said Paul, "it is a woman who bites as a rule, not a man."

"Yes," replied Dorcas, "that was her ladyship's idea. Her husband had been bitten by a woman, and a woman only bites when she is mad with rage and her hands are being held.

"Since that night Mr. Judkins Barraclough had been out nearly all day and has not returned till late. But he has not ordered his carriage to take or fetch him on one single occasion. These circumstances aroused her ladyship's suspicions that something was wrong, and that there was trouble in which a woman was concerned. Her husband had evidently quarrelled with one who had attacked him.

"The attack—and what else could the bitten arm suggest?—would hardly be that of a mistress. A millionaire is not so shabbily treated in his gallantries, because a millionaire of the Judkins Barraclough type is only attractive on account of his wealth, and to bite a millionaire's arm is not exactly the way to retain his good graces. The man's altered demeanour, his evident fear of something, the bitten arm, the long absences from home, and the non-employment of the carriages and horses all point, in Lady Anna's idea, to one thing—the power of some woman to interfere with him, perhaps to ruin him. Supposing in the old days, before he became wealthy, this man had a wife whom he had left in poverty, and she had discovered him, a wealthy bigamist, that would account for everything. But," said Dorcas, quietly, "supper's ready, and after supper I must be off."

Paul lifted his sightless eyes to his wife's face.

"There's a little invitation I should like you to give our guest to-night," he said, "I'm sure he'd like it, and I'm sure he deserves it."

"And what is that, dear?"

"Mrs. Dorcas Dene requests the pleasure of Mr. Saxon's company at 11.45 for midnight, underneath the lamp-post immediately opposite the residence of Mr. Judkins Barraclough, in Berkeley Square."

Dorcas laughed quite a ringing little laugh.

"Of course, if you wish it, dear," she said.

Then turning to me with a quick resumption of her former seriousness of expression, she added:

"Honestly I shall be glad of your company, From what her ladyship has told me I don't think this South American millionaire is exactly the sort of wild animal for a woman to hunt alone."

* * * * * * *

It was half-past twelve when a hansom drove up to the door of No. —, Berkeley Square, and a gentleman with a long, loose summer overcoat got out and paid the cabman and ran up the steps.

Dorcas had told me that Mr. Barraclough would probably arrive in a cab, as for several nights recently he had not ordered the carriage to meet him anywhere, so Lady Anna had informed her.

Mr. Barraclough had let himself in with the latchkey before the cabman had pocketed his fare and picked up his reins to drive away.

"Now," said Dorcas, "we must find out where that man took Mr. Barraclough up. It is somewhere he doesn't want known. That is the reason he doesn't order his carriage to fetch him. It may be only a street corner. But wherever it is, it is the first step backwards towards the goal that lies far away in the past."

"But we can't tell the cabman to take us to where he picked his fare up, can we?" I said, hesitatingly.

"Leave that to me," replied Dorcas. "You call the cabman."

I obeyed, and the cabman turned his horse round and drew up to the kerb. Dorcas got half way in and then got out again and looked at the horse.

"You've been driving too fast, cabman," she said; "why, your poor horse is breathing quite hard."

"Lor' bless you, ma'am!" said the cabman, "that's nothing—that's his natural breathing! Why, he only come out of the yard half an hour ago, and I've only had one fare."

"One fare? It must have been a good journey by the look of the horse."

Then turning to me, she said:

"Don't let us take this cab—we'll get another—the horse is done up."

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the cabman. "That's a good one. Why, how far do you think the horse has come?"

"Oh," said Dorcas, "perhaps from Hampstead or Brixton."

"Hampstead or Brixton!" exclaimed the driver, wrathfully. "This here horse came out of the yard in St. Pancras just afore twelve o'clock, and a gent hailed me as was coming out of a house in Burton Crescent, and I drove him here, and that's all the work my horse has done to-night."

"Oh, very well," said Dorcas. Then turning to me, she said:

"Give the man a shilling and let him go. I'm not going to ride behind that horse."

The man took the shilling and drove off, muttering to himself, and Dorcas and I strolled a little way along.

"He came out of a house in Burton Crescent," she muttered; "that's something."

"Why didn't you ask him which house?"

"Too risky. The man might think something was up and find Barraclough to-morrow and tell him, in hope of a reward. But I took the man's number in case I want him later."

"Very well. What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Are you going home?"

"No—let us go to Burton Crescent."

"What on earth's the good of that? You can't find out the house Mr. Barraclough came out of to-night. There's not the slightest clue."

"There may be. Did you notice that when he put his umbrella up to stop the cabman he held it in his left hand?"

"Well?"

"When he got out he shifted his umbrella to his right hand, and felt with his left hand in his left pocket for the silver. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is still feeling the effects of that bitten right arm."

"Possibly—probably. But how on earth can his being temporarily left-handed guide us to the particular house he came out of in Burton Crescent?"

"I don't say it will—but it may. Let us go."

We took a cab, and got out at the end of Burton Crescent. We walked entirely round it, Dorcas Dene going up the steps of each house in turn, and examining them carefully.

Suddenly she uttered a little cry of delight.

"This is the house," she exclaimed. "Look!"

She pointed to three or four rose leaves lying on the steps of No. —.

I looked at them bewildered, remembering that when Mr. Barraclough got out of the cab he had a large rose in the button-hole of his overcoat.

"I see the leaves," I said. "But what on earth made you imagine they would be there, and—and where does the left hand come in?"

"It's very simple," replied Dorcas. "I looked at Mr. Judkins Barraclough very carefully when he got out of the cab, and I noticed that the rose in his buttonhole was rather dilapidated. It had evidently been in contact with something, and several of the leaves were gone. Of course they might have dropped accidentally, but I instantly evolved a theory to account for the missing leaves. I glanced inside the cab while I was looking the horse up and down, there weren't any leaves there, so he hadn't crushed his rose in getting into it. If he had, some of the leaves would have fallen on the matting. I noticed that he used his left hand. The probability was that he hailed the cab with the umbrella in his left hand. The cabman said he was coming out of the house when he hailed him, so he would be on the steps at the time. Now, if you lifted your left hand hurriedly, as if hailing a cab that was passing, you would probably bring your arm up against the left side of your overcoat. Your arm would probably brush against a flower if you had one as large as a rose, and particularly if it projected as far forward as Mr. Barraclough's did. I said to myself, 'He might have knocked the leaves off that rose when he hailed the cab on a door-step in Burton Crescent.' My surmise fortunately turns out to be correct. Here are the rose leaves, and therefore this is the house."

"It's wonderful!" I said, "but after all, it's just one chance in a thousand."

"It is that one chance," replied Dorcas, quietly, "that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred brings the criminal into the hands of justice. Chance is the most successful detective the world has ever known."

Dorcas stepped back and looked up at the house.

"There are no lights anywhere," she said, "but we'll see what the inhabitants are like."

She seized the bell and rang it violently, and then gave a loud double knock. There was no sound inside the house. We waited a few minutes, then Dorcas knocked again, this time loud enough to wake up everybody in the Crescent. Still no one came, and the house remained in darkness.

"I'll try again," she said. "I'm sure to wake the people up on one side or other, and they'll think, perhaps, it's their knocker, and look out of the window."

Dorcas knocked this time for fully a couple of minutes, and at last she produced the desired effect.

A third floor window in the next house opened, and a woman put her head out.

"What's the good of your knocking there, a-frightening people out of their seven senses;" she called out angrily. "What do you want?"

"Mr. Robinson," replied Dorcas. "A relative of his is dying, and I've come to fetch him."

"You've come to the wrong house, then," said the woman, snappishly. "There ain't no Mr. Robinson there, 'cos the house is empty. Leastways, there ain't nobody sleepin' there."

"But Mr. Robinson was here this evening," replied Dorcas, unabashed.

"Oh, you mean the gent as has taken the place and ain't moved in yet, perhaps—I don't know his name. He ain't there now, I tell you. He only comes there now and then, and nobody's living there, and the tradespeople don't call. If you can't believe me, ask a policeman, only for goodness' sake leave off knocking. You're making yourself a noosance to the neighbourhood."

Dorcas thanked her informant, and we moved away. "Good-night," said Dorcas, as we got to the corner. "I'll take a cab and go home now. Mr. Barraclough is renting an empty house. I must find out why he does so."

"When shall we do that?"

"The day after to-morrow. I must have a couple of days to myself now. If you've nothing to do, come to Oak Tree Road in the evening the day after to-morrow, at ten o'clock."

I assured Dorcas that I should be delighted. I saw her into a cab, and wished her good-night, and went home, wondering to myself what on earth a millionaire with a magnificent establishment in Berkeley Square could want with an empty house in Burton Crescent.

* * * * * * *

During the afternoon of the appointed day I received a telegram—"Come evening dress. Dorcas."

When I arrived at Oak Tree Road at ten o'clock in the evening, I found Dorcas busily engaged in trying the wick of a dark lantern, and on the floor beside her lay an open brown paper parcel filled with goloshes.

"Good gracious," I exclaimed, "are you going burgling?"

"Something very like it," she replied, lighting the lantern to satisfy herself that it was all right. "Just try on those goloshes and see if any of them will fit over your boots."

"But what do I want with goloshes? It's a perfectly dry night."

"You are going burgling with me—that is, of course, if you are not afraid."

"Burgling in evening dress!" I exclaimed. "I'm not afraid to do anything that you tell me is right, but I haven't been brought up to the profession, you know."

I selected a pair of goloshes which I thought likely to suit, and found they fitted over my boots perfectly.

"That's all right—put them in that bag," said Dorcas, pointing to a black bag on the sofa. Then she blew the lamp out, and fastening it to a leather belt, fitted it round her waist.

"You look like a female policeman," I exclaimed, "but you're not going through the streets with that on!"

"Nobody will see it under my long cloak. Here is a box of silent matches, put that in the bag too."

I obeyed mechanically.

"Now," said Dorcas. "come to supper. Paul is in the dining-room waiting for us. We don't start till twelve."

"But where are we going?"

"To look over that empty house in Burton Crescent," replied Dorcas, quite calmly. "I have seen Lady Anna Barraclough to-day. Her husband wears his keys on a chain. The chances are that the key he uses to let himself into Burton Crescent will be on the bunch. He wouldn't carry it loose for fear of leaving it in his pocket when he changed his clothes, and perhaps forgetting it just when he wanted it. I shall have his keys directly he is asleep to-night, so Heaven grant him sweet repose directly he lays his head on the pillow. I reckon on having his keys before two o'clock in the morning."

"But how will you manage it?"

"I have arranged it with her ladyship. They occupy, you remember, two rooms separated by Mr. Barraclough's dressing-room. There he leaves all his clothes for his valet to brush and attend to in the morning. After he is asleep, Lady Barraclough will go quietly into the dressing-room from her room, and detach the keys from the chain, which is attached to his braces. I shall be on the opposite side of the square in a four-wheel cab, which will be driven by a cabman whom I frequently engage and whom I can trust. Sitting in the cab I shall avoid the attention of the policeman, who might otherwise wonder why you and I were loitering about so long in one place. But from the cab I shall be watching the windows of No. —, Berkeley Square. When I see a corner of the blind pulled up in Lady Barraclough's room, and a lighted candle shown for a moment, I shall know she has the keys."

"Yes," I said, "that's all very well. But how is she going to give you the keys?"

"She isn't—she is going to give them to you."

"To me!" I exclaimed; "where?—when?—how?"

"You will be strolling about smoking a cigar. Being in evening dress you will not attract the notice of any inquisitive policeman, should one happen to be about. You will watch for that signal, too, and when you see it, you will go up the steps of No. — as if you were going to ring to be let in.

"Lady Anna will come quietly downstairs, open the door, and give you the keys. Then you will walk away quietly into Piccadilly. My cab will follow and stop opposite Walsingham House. Then you will get in and we shall drive to the top of Burton Crescent. Our cabman will wait for us round the corner."

"In case of our having to make a run for it?"

"No—because at five o'clock in the morning Lady Anna Barraclough will creep downstairs again and feel in the letter box."

"What for—a note from you?"

"No—the keys. You will put them there when we have done with them. Then she will go back into her husband's dressing-room, fasten them on to the chain on his braces again, and he will get up in the morning and see them and never dream that they have been having a 'night out.'"

"And suppose the key of the house isn't on the bunch?"

"Then we shall have had our journey for nothing. But the reasonable supposition is that it will be. Now come to supper, and make a good one, for we have a rough night's work before us."

* * * * * * *

Two hours later a light flashed in a second floor window of No. —, Berkeley Square, and with a beating heart I went up the steps. The door opened quietly, and a woman's hand came cautiously through the opening and touched mine. I clutched the keys, slipped them into my pocket, and strode away in the direction of Piccadilly.

When the four-wheel cab stopped I got in and gave the keys to Dorcas. "So far, so good," she said. "Now with average luck we shall get into that empty house without attracting attention, and discover the millionaire's secret."

Dorcas was holding the keys up to the light that came through the cab window and examining them carefully.

"There are two latchkeys at any rate," she said. "Let us hope that one of them will unlock the cupboard in which Mr. Judkins Barraclough keeps his skeleton."

VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE

As the cab made its way towards Burton Crescent I am not ashamed to confess that I had misgivings as to the success of our enterprise. Not having been brought up to burglary, I contemplated with something akin to nervousness my début as a "cracksman," and I pictured to myself the awkward predicament in which we should find ourselves if we were discovered by a watchful policeman, creeping about a house with goloshes over our boots and a dark lantern and silent matches in our possession.

I put the point to Dorcas. As we had probably the key of the house in Burton Crescent with us, why should we compromise our position by taking the implements of burglary with us?

"Because," said Dorcas, "it is better to be over-cautious than over-bold in my profession. If there should be anyone in the house I want to see them before they hear me, and that is why I have taken precautions with our boots and with our light."

"Do you think Mr. Barraclough has visited the house since we were there?"

"Yes; I watched the house for a short time last evening. A dark-complexioned, white-haired old gentleman, with a closely cropped white moustache and gold spectacles, let himself in about nine o'clock. No such person came out again. But towards midnight the door was opened, and a gentleman in a long grey overcoat came out. That person I did not see enter; but of course that is not conclusive, as I only commenced to watch about eight in the evening."

"And the person who came out was——?"

"Judkins Barraclough."

"Do you think the dark old man will be in the house to-night?"

"No," said Dorcas, in an emphatic tone, "I don't! But I have some more interesting information gathered during the last two days round the neighbourhood. The local tradespeople, who are always on the watch when the 'To Let' is taken out of the windows of a house, saw a van at the door delivering goods one day last week. The person who was superintending the disposal of the goods was an old gentleman with very white hair and gold spectacles, and a closely-cropped, white moustache. His face and hands were very dark, and he looked like a native of India in European clothes. The baker's man, seeing the door open and cases being delivered, presented his master's card. The Indian gentleman replied in excellent English that the family would not be coming in for a month or six weeks."

"Then this Indian gentleman must be the dark man you saw go in. Have you any clue to his identity?"

"I have ascertained certain particulars concerning him. To find out who delivered the goods at Burton Crescent was my next object. It is the general custom for policemen to take the name on a van that is delivering or removing goods from a house. Many robberies have been traced in this way. The constable on duty in the neighbourhood at that time was able to tell me to whom the van belonged. I went at once to a retired police sergeant whom I frequently employ to make ordinary private inquiries, and gave him instructions to find out where the van took the goods from, and if possible what they were.

"In a few hours he sent me his report. The van had brought two cases of brandy from a firm of wine merchants; hammers, saws, nails, etc., from an ironmonger's; half a dozen large indiarubber mats, and several rolls of wire netting. All these things, it was found, had been purchased and paid for by a white-haired gentleman in gold spectacles, having the appearance of a native of India. He gave his name and address as Mr. Aleem Mohammed, No. —, Burton Crescent."

"Well, you can soon find out who Mr. Aleem Mohammed is by the numbers of the notes he paid to the house agents. Banknotes are always useful clues."

"Mr. Aleem Mohammed has evidently thought of that," replied Dorcas. "I have traced the notes. They were obtained at a money-changer's at Charing Cross, by a gentleman answering to our Indian friend's description. He gave sovereigns for them. I have also been to the house agents. The house was let to Mr. Aleem Mohammed, who had paid a year's rent in advance in bank-notes, having no one in this country to whom he could refer."

"Don't you think," I said, after a pause, "the whole business may be capable of a very simple explanation? After all, Barraclough hailed a cab from the doorstep, and the cab drove him direct to his own residence. Would he, if he were mixed up in any crime in connection with this house, establish a direct trail?"

"I have been thinking that out myself," replied Dorcas; "but I am inclined to believe it was one of those slips that very cunning people do make occasionally. Coming out late at night, there was nobody about, and he hailed a cab barely thinking what he was doing, and said, 'Berkeley Square.' He stopped it as his own door with his umbrella mechanically, as one is in the habit of doing."

"And the Indian gentleman?"

"I believe is Barraclough. He is a dark man, browned with the sun of South America. He could easily carry a white wig and a false moustache and a pair of gold spectacles in a Gladstone bag coming out of the house at night. When he goes into it in the daylight as the Indian he can have that light overcoat and his flower in the same bag."

"But the night we saw him he had no bag."

"No; but he might easily have had the wig and moustache in his overcoat pocket. At any rate, I am pretty sure that Aleem Mohammed and Judkins Barraclough are the same person."

"That is your theory, but you may be wrong."

"Of course—I am not infallible."

The cab stopped suddenly. We had reached Mabledon Place, where the man had orders to pull up. We got out and Dorcas gave him instructions to wait for us where he was, saying we might be a couple of hours or more.

Taking the black bag with us, we made our way towards the Crescent, which was quite deserted. Dorcas took her goloshes out of the bag and put them on, and handed me mine, just as we got close to the house. Glancing round to see no one was about, she went noiselessly up the steps and tried the latchkeys. The first did not fit. It was probably the key of Berkeley Square. The second, to our intense relief, fitted perfectly. In a moment we were inside the hall and had closed the door noiselessly behind us.

Dorcas, taking the dark lantern from her belt, struck a silent match and lighted the wick.

The hall was bare, the stairs were uncarpeted, the whole atmosphere of the house suggested that it was uninhabited.

The keys were on the outside of the doors of the two rooms on the ground floor.

We opened the door of the front parlour. It was quite bare. Dorcas looked about it in every direction.

Then she turned the tap of the gas on. There was no sound.

"Gas cut off and meter taken away when last tenant left," said Dorcas. "The occupant must have used candles or a lamp."

"There's nothing in that," I said. "A good many people prefer them."

"Quite so. I hope he used candles. But let us have a peep at the next room."

Dorcas went first and opened the door of the back parlour.

The room was empty.

Dorcas looked carefully round it, then turned the light of the bull's-eye to the floor. Suddenly she stooped down.

"He's used this room," she said; "see, here is the tallow trail."

She pointed to some small blobs of tallow grease near the doors of a cupboard, which was in one corner of the room.

"He has used candles here," she said. "The candle has stood some time on the floor and guttered. That was while the person who had been carrying it was busy with both hands inside this cupboard."

The cupboard was locked, but the lock was a paltry one, and drawing a little instrument from the bag Dorcas soon had it open.

"How odd to take the trouble to lock up such rubbish as this!" exclaimed Dorcas, drawing out a bundle of ragged female clothing.

I stared at the articles as Dorcas held them up.

"Good gracious!" I said. "These are the clothes of some wretched creature who must have been in the last stage of poverty. The dress is ragged and mud-stained, the old red flannel petticoat almost in ribbons, the bonnet battered and black with grease. Faugh! put the things down."

Dorcas was not inclined to abandon her find so readily, but presently she put the rags slowly back in the cupboard. "I wonder what he's done with the body?" she said quietly.

I must confess that when Dorcas said that, I had an uncomfortable, creepy sensation. Could it be possible that such a wretched creature as these locked-up rags had once belonged to had been done to death in an empty house by the millionaire of Berkeley Square?

Dorcas must have divined my thoughts. "Are you wondering if the body of the woman who wore these things is concealed on the premises?" she said.

"Something of the sort was in my mind."

"And I don't know what to think," said Dorcas. "If the body is buried, why on earth were not these accusing rags buried with it?"

We went downstairs, and as we walked through the silent, deserted passages of the basement, I felt suspiciously uncomfortable. A rat ran squeaking behind the wainscot, and I am ashamed to say that in my overwrought nervous condition I couldn't help giving a little cry of alarm.

I tried to excuse my cowardice to Dorcas, but she stopped me.

"Don't apologise," she said. "I am a great deal more afraid of rats than I am of human beings."

We had passed into the back kitchen or scullery.

"He has been here," she said.

"How do you know?"

"By the tallow trail. The guttering candle has left its traces here."

She pointed out three blobs of tallow on the edge of the sink, and turned the light of the bull's-eye full on the trap. Then she passed her hand carefully over the surface and drew it away. A few exceedingly small damp atoms of pulpy water adhered to her palm. Dorcas examined the atoms carefully. "Probably red on one side and white on the other," she said. "I wonder where the bottles are?"

"What bottles?"

There were two short wooden shelves on each side of the sink. From the one on the left-hand side Dorcas took a chisel. It was evidently new, by the handle, but the edge was slightly rusty.

"The bottles that the labels have been scraped from with this chisel," she said. "The labels have been damped at the sink. It is the wet on the label that has rusted the chisel."

Suddenly she stooped down, and let the lantern flash round the room. Something among some rubbish in one corner attracted her attention. It was a small empty bottle, about the size of the bottles in which chemists sell toothache tincture. She picked the bottle up and examined it carefully.

"It has been washed out," she said, "and there is nothing to tell us what it contained."

"Does it matter?" I exclaimed. "It is hardly likely that Mr. Judkins Barraclough came here to wash bottles. That may have been done by the former tenants."

"No, bottles have been scraped here recently. Fragments of the pulped paper are still in the sink, and that chisel is probably one of the tools that the Indian gentleman ordered from the ironmonger's."

"Well, whatever the bottle contained we can't find it out here," I said.

"No, let's go into the front kitchen."

In the front kitchen there were two cupboards and a kitchen dresser. The cupboards were not quite empty—on one shelf was a packet of coffee and a bag of sugar. On the kitchen dresser was a brown paper package open at one end. It contained eleven boxes of ordinary matches—the twelfth half empty, was lying on one of the dresser shelves.

"The coffee bothers me," said Dorcas, "but the matches show that this is where the bottle washer lighted his candles of an evening. The candles themselves can't be far off."

She looked at the dresser drawers. They had round wooden painted handles. She turned the light of the bull's-eye on to each handle. Then she touched the handle of the top left-hand drawer.

"This is one he uses," she said.

"How can you tell that?" I said, gazing curiously on the handle, and failing to see any indication which could have guided Dorcas in her selection.

"Look at this handle carefully," she said, "and you will see a tiny atom of paper still adhering to it. The person who washed bottles has come from the sink with a wet hand and opened that drawer. A scrap of the label has adhered to his hand and come off on the drawer handle, as he grasped it to pull it open. And now I am sure that the person who washed the bottles and opened this drawer was Mr. Judkins Barraclough."

I stared at Dorcas in amazement. "How can the drawer handle tell you that?" I exclaimed.

"You remember that Barraclough's right arm was evidently too painful to use, and he was using his left the night we saw him get out of the cab. Well, the rusty chisel was thrown after use on the left-hand side of the sink, and here the drawer has been pulled open with the left hand."

"Surely a left hand doesn't mark itself on a drawer handle."

"No, but this drawer stuck and was difficult to open. The person trying it rested one hand—a wet and dirty one—on the dresser. See, here are five dirty finger-marks on the right-hand side of the drawer."

I looked where Dorcas had pointed, and indications were undoubtedly there. Dorcas had some difficulty in pulling the drawer open, and had to rest her own hand on the dresser. She tried with her left hand, and her right hand then fell exactly on the finger-marks.

When the drawer at last yielded we looked eagerly inside it. There were two packets of common candles and back in the corner of the drawer half a dozen small bottles similar to the one we had found empty in the sink.

Dorcas drew them out and examined them carefully. "All red labels, you see, with 'Poison' printed on them, 'Hydrate of Chloral' written above. They have all been purchased from different chemists—though one doesn't have to sign for chloral. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is using chloral for some purpose in this house, and after each bottle is used he removes the label."

"Why should he do that?"

"Well, he may not think it wise to leave empty labelled chloral bottles about. He is a cunning man, and is guarding against contingencies."

"But what can he be doing with chloral here—in an empty house?"

"We may find out before we leave it. At any rate, let us see if he uses any of the upper rooms."

"We haven't searched the coal cellar yet," I said, suddenly recollecting the Euston-square mystery, and the discovery of the corpse of the poor "Canterbury Belle."

"To get to the coal cellar you have to go out into the area in these houses," replied Dorcas. "He wouldn't do that."

"The wine cellar, then?"

Dorcas shook her head. "I looked at the door of that as we came by. It was ajar. If there was anything to conceal there it would be shut and locked."

"But the cases of brandy——"

"May be there—we'll go and see."

The wine cellar was small and filled with old rubbish evidently left behind by the last tenants.

But the brandy cases were there. One was opened and the lid off. There were only six bottles left. The straw envelopes of the other six lay on the floor.

"Where are the empty bottles?" I said. "We ought to look for them."

"Yes—that is what we will do next. I have an idea they are upstairs."

"Why?"

"As we came down the kitchen stairs I noticed a short straw lying on one of them. When the bottle was being taken out of the straw envelope in the cellar a loose straw or two caught on the clothes of the person handling it. As he went up the stairs the straw became disengaged by the action of walking and fell. We've searched the parlours carefully—now let us go upstairs to the first floor."

There were two doors on the first floor. We tried the front room one first and found it unlocked and the room quite empty.

"Now for the back room," said Dorcas.

We went out on to the landing and tried the back room door. It was locked.

"If there is anything more to be found it will be here," exclaimed Dorcas, her face, which had been pale until now, suddenly flushing with excitement.

"What can we do?—burst the door open?"

"Yes—I came prepared for emergencies."

Dorcas produced an instrument which is technically known as a "jemmy" from her bag and handed it to me.

I had once burst open a door, but I was not a skilled workman, so it was a good ten minutes before the door yielded, bursting open with a crash and tearing away with it a portion of the lock, which fell with a clatter to the ground.

As the door fell it seemed as though there was an echo of it downstairs.

"What's that?" exclaimed Dorcas. "It sounded like the front door shutting."

"Nonsense," I said, "it's the echo—the house is empty."

Dorcas had turned her lantern on the staircase, and was peering over the balustrade. All was silent as the grave.

"I must have been mistaken," she said. "Good heavens, there can't have been someone in the house all this time—someone who has slipped past us and escaped. If I thought that I——"

She paused and uttered a little cry. She had turned the lantern right round, and it lit up the room, the door of which we had just burst open.

As the light of the bull's-eye dimly illuminated the apartment an extraordinary sight met our eyes. The centre of the room was entirely occupied by what looked like a huge wire cage. Wire netting nearly six feet high was stretched from side to side of the room on ropes which were fastened in the walls by iron rings. Across the inside, at the top and bottom of what was practically a wired-off passage was wire netting of the same height securely fixed and lashed firmly in its place, and to prevent the occupant of the cage from climbing over the top it was roofed in with a double thickness of coarse sacking securely fastened to the wirework. The floor was covered with indiarubber mats nailed down to keep them in place.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed. "Is it a menagerie, or a cage for some wild animal, or what?"

Suddenly Dorcas grasped my arm, and put her finger to her lips. In one corner of the cage, on a rug, covered over by a scarlet blanket, lay a woman.

"She must be dead!" I exclaimed, starting back with horror. "Only a corpse could sleep through the crash of that door."

"No," said Dorcas, creeping up close to the wire netting. "She is breathing—see, the blanket rises and falls."

"What can it mean? Is she some mad woman whom Barraclough is keeping here?"

Dorcas did not answer. She was gazing earnestly at the face of the sleeper. It was the face of a woman of about forty—a dark woman who must once have been strikingly handsome. Dorcas let the light fall upon it for a minute or two, but the sleeper made no movement. Her breathing was strangely heavy. Suddenly Dorcas touched my arm and pointed to an open bottle which stood near the rug.

"Brandy," she said. "That's where the six bottles have gone to."

"Is she in a drunken stupor, do you think?"

"Drunken, perhaps, is hardly the word," replied Dorcas; "you forget the empty chloral bottles."

"You think that the chloral is for her?"

"Yes; this woman is under the influence of it now. A man or a woman who takes chloral would sleep through an earthquake. A drunken man or woman would certainly have been startled by the noise we made just now. In some mysterious way she has been got into this house, and is being kept here a prisoner by Mr. Judkins Barraclough. He probably dissolves a dose of chloral and puts it into each bottle of brandy he brings to the poor creature."

"What can be the object of that?"

"The chloral is given, I take it, with the same object as this wire cage has been built around her (probably while she lay helpless and insensible under the influence of the drug)—to keep her from making a noise, shouting or beating against the walls, or going to the windows and attracting the attention of the neighbours. The man who has got this woman in his power comes here daily, but probably only after dark, and has to leave her alone at night and for many hours during the day. She is caged in to keep her from beating the walls, and she is dosed with chloral in order to keep her from moving about or making the slightest noise."

"And the object?"

"To let her kill herself with the brandy."

"Then why the chloral?—that sends her to sleep and prevents her from drinking as much as she would."

"If she were left with the brandy alone she would become violent and be able to shriek. She might in an access of delirium tear down her cage and get free. No—kept here without food and with a plentiful supply of brandy she will die slowly of alcoholic poisoning. But she must die quietly—hence the chloral."

"What an infamous villain!"

"Yes, and a desperate one. This is the woman who bit him that night. There must have been a violent struggle after he got her here. This woman is probably his first wife. There cannot be any other reason for Mr. Barraclough's mysterious proceedings."

"But now we have found her," I exclaimed, "what do you propose to do?"

"We must break through this netting, and try to rouse her first," replied Dorcas. "Her gaoler doesn't go near her—see here is where he evidently picks up the corner of the network to put in the bottles of drugged brandy. The nail has been pulled out and hammered in again several times."

Dorcas went to the shutters, which were closed, and wrenched off the iron bar. "Take this," she said, "and break the netting down sufficiently for us to get in. It will make less noise than forcing out the staples."

I took the bar, and several violent blows broke the lower portion of the cage loose from the fastenings in the floor. Then I pulled it up sufficiently high to allow Dorcas to crawl underneath.

"This must be the woman whose clothes are downstairs in the cupboard," I said. "Fancy a woman reduced to such poverty as that—the wife of a millionaire. Why, she must have been a homeless outcast."

Dorcas had gone to the sleeping woman's side. Gently she turned down the top of the scarlet blanket. Then she started back in astonishment. The woman was fully dressed in clothes of the best quality.

Dorcas lifted the almost lifeless arm from the sleeper's side and pointed to her fingers. On one was a worn wedding-ring, and above it a diamond ring. A gold bangle set with jewels was round her wrist.

"What does it mean?" said Dorcas, knitting her brows. "The rags concealed in the cupboard downstairs never belonged to this woman."

At that moment a church clock struck five.

"Quick!" cried Dorcas, thrusting Mr. Barraclough's keys through the broken wirework into my hand. "You must go. The cab will be waiting in Mabledon Place. Go to Berkeley Square at once and put the keys in the letter-box. I wouldn't have that man suspect anything for all the money in the world!"

"And you?"

"I shall stay here. Come back as soon as you can. Ring the bell gently and I will let you in. Ah! wait a moment!"

She tore a leaf from her note-book, and scribbled something in lead pencil, then folded it, and gave it to me. It was addressed to a doctor in Endsleigh Gardens.

"It's close by; call there on your way. Ring the doctor up and give him this. He is an old friend of mine and will come at once. Then go to Berkeley Square as fast as the horse can take you, and put the keys in the letter-box."

There was nothing for it but to obey. When I closed the door of No. — softly behind me it was broad daylight, and the birds were singing gaily in the trees.

As I reached the pavement I involuntarily turned back to take a parting glance at the closely shuttered house in which I had left Dorcas Dene alone with the caged woman.

As I did so I suddenly became aware of something which rooted me to the spot, and paralysed me beyond the power of uttering a cry.

Crouching in the shadow of the next doorway was a dark man with white hair, a closely-cropped white moustache, and gold spectacles.

IX. THE CLOTHES IN THE CUPBOARD

I stood for a moment paralysed. Could it be possible that standing there watching me as I emerged from the house in Burton Crescent was the mysterious Indian whom Dorcas Dene believed to be no other than Judkins Barraclough himself? Judkins Barraclough in a false wig and a moustache and a pair of gold spectacles.

Then suddenly I recollected the sound we had heard as of the shutting of the front door. Someone had been in the house at the time. Someone had slipped past when we were in the front room, and as the door of the room in which the drugged woman lay yielded with a crash, that person had crept out into the street.

And that person was the man with the white hair and moustache, whose dark eyes were gleaming at me through his gold spectacles now.

What was I to do? To seize the Indian and call for the police? I hesitated to do that without Dorcas's authority. I went up the step of No. —, and rang the bell gently.

In a moment I heard Dorcas's voice saying, "Who's there?"

"Openly quickly!" I exclaimed. "It is I."

The door opened and I dashed into the hall and gasped out that the Indian was there—outside—what should I do?

Dorcas frowned. "There was someone in the house, then!" she exclaimed. "Oh, if I had only known it! But go to the doctor at once, and then get back with those keys."

"And the Indian?"

"Will probably get at Judkins Barraclough at the earliest opportunity and warn him."

"You don't think the Indian is Barraclough disguised, now, then?"

"No—that's impossible. I've been off the track a little, but I'm on it right enough now. Get away now, every minute is of value."

Dorcas shut the door and I went down the steps again.

I looked about for the Indian. While I was talking to Dorcas he had slipped out of the doorway and disappeared. I found the cab waiting, drove to the doctor in Endsleigh Gardens, left the note, and then told the cabman to drive me with all speed to the top of Berkeley Square.

It was half-past five when I slipped the keys quietly into Mr. Barraclough's letter box. It was six o'clock when the cab stopped again in Mabledon Place.

There were one or two people passing through the Crescent—people on the way to work. Outside some of the houses sleepy-looking girls were shaking the mats and beginning the household duties of the day.

A policeman passed me and bade me good morning. I returned his salutation and walked past No. — to the end of the Crescent. When I looked round he had sauntered away, and I returned and rang the bell.

Dorcas greeted me with a smile.

"Come along," she said, "come and have some coffee, for you must be faint."

"But the woman?"

"The doctor is with her and is bringing her round. I hope presently she will be able to give us a little information."

Dorcas led the way and I followed her. To my astonishment, instead of going downstairs, where I presumed the coffee would be waiting for us, she went upstairs to the second floor.

Dorcas opened a door and I found myself in a little back room that had evidently been inhabited. On a small Oriental table was a French coffee-making machine, and underneath it a spirit lamp. In the corner lay a couple of Oriental rugs, and on a small table by the side of it a box of cigarettes.

"I've taken the liberty of using Mr. Aleem Mohammed's private apartments," said Dorcas. "He evidently furnished them for himself before he made his preparations for a lady visitor below."

"Then he was here all the time?"

"I don't think he was here that night when we nearly knocked the neighbourhood up. But he probably came in later, and he was certainly here last night when we were examining the house. It was only when we began to make a noise that he became aware of our presence. When he heard the locked door of the room on the first floor go, he let himself out, and kept watch from the outside."

"Why?"

"Probably to see what we were going to do."

"But Judkins Barraclough we know has the key of the house. How did the Indian get in?"

"That's simple," replied Dorcas. "They had a latchkey each."

I flung myself down on the rugs and drank the coffee which Dorcas had made.

The coffee revived my drooping energies, and set my brain working again. If the Indian was living in the house and had escaped, what was there to prove that not he but Barraclough was the person who was helping the unhappy creature downstairs to her death?

I asked Dorcas.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Barraclough is the principal, and the Indian only an accomplice," she replied. "But we're not going to let the Indian escape."

"We have done so."

"No. Scotland Yard has him in hand."

"Scotland Yard?"

"Yes; directly the doctor came, which was almost immediately after he received my note, I went out and sent a message. Hark! there's a knock at the door."

Dorcas ran downstairs bidding me follow her. She opened the front door, and a handsome foreign-looking dark man, of about eight-and-thirty, stepped into the hall, and politely raised his hat.

"Ah, Mr. Stromberg, I am glad," exclaimed Dorcas, shaking hands heartily with the new arrival. "I was wondering who would be on duty. Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Saxon. Mr. Saxon, this is Inspector Stromberg, of the Criminal Investigation Department."

The inspector bowed and smiled.

"I am always delighted to work with the famous Dorcas Dene," he said to me. "My only regret is that she is not one of us." Then turning to Dorcas, he said, "And now what is the mystery we are to have the pleasure of unravelling together this time?"

"The mystery is, I hope, already unravelled," replied Dorcas demurely, "but I must not go any farther with it. It is now a matter for the police."

"And the particulars?"

Clearly and concisely Dorcas gave the famous detective officer the details of the great Barraclough mystery.

When she had finished the Inspector rose and grasped Dorcas warmly by the hand.

"My dear Mrs. Dene," he said, "you have done wonders. Of course, I must take charge of the case now as it is practically an attempt to murder, but I shall do nothing without your approval. The woman is in charge of the doctor still, I presume?"

"Yes. He will call me as soon as she is able to converse coherently."

"And Mr. Judkins Barraclough—what is your idea of the time to make the arrest?"

"To-night."

"To-night?—but why give him so much law as that?"

"I am very much interested in some ragged feminine garments concealed in a cupboard here. I want to find out what object Barraclough can have in keeping them there." She added something in a whisper that I was evidently not intended to hear. The great man looked grave.

"It is a desperate thing to do," he said.

"I am afraid that unless we find the Indian and get him to turn Queen's Evidence, the mere fact of Barraclough having a latchkey will not bring the attempted murder home to him. I like to clear up my cases thoroughly, and I confess that these pauper rags completely baffle me. By the bye, you acted on my information with regard to the Indian?"

"Yes," said the Inspector. "What was your idea in asking me to have enquiries made at the post-offices you named?"

"They are the only ones within reasonable distance which are opened before eight in the morning. My idea was that the man would go to a telegraph office and send a warning wire to Barraclough. You sent a messenger to the receiving offices near Berkeley Square?"

"Yes; no telegram will be delivered to Barraclough without our knowledge of its contents."

"That's all right," said Dorcas, "and of course, by some unaccountable accident, that telegram won't reach Mr. Barraclough."

Inspector Stromberg shrugged his shoulders.

"The Post Office is a sacred institution in this country," he said. "The police do not tamper with letters and telegrams."

"No," said Dorcas, sweetly, "but sometimes accidents happen—a careless clerk, for instance, puts a wrong address on the envelope and that causes somebody else to open the telegram after the boy has gone."

The Inspector gazed at Dorcas admiringly.

A door on the first floor opened, and a voice called "Mrs. Dene."

Presently she came down again.

"The woman is better and able to talk. But the doctor says that for many reasons it would be as well to get her to a hospital at once."

"Very well," said the Inspector. "Perhaps your friend will go and get a four-wheel cab?"

I took the hint and went out. There were plenty of cabs near St. Pancras, and I was back with one in about five minutes.

Wrapped in a blanket and a rug, which we brought down from the Indian's room, the doctor, myself, and Stromberg carried the woman, rescued from a lingering death, out of the house, and got her into the cab without attracting the attention of anyone but a small boy who was delivering newspapers. The doctor drove away with his patient, and we returned to the house, Dorcas taking the Inspector upstairs to see the cage and the Indian's apartment.

At a quarter to eight a man arrived to see Stromberg and made a communication to him.

"That's all right," exclaimed the Inspector, and calling Dorcas, he told her that the Indian had just sent a telegram to Barraclough.

"It won't be delivered till ten minutes past eight. I'll go up to the receiving office and arrange for that mistake in the address. I shall be there by eight o'clock, which is the time they open. Stop here till I come back."

In an hour Stromberg returned radiant. He had the telegram:

"Don't go house. See me at once old place. Important. M."

"That's all right," said Dorcas. "Now I want to send another telegram to Barraclough." Dorcas tore a leaf from her pocket-book and wrote: "All over. Come Crescent, ten to-night."

"I understand," said the Inspector. "I'll send it at once. In the meantime the men who are trying to track the Indian, will, I hope, succeed. They will bring him straight to the Yard to me. You had better be there this afternoon at three. There's only one thing that may upset your plan. Suppose Barraclough comes here this afternoon, lets himself in, and finds the woman gone."

"I've thought of that," said Dorcas. "But is he likely to in the daylight? It is easy to make him alter his determination if he does. Put a special policeman on with instructions to keep his eye on the door, and directly he sees anyone going towards it let him stroll up. Barraclough won't risk letting himself in with a latchkey under the eyes of a policeman. He'll go away again and come after dark and then we shall be ready for him."

"You're right," said the Inspector. "I'll have the policeman put on. But there's one thing more—we know what we want Barraclough to do, but how about the broken-open door—that will rouse his suspicions at once?"

"Send some workmen you can trust to put it right again. He's not likely to examine it very closely."

"I'll send the workmen at once. You'll have to stay and let them in. A couple of hours will see them through. But who is going to stay here to let us in?"

"You'll want help to-night," replied Dorcas. "Send a plain clothes officer with the men—he can stay on in charge of the house."

"Yes, that will do—and now—Au revoir."

"What is this mysterious plan of yours?" I said to Dorcas, when the Inspector had gone.

"Oh, I only wanted to see what Barraclough wanted with those old clothes. Now, I'm going to lie down for an hour in the Indian's room—I'm tired. You had better go home."

"Aren't you going to let me see the end of it?" I asked eagerly.

"Certainly, if you wish it. I shall be back here at seven o'clock—come then."

* * * * * * *

At seven o'clock that evening, I rang cautiously at No. —, Burton Crescent. The Inspector opened the door to me.

"Mrs. Dene's upstairs," he said, "front room, first floor."

I went upstairs, found the door open and started back in astonishment. Dorcas was there, sitting on one of the small tables which had been brought down from the Indian's room, and in the corner sitting cross-legged and smoking a cigarette was Mr. Aleem Mohammed. Near him was a man, who was, I concluded the plain clothes officer from the Yard.

Dorcas beckoned me out on to the landing.

"You see, we've got Aleem," she said.

"Yes, how did you manage it?"

"The Yard promptly ran him down and brought him to Stromberg. The man, seeing his game is up, has given us every information. Stromberg has promised that if he helps us to-night he may get off lightly."

"What has he told you?"

"All we wanted to know. He is a man whom Barraclough employed in South America, and brought over here with him when he came. Barraclough made wealth rapidly in South America, and in fact accumulated a vast fortune equal to two or three millions of money, but he made the foundation of that fortune by unscrupulous means. Once in possession of money his natural ability enabled him to conduct his operations with skill, and his later successes were legitimate enough. But Aleem knew him in his shady days, so he tells us, and he didn't mean to be left in South America.

"About a fortnight ago Barraclough went to him—he had a little flat in Great Russell Street—and offered him £5,000 if he would consent to get a house and take charge of a woman who was drinking herself to death. The rest you know. Aleem swears that he only got the house and the things Barraclough ordered him to, and that he has never interfered in any way with the woman."

"But who got her here?"

"Barraclough himself—but that we have learned from the woman herself. Stromberg interviewed her at the hospital. Her name is Judkins. Twenty years ago she married John Judkins, a clever but improvident clerk in the employ of a firm of financiers in the City. Judkins got into debt and difficulties and one day disappeared, and she never saw him again until lately.

"She managed as well as she could for herself, and being a handsome woman did fairly well. One evening some weeks ago she was at the Empire when she heard a gentleman behind her call out 'Hullo, Judkins!' She turned and saw two gentlemen in evening dress greet each other. The name Judkins caused her eagerly to scrutinise the features of the elder of them. She recognised him in a moment as her husband——"

I interrupted Dorcas with a remark which rose to my lips:

"Why did the gentleman call Mr. Barraclough 'Judkins'?"

"Most of his friends clip his double barrel name to that, I expect. But let me go on. After the two gentlemen separated, Mrs. Judkins followed her husband until he was in a quiet part of the promenade and then touched him on the shoulder and said 'Jack!'

"Judkins started and turned as pale as his bronzed face would let him. Then he took her arm and they went out into Leicester Square together. He explained that he had intended to write to his wife after he decamped, but he had got into fresh trouble and had to clear out of the country. He had come back some years ago intending to find his wife, but he was in with a bad set and for his share in a fraud he had been sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. He had been out for a year, but he was still getting his living by his wits.

"He had promised her he would do what he could for her, and gave her £50 in bank-notes. He met her by appointment some time after that, and made her a present of some jewellery and quite won her confidence, only he was always careful to warn her that he was still what the fraternity call 'crook,' and the police were keeping an eye on him.

"One day he said he should have to lie quiet for a bit, and he told her to come to him where he was staying at No. —, Burton Crescent. She was to come at midnight. He would, he hoped, have some money and jewellery to give her which he wanted her to take care of while he was away.

"The woman fell into the trap. At midnight her husband let her in. The house was in darkness. He took her by the hand and led her upstairs.

"Suddenly the idea came to her that all was not right—she grew nervous and tried to drag her hand away. The man seized her forcibly and thrust his arm across her mouth to stop her screaming. She struggled and bit fiercely into his flesh. He uttered a cry of rage, and thrust his pocket-handkerchief into her mouth. Then he held something to her nose, which she supposed must have been chloroform, for she remembers no more. When she came to herself she felt weak and unable to move, and was lying in a kind of cage in one of the rooms. She saw brandy by her side and she drank. The brandy was all she had, and she drank to drive away her terror. She confesses that she had been a hard drinker, and that on several occasions when Judkins met her she had been drinking heavily. It was probably this discovery which gave him the idea of letting her drink herself to death quietly, using the chloral as a means to an end."

"And now?" I said as Dorcas finished her narrative.

"And now she is getting round——Well?"

The last word was addressed to Inspector Stromberg, who had come upstairs.

"Everything is ready," he said. "I've two men posted out of sight in front, and there's no chance of an escape at the back."

We went into the room all three together.

"Now," said the Inspector to the Indian, "you quite understand what you are to do?"

"Yes, I understand," replied Mr. Mohammed with a sickly grin.

"And remember you can't save him. If you warn him and he tries to bolt, my men are outside—so you'll let him come in and do exactly as he tells you."

"Yes."

"Now, once more you are sure you have no idea to whom those old clothes in the cupboard belong, nor why Barraclough brought them here!"

"No; he must have brought them and put them there when I did not see."

* * * * * * *

At ten o'clock there was the sound of a key turning in the lock downstairs. The house was in darkness. In the centre of the first-floor back room the cage, restored to its former condition, stood as before; only one side had been torn away by Aleem in order that he might ascertain if the woman was really dead. Covered over with a scarlet blanket lay something that looked like a human form. A cloth was flung over the face.

Dorcas and I were sitting with the front room door open when we heard the key. Stromberg and the plain-clothes officer were nowhere to be seen.

The Indian had taken down the sacking that formed the roof of the cage, and flung it into the corner. Through the thin partition that separated the back and front rooms two gimlet-holes had been bored. Dorcas knelt down and fixed her eyes to these. We could hear every word that was spoken.

Barraclough called out softly, "Aleem, Aleem, are you there?"

"I am here," answered Aleem. "Come up—all is over."

Barraclough came quickly up the stairs. Aleem opened the door of the back room.

"She died this morning early. Now, what are we to do? Bury her here?"

"No; it would look like murder if the body was ever found, and one never knows. She'll be much safer buried in a cemetery."

"In a cemetery?"

"Yes—after an inquest. We had better let the law establish our innocence in case of accidents. It's always safer to do the bold thing, Aleem—I've always found it so. Take this key, go downstairs, unlock the cupboard in the parlour, and bring me up a bundle of old clothes you'll find there—and bring a light."

I almost thought I heard Dorcas give a sigh of relief. She had forgotten that she had burst the cupboard open. Had Barraclough gone himself he would have noticed it.

Aleem went downstairs, and Dorcas rose quietly, went out softly, and stopped him as he came up. "Leave the door ajar," she said under her breath. Aleem evidently obeyed, for she remained outside.

I took her vacant place at the peepholes.

"Now," said Barraclough, as the Indian handed him the bundle and put the candle on the floor, "you're quicker-fingered than I am—go in and strip the body."

The Indian hesitated. "Why should I do this?"

"Why? Because you're going to have five thousand pounds. I'm not going to pay you and do the dirty work myself. Off with every rag—the jewels you can keep for yourself."

Still the Indian hesitated. "But why should we strip the body?" he said.

"Why?—to put those rags on it."

"And then?"

"Well, then all we've got to do is wait till there isn't a soul about and then pop the body outside on the doorstep."

"But the police—they will make inquiries."

"The police will do nothing of the sort. A wretched, ragged outcast will be found on a doorstep dead. She will be taken to the mortuary and a post-mortem made. The cause of death will be found to be starvation and drink, and the body will be buried. The law doesn't trouble itself about paupers found dead on a doorstep."

"Ah!" exclaimed Aleem, "that is what you wanted with those rags then?"

"Yes. Now, then, let me see what sort of a lady's maid you make."

At that moment the corpse moved slightly under the scarlet blanket.

Barraclough sprang back. "You fool—she's not dead!" he cried.

"No," exclaimed Inspector Stromberg, leaping up and flinging the blanket from him. "We're all very much alive."

At the same moment the sacking in the corner lifted up, and the plain-clothes officer slipped from under it, and Dorcas, pushing the door open, ran into the room.

"Mr. Barraclough," said the Inspector. "I arrest you on a charge of attempting to murder your wife, Marian Judkins."

The millionaire grasped the situation in a moment.

"You infernal traitor!" he hissed at the mild Mohammed. "I'll—I'll——"

In a moment the two officers had him by the arms.

"Come along," said the Inspector. "We'll get a four-wheeler to the door. I presume you haven't got your brougham waiting outside?"

As the men went downstairs with their prisoner, Dorcas nodded pleasantly to the Inspector.

"Thank you so much," she said, "for helping me to find out what those clothes in the cupboard were for." Then she turned to me and said, "You've had twenty-four hours' excitement straight off—you must be tired. Go home and go to bed."

"And you?"

"I'm going to Berkeley Square to tell the lady this scoundrel married that she is a free woman, and to offer her my sincere congratulations."

X. THE HAVERSTOCK HILL MURDER

The blinds had been down at the house in Oak Tree Road and the house shut for nearly six weeks. I had received a note from Dorcas saying that she was engaged on a case which would take her away for some little time, and that as Paul had not been very well lately she had arranged that he and her mother should accompany her. She would advise me as soon as they returned. I called once at Oak Tree Road and found it was in charge of the two servants and Toddlekins, the bulldog. The housemaid informed me that Mrs. Dene had not written, so that she did not know where she was or when she would be back, but that letters which arrived for her were forwarded by her instructions to Mr. Jackson, of Penton Street, King's Cross.

Mr. Jackson, I remembered, was the ex-police-sergeant who was generally employed by Dorcas when she wanted a house watched or certain inquiries made among tradespeople. I felt that it would be unfair to go to Jackson. Had Dorcas wanted me to know where she was she would have told me in her letter.

The departure had been a hurried one. I had gone to the North in connection with a business matter of my own on a Thursday evening, leaving Dorcas at Oak Tree Road, and when I returned on Monday afternoon I found Dorcas's letter at my chambers. It was written on the Saturday, and evidently on the eve of departure.

But something that Dorcas did not tell me I learned quite accidentally from my old friend Inspector Swanage, of Scotland Yard, whom I met one cold February afternoon at Kempton Park Steeplechases.

Inspector Swanage has a greater acquaintance with the fraternity known as "the boys" than any other officer. He has attended race meetings for years, and the "boys" always greet him respectfully, though they wish him further. Many a prettily-planned coup of theirs has he nipped in the bud, and many an unsuspecting greenhorn has he saved from pillage by a timely whisper that the well-dressed young gentlemen who are putting their fivers on so merrily and coming out of the enclosure with their pockets stuffed full of bank-notes are men who get their living by clever swindling, and are far more dangerous than the ordinary vulgar pickpocket.

On one occasion not many years ago I found a well-known publisher at a race meeting in earnest conversation with a beautifully-dressed, grey-haired sportsman. The publisher informed me that his new acquaintance was the owner of a horse which was certain to win the next race, and that it would start at ten to one. Only in order not to shorten the price nobody was to know the name of the horse, as the stable had three in the race. He had obligingly taken a fiver off the publisher to put on with his own money.

I told the publisher that he was the victim of a "tale-pitcher," and that he would never see his fiver again. At that moment Inspector Swanage came on the scene, and the owner of race horses disappeared as if by magic. Swanage recognised the man instantly, and having heard my publisher's story said, "If I have the man taken will you prosecute?" The publisher shook his head. He didn't want to send his authors mad with delight at the idea that somebody had eventually succeeded in getting a fiver the best of him. So Inspector Swanage strolled away. Half an hour later he came to us in the enclosure and said, "Your friend's horse doesn't run, so he's given me that fiver back again for you." And with a broad grin he handed my friend a bank-note.

It was Inspector Swanage's skill and kindness on this occasion that made me always eager to have a chat with him when I saw him at a race meeting, for his conversation was always interesting.

The February afternoon had been a cold one, and soon after the commencement of racing there were signs of fog. Now a foggy afternoon is dear to the hearts of the "boys." It conceals their operations, and helps to cover their retreat. As the fog came up the Inspector began to look anxious, and I went up to him.

"You don't like the look of things?" I said.

"No, if this gets worse the band will begin to play—there are some very warm members of it here this afternoon. It was a day just like this last year that they held up a bookmaker going to the station, and eased him of over £500. Hullo?"

As he uttered the exclamation the Inspector pulled out his race card and seemed to be anxiously studying it.

But under his voice he said to me, "Do you see that tall man in a fur coat talking to a bookmaker? See, he's just handed him a bank-note."

"Where?—I don't see him."

"Yonder. Do you see that old gipsy-looking woman with race cards? She has just thrust her hand through the railings and offered one to the man."

"Yes, yes—I see him now."

"That's Flash George. I've missed him lately, and I heard he was broke, but he's in funds again evidently by his get-up."

"One of the boys?"

"Has been—but he's been on another lay lately. He was mixed up in that big jewel case—£10,000 worth of diamonds stolen from a demi-mondaine. He got rid of some of the jewels for the thieves, but we could never bring it home to him. But he was watched for a long time afterwards and his game stopped. The last we heard of him he was hard up and borrowing from some of his pals. He's gone now. I'll just go and ask the bookie what he's betting to."

The Inspector stepped across to the bookmaker and presently returned.

"He is in luck again," he said. "He's put a hundred ready on the favourite for this race. By the bye, how's your friend Mrs. Dene getting on with her case?"

I confessed my ignorance as to what Dorcas was doing at the present moment—all I knew was that she was away.

"Oh, I thought you'd have known all about it," said the Inspector. "She's on the Hannaford case."

"What, the murder?"

"Yes."

"But surely that was settled by the police? The husband was arrested immediately after the inquest."

"Yes, and the case against him was very strong, but we know that Dorcas Dene has been engaged by Mr. Hannaford's family, who have made up their minds that the police, firmly believing him guilty, won't look anywhere else for the murderer—of course they are convinced of his innocence. But you must excuse me—the fog looks like thickening, and may stop racing—I must go and put my men to work."

"One moment before you go—why did you suddenly ask me how Mrs. Dene was getting on? Was it anything to do with Flash George that put it in your head?"

The Inspector looked at me curiously.

"Yes," he said, "though I didn't expect you'd see the connection. It was a mere coincidence. On the night that Mrs. Hannaford was murdered Flash George, who had been lost sight of for some time by our people, was reported to have been seen by the Inspector who was going his rounds in the neighbourhood. He was seen about half-past two o'clock in the morning looking rather dilapidated and seedy. When the report of the murder came in the Inspector at once remembered that he had seen Flash George in Haverstock Hill. But there was nothing in it—as the house hadn't been broken into and there was nothing stolen. You understand now why seeing Flash George carried my train of thought on to the Hannaford murder and Dorcas Dene. Good-bye."

The Inspector hurried away and a few minutes afterwards the favourite came in alone for the second race on the card. The stewards immediately afterwards announced that racing would be abandoned on the account of the fog increasing, and I made my way to the railway station and went home by the members' train.

Directly I reached home I turned eagerly to my newspaper file and read up the Hannaford murder. I knew the leading features, but every detail of it had now a special interest to me, seeing that Dorcas Dene had taken the case up.

These were the facts as reported in the Press:

Early in the morning of January 5 a maid-servant rushed out of the house, standing in its own grounds on Haverstock Hill, calling "Murder!" Several people who were passing instantly came to her and inquired what was the matter, but all she could gasp was, "Fetch a policeman." When the policeman arrived he followed the terrified girl into the house and was conducted to the drawing-room, where he found a lady lying in her night-dress in the centre of the room covered with blood, but still alive. He sent one of the servants for a doctor, and another to the police-station to inform the superintendent. The doctor came immediately and declared that the woman was dying. He did everything that could be done for her, and presently she partially regained consciousness. The superintendent had by this time arrived, and in the presence of the doctor asked her who had injured her.

She seemed anxious to say something, but the effort was too much for her, and presently she relapsed into unconsciousness. She died two hours later, without speaking.

The woman's injuries had been inflicted with some heavy instrument. On making a search of the room the poker was found lying between the fireplace and the body. The poker was found to have blood upon it, and some hair from the unfortunate lady's head.

The servants stated that their master and mistress, Mr. and Mrs. Hannaford, had retired to rest at their usual time, shortly before midnight. The housemaid had seen them go up together. She had been working at a dress which she wanted for next Sunday, and sat up late, using her sewing-machine in the kitchen. It was one o'clock in the morning when she passed her master and mistress's door, and she judged by what she heard that they were quarrelling. Mr. Hannaford was not in the house when the murder was discovered. The house was searched thoroughly in every direction, the first idea of the police being that he had committed suicide. The telegraph was then set to work, and at ten o'clock a man answering to Mr. Hannaford's description was arrested at Paddington Station, where he was taking a ticket for Uxbridge.

Taken to the police-station and informed that he would be charged with murdering his wife, he appeared to be horrified, and for some time was a prey to the most violent emotion. When he had recovered himself and was made aware of the serious position in which he stood, he volunteered a statement. He was warned, but he insisted on making it. He declared that he and his wife had quarrelled violently after they had retired to rest. Their quarrel was about a purely domestic matter, but he was in an irritable, nervous condition, owing to his health, and at last he had worked himself up into such a state, that he had risen, dressed himself, and gone out into the street. That would be about two in the morning. He had wandered about in a state of nervous excitement until daybreak. At seven he had gone into a coffee-house and had breakfast, and had then gone into the park and sat on a seat and fallen asleep. When he woke up it was nine o'clock. He had taken a cab to Paddington, and had intended to go to Uxbridge to see his mother, who resided there. Quarrels between himself and his wife had been frequent of late, and he was ill and wanted to get away, and he thought perhaps if he went to his mother for a day or two he might get calmer and feel better. He had been very much worried lately over business matters. He was a stockjobber, and the market in the securities in which he had been speculating was against him.

At the conclusion of the statement, which was made in a nervous, excited manner, he broke down so completely that it was deemed desirable to send for the doctor and keep him under close observation.

Police investigation of the premises failed to find any further clue. Everything pointed to the supposition that the result of the quarrel had been an attack by the husband—possibly in a sudden fit of homicidal mania—on the unfortunate woman. The police suggestion was that the lady, terrified by her husband's behaviour, had risen in the night and run down the stairs to the drawing-room, and that he had followed her there, picked up the poker, and furiously attacked her. When she fell, apparently lifeless, he had run back to his bedroom, dressed himself, and made his escape quietly from the house. There was nothing missing so far as could be ascertained—nothing to suggest in any way that any third party, a burglar from outside or some person inside, had had anything to do with the matter.

The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder, and the husband was charged before a magistrate and committed for trial. But in the interval his reason gave way, and, the doctors certifying that he was undoubtedly insane, he was sent to Broadmoor.

Nobody had the slightest doubt of his guilt, and it was his mother who, broken-hearted, and absolutely refusing to believe in her son's guilt, had come to Dorcas Dene and requested her to take up the case privately and investigate it. The poor old lady declared that she was perfectly certain that her son could not have been guilty of such a deed, but the police were satisfied, and would make no further investigation.

This I learnt afterwards when I went to see Inspector Swanage. All I knew when I had finished reading up the case in the newspapers was that the husband of Mrs. Hannaford was in Broadmoor, practically condemned for the murder of his wife, and that Dorcas Dene had left home to try and prove his innocence.

This history of the Hannafords as given in the public Press was as follows: Mrs. Hannaford was a widow when Mr. Hannaford, a man of six-and-thirty, married her. Her first husband was a Mr. Charles Drayson, a financier, who had been among the victims of the fire at the Paris Opéra Comique. His wife was with him in a loge that fatal night. When the fire broke out they both tried to escape together. They became separated in the crush. She was only slightly injured, and succeeded in getting out; he was less fortunate. His gold watch, a presentation one, with an inscription, was found among a mass of charred, unrecognisable remains when the ruins were searched.

Three years after this tragedy the widow married Mr. Hannaford. The death of her first husband did not leave her well off. It was found that he was heavily in debt, and had he lived a serious charge of fraud would undoubtedly have been preferred against him. As it was, his partner, a Mr. Thomas Holmes, was arrested and sentenced to five years' penal servitude in connection with a joint fraudulent transaction.

The estate of Mr. Drayson went to satisfy the creditors, but Mrs. Drayson, the widow, retained the house at Haverstock Hill, which he had purchased and settled on her, with all the furniture and contents, some years previously. She wished to continue living in the house when she married again, and Mr. Hannaford consented, and they made it their home. Hannaford himself, though not a wealthy man, was a fairly successful stockjobber, and until the crisis, which had brought on great anxiety and helped to break down his health, had had no financial worries. But the marriage, so it was alleged, had not been a very happy one and quarrels had been frequent. Old Mrs. Hannaford was against it from the first, and to her her son always turned in his later matrimonial troubles. Now that his life had probably been spared by this mental breakdown, and he had been sent to Broadmoor, she had but one object in life—to set her son free, some day restored to reason, and with his innocence proved to the world.

* * * * * * *

It was about a fortnight after my interview with Inspector Swanage, and my study of the details of the Haverstock Hill murder, that one morning I opened a telegram and to my intense delight found that it was from Dorcas Dene. It was from London, and informed me that in the evening they would be very pleased to see me at Oak Tree Road.

In the evening I presented myself about eight o'clock. Paul was alone in the drawing-room when I entered, but his face and his voice when he greeted me showed me plainly that he had benefited greatly by the change.

"Where have you been, to look so well?" I asked. "The South of Europe, I suppose—Nice or Monte Carlo?"

"No," said Paul smiling, "we haven't been nearly so far as that. But I mustn't tell tales out of school. You must ask Dorcas."

At that moment Dorcas came in and gave me a cordial greeting.

"Well," I said, after the first conversational preliminaries, "who committed the Haverstock Hill murder?"

"Oh, so you know that I have taken that up, do you? I imagined it would get about through the Yard people. You see, Paul dear, how wise I was to give out that I had gone away."

"Give out!" I exclaimed. "Haven't you been away then?"

"No, Paul and mother have been staying at Hastings, and I have been down whenever I have been able to spare a day, but as a matter of fact I have been in London the greater part of the time."

"But I don't see the use of your pretending you were going away."

"I did it on purpose. I knew the fact that old Mrs. Hannaford had engaged me would get about in certain circles, and I wanted certain people to think that I had gone away to investigate some clue which I thought I had discovered. In order to baulk all possible inquirers I didn't even let the servants forward my letters. They went to Jackson, who sent them on to me."

"Then you were really investigating in London?"

"Now shall I tell you where you heard that I was on this case?"

"Yes."

"You heard it at Kempton Park Steeplechases, and your informant was Inspector Swanage."

"You have seen him and he has told you."

"No; I saw you there talking to him."

"You saw me? You were at Kempton Park? I never saw you."

"Yes, you did, for I caught you looking full at me. I was trying to sell some race cards just before the second race, and was holding them between the railings of the enclosure."

"What! You were that old gipsy woman? I'm certain Swanage didn't know you."

"I didn't want him to, or anybody else."

"It was an astonishing disguise. But come, aren't you going to tell me anything about the Hannaford case? I've been reading it up, but I fail entirely to see the slightest suspicion against anyone but the husband. Everything points to his having committed the crime in a moment of madness. The fact that he has since gone completely out of his mind seems to me to show that conclusively."

"It is a good job he did go out of his mind—but for that I am afraid he would have suffered for the crime, and the poor broken-hearted old mother for whom I working would soon have followed him to the grave."

"Then you don't share the general belief in his guilt?"

"I did at first, but I don't now."

"You have discovered the guilty party?"

"No—not yet—but I hope to."

"Tell me exactly all that has happened—there may still be a chance for your 'assistant.'"

"Yes, it is quite possible that now I may be able to avail myself of your services. You say you have studied the details of this case—let us just run through them together, and see what you think of my plan of campaign so far as it has gone. When old Mrs. Hannaford came to me, her son had already been declared insane and unable to plead, and had gone to Broadmoor. That was nearly a month after the commission of the crime, so that much valuable time had been lost. At first I declined to take the matter up—the police had so thoroughly investigated the affair. The case seemed so absolutely conclusive that I told her that it would be useless for her to incur the heavy expense of a private investigation. But she pleaded so earnestly—her faith in her son was so great—and she seemed such a sweet, dear old lady, that at last she conquered my scruples, and I consented to study the case, and see if there was the slightest alternative theory to go on. I had almost abandoned hope, for there was nothing in the published reports to encourage it, when I determined to go to the fountain-head, and see the Superintendent who had had the case in hand.

"He received me courteously, and told me everything. He was certain that the husband committed the murder. There was an entire absence of motive for anyone else in the house to have done it, and the husband's flight from the house in the middle of the night was absolutely damning. I inquired if they had found anyone who had seen the husband in the street—anyone who could fix the time at which he had left the house. He replied that no such witness had been found. Then I asked if the policeman on duty that night had made any report of any suspicious characters being seen about. He said No, the only person he had noticed at all was a man well known to the police—a man named Flash George. I asked what time Flash George had been seen and whereabouts, and I ascertained that it was at half-past two in the morning, and about a hundred yards below the scene of the crime, that when the policeman spoke to him he said he was coming from Hampstead, and was going to Covent Garden Market. He walked away in the direction of the Chalk Farm Road. I enquired what Flash George's record was, and I ascertained that he was the associate of thieves and swindlers, and he was suspected of having disposed of some jewels, the proceeds of a robbery which had made a nine days' sensation. But the police had failed to bring the charge home to him, and the jewels had never been traced. He was also a gambler, a frequenter of racecourses and certain night-clubs of evil repute, and had not been seen about for some time previous to that evening."

"And didn't the police make any further investigations in that direction?"

"No. Why should they? There was nothing missing from the house—not the slightest sign of an attempted burglary. All their efforts were directed to proving the guilt of the unfortunate woman's husband."

"And you?"

"I had a different task—mine was to prove the husband's innocence. I determined to find out something more of Flash George. I shut the house up, gave out that I had gone away, and took, amongst other things, to selling cards and pencils on racecourses. The day that Flash George made his reappearance on the turf after a long absence was the day he backed the winner of the second race at Kempton Park for a hundred pounds."

"But surely that proves that if he had been connected with any crime it must have been one in which money was obtained. No one has attempted to associate the murder of Mrs. Hannaford with robbery."

"No. But one thing is certain—that on the night of the crime Flash George was in the neighbourhood. Two days previously he had borrowed a few pounds of a pal because he was 'stoney broke.' When he reappears as a racing man he has on a fur coat, is evidently in first-class circumstances, and he bets in hundred-pound notes. He is a considerably richer man after the murder of Mrs. Hannaford than he was before, and he was seen within a hundred yards of the house at half-past two o'clock on the night that the crime was committed."

"That might have been a mere accident. His sudden wealth may be the result of a lucky gamble, or a swindle of which you know nothing. I can't see that it can possibly have any bearing on the Hannaford crime, because nothing was taken from the house."

"Quite true. But here is a remarkable fact. When he went up to the betting man he went to one who was betting close to the rails, and I pushed my cards in between and asked him to buy one. Flash George is a 'suspected character,' and quite capable on a foggy day of trying to swindle a bookmaker. The bookmaker took the precaution to open that note, it being for a hundred pounds, and examined it carefully. That enabled me to see the number. I had sharpened pencils to sell, and with one of them I hastily took down the number of that note—— 2 x | 35421."

"That was clever. And you have traced it?"

"Yes."

"And has that furnished you with any clue?"

"It has placed me in possession of a most remarkable fact. The hundred-pound note which was in Flash George's possession on Kempton Park racecourse was one of a number which were paid over the counter of the Union Bank of London for a five-thousand-pound cheque over seven years ago. And that cheque was drawn by the murdered woman's husband."

"Mr. Hannaford!"

"No; her first husband—Mr. Charles Drayson."

XI. THE BROWN BEAR LAMP

When Dorcas Dene told me that the £100 note Flash George had handed to the bookmaker at Kempton Park was one which had some years previously been paid to Mr. Charles Drayson, the first husband of the murdered woman, Mrs. Hannaford, I had to sit still and think for a moment.

It was curious certainly, but after all much more remarkable coincidences than that occur daily. I could not see what practical value there was in Dorcas's extraordinary discovery, because Mr. Charles Drayson was dead, and it was hardly likely that his wife would have kept a £100 note of his for several years. And if she had, she had not been murdered for that, because there were no signs of the house having been broken into. The more I thought the business over the more confused I became in my attempt to establish a clue from it, and so after a minute's silence I frankly confessed to Dorcas that I didn't see where her discovery led to.

"I don't say that it leads very far by itself," said Dorcas. "But you must look at all the circumstances. During the night of January 5 a lady is murdered in her own drawing-room. Round about the time that the attack is supposed to have been made upon her a well-known bad character is seen close to the house. That person, who just previously has been ascertained to have been so hard up that he had been borrowing of his associates, reappears on the turf a few weeks later expensively dressed and in possession of money. He bets with a £100 note, and that £100 note I have traced to the previous possession of the murdered woman's first husband, who lost his life in the Opéra Comique disaster in Paris, while on a short visit to that capital."

"Yes, it certainly is curious, but——"

"Wait a minute—I haven't finished yet. Of the bank-notes—several of them for £100—which were paid some years ago to Mr. Charles Drayson, not one had come back to the bank before the murder."

"Indeed!"

"Since the murder several of them have come in. Now, is it not a remarkable circumstance that during all those years £5,000 worth of bank-notes should have remained out!"

"It is remarkable, but after all bank-notes circulate—they may pass through hundreds of hands before returning to the bank."

"Some may, undoubtedly, but it is highly improbable that all would under ordinary circumstances—especially notes for £100. These are sums which are not passed from pocket to pocket. As a rule they go to the bank of one of the early receivers of them, and from that bank into the Bank of England."

"You mean that is an extraordinary fact that for many years not one of the notes paid to Mr. Charles Drayson by the Union Bank came back to the Bank of England."

"Yes, that is an extraordinary fact, but there is a fact which is more extraordinary still, and that is that soon after the murder of Mrs. Hannaford that state of things ceases. It looks as though the murderer had placed the notes in circulation again."

"It does, certainly. Have you traced back any of the other notes that have come in?"

"Yes; but they have been cleverly worked. They have nearly all been circulated in the betting ring; those that have not have come in from money-changers in Paris and Rotterdam. My own belief is that before long the whole of those notes will come back to the bank."

"Then, my dear Dorcas, it seems to me that your course is plain, and you ought to go to the police and get them to get the bank to circulate a list of the notes."

Dorcas shook her head. "No, thank you," she said. "I'm going to carry this case through on my own account. The police are convinced that the murderer is Mr. Hannaford, who is at present in Broadmoor, and the bank has absolutely no reason to interfere. No question has been raised of the notes having been stolen. They were paid to the man who died over seven years ago, not to the woman who was murdered last January."

"But you have traced one note to Flash George, who is a bad lot, and he was near the house on the night of the tragedy. You suspect Flash George and——"

"I do not suspect Flash George of the actual murder," she said, "and I don't see how he is to be arrested for being in possession of a bank-note which forms no part of the police case, and which he might easily say he had received in the betting ring."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Follow up the clue I have. I have been shadowing Flash George all the time I have been away. I know where he lives—I know who are his companions."

"And do you think the murderer is among them?"

"No. They are all a little astonished at his sudden good fortune. I have heard them 'chip' him, as they call it, on the subject. I have carried my investigations up to a certain point and there they stop short. I am going a step further to-morrow evening, and it is in that step that I want assistance."

"And you have come to me?" I said eagerly.

"Yes."

"What do you want me to do?"

"To-morrow morning I am going to make a thorough examination of the room in which the murder was committed. To-morrow evening I have to meet a gentleman of whom I know nothing but his career and his name. I want you to accompany me."

"Certainly; but if I am your assistant in the evening I shall expect to be your assistant in the morning—I should very much like to see the scene of the crime."

"I have no objection. The house on Haverstock Hill is at present shut up and in charge of a caretaker, but the solicitors who are managing the late Mrs. Hannaford's estate have given me permission to go over it and examine it."

The next day at eleven o'clock I met Dorcas outside Mrs. Hannaford's house, and the caretaker, who had received his instructions, admitted us. He was the gardener, and an old servant, and had been present during the police investigation.

The bedroom in which Mr. Hannaford and his wife slept on the fatal night was on the floor above. Dorcas told me to go upstairs, shut the door, lie down on the bed, and listen. Directly a noise in the room attracted my attention, I was to jump up, open the door and call out.

I obeyed her instructions and listened intently, but lying on the bed I heard nothing for a long time. It must have been quite a quarter of an hour when suddenly I heard a sound as of a door opening with a cracking sound. I leapt up, ran to the balusters, and called over, "I heard that!"

"All right, then, come down," said Dorcas, who was standing in the hall with the caretaker.

She explained to me that she had been moving about the drawing-room with the man, and they had both made as much noise with their feet as they could. They had even opened and shut the drawing-room door, but nothing had attracted my attention. Then Dorcas had sent the man to open the front door. It had opened with the cracking sound that I had heard.

"Now," said Dorcas to the caretaker, "you were here when the police were coming and going—did the front door always make a sound like that?"

"Yes, madam. The door had swollen or warped, or something, and it was always difficult to open. Mrs. Hannaford spoke about it once and was going to have it eased."

"That's it, then," said Dorcas to me. "The probability is that it was the noise made by the opening of that front door which first attracted the attention of the murdered woman."

"That was Hannaford going out—if his story is correct."

"No; Hannaford went out in a rage. He would pull the door open violently, and probably bang it too. That she would understand. It was when the door opened again with a sharp crack that she listened, thinking it was her husband come back."

"But she was murdered in the drawing-room?"

"Yes. My theory, therefore, is that after the opening of the front door she expected her husband to come upstairs. He didn't do so, and she concluded that he had gone into one of the rooms downstairs to spend the night, and she got up and came down to find him and ask him to get over his temper and come back to bed. She went into the drawing-room to see if he was there, and was struck down from behind before she had time to utter a cry. The servants heard nothing, remember."

"They said so at the inquest—yes."

"Now come into the drawing-room. This is where the caretaker tells me the body was found—here in the centre of the room—the poker with which the fatal blow had been struck was lying between the body and the fireplace. The absence of a cry and the position of the body show that when Mrs. Hannaford opened the door she saw no one (I am of course presuming that the murderer was not her husband) and she came in further. But there must have been someone in the room or she couldn't have been murdered in it."

"That is indisputable; but he might not have been in the room at the time—the person might have been hiding in the hall and followed her in."

"To suppose that we must presume that the murderer came into the room, took the poker from the fireplace, and went out again in order to come in again. That poker was secured, I am convinced, when the intruder heard footsteps coming down the stairs. He picked up the poker then concealed himself here."

"Then why, my dear Dorcas, shouldn't he have remained concealed until Mrs. Hannaford had gone out of the room again?"

"I think she was turning to go when he rushed out and struck her down. He probably thought that she had heard the noise of the door, and might go and alarm the servants."

"But just now you said she came in believing that her husband had returned and was in one of the rooms."

"The intruder could hardly be in possession of her thoughts."

"In the meantime he could have got out at the front door."

"Yes; but if his object was robbery he would have to go without the plunder. He struck the woman down in order to have time to get what he wanted."

"Then you think he left her here senseless while he searched the house?"

"Nobody got anything by searching the house, ma'am," broke in the caretaker. "The police satisfied themselves that nothing had been disturbed. Every door was locked, the plate was all complete, not a bit of jewellery or anything was missing. The servants were all examined about that, and the detectives went over every room and every cupboard to prove it wasn't no burglar broke in or anything of that sort. Besides, the windows were all fastened."

"What he says is quite true," said Dorcas to me, "but something alarmed Mrs. Hannaford in the night and brought her to the drawing-room in her nightdress. If it was as I suspect, the opening of the front door, that is how the guilty person got in."

The caretaker shook his head. "It was the poor master as did it, ma'am, right enough. He was out of his mind."

Dorcas shrugged her shoulders. "If he had done it, it would have been a furious attack, there would have been oaths and cries, and the poor lady would have received a rain of blows. The medical evidence shows that death resulted from one heavy blow on the back of the skull. But let us see where the murderer could have concealed himself ready armed with the poker here in the drawing-room."

In front of the drawing-room window were heavy curtains, and I at once suggested that curtains were the usual place of concealment on the stage and might be in real life.

As soon as I had asked the question Dorcas turned to the caretaker. "You are certain that every article of furniture is in its place exactly as it was that night?"

"Yes; the police prepared a plan of the room for the trial, and since then by the solicitors' orders we have not touched a thing."

"That settles the curtains then," continued Dorcas. "Look at the windows for yourself. In front of one, close by the curtains, is an ornamental table covered with china and glass and bric-à-brac; and in front of the other a large settee. No man could have come from behind those curtains without shifting that furniture out of his way. That would have immediately attracted Mrs. Hannaford's attention and given her time to scream and rush out of the room. No, we must find some other place for the assassin. Ah!—I wonder if——"

Dorcas's eyes were fixed on a large brown bear which stood nearly against the wall near the fireplace. The bear, a very fine, big specimen, was supported in its upright position by an ornamental iron pole, at the top of which was fixed an oil lamp covered with a yellow silk shade.

"That's a fine bear lamp," exclaimed Dorcas.

"Yes," said the caretaker, "it's been here ever since I've been in the family's service. It was bought by the poor mistress's first husband, Mr. Drayson, and he thought a lot of it. But," he added, looking at it curiously, "I always thought it stood closer to the wall than that. It used to—right against it."

"Ah," exclaimed Dorcas, "that's interesting. Pull the curtains right back and give me all the light you can."

As the man obeyed her directions she went down on her hands and knees and examined the carpet carefully.

"You are right," she said. "This has been moved a little forward, and not so very long ago—the carpet for a square of some inches is a different colour to the rest. The brown bear stands on a square mahogany stand, and the exact square now shows in the colour of the carpet that has been hidden by it. Only here is a discoloured portion and the bear does not now stand on it."

The evidence of the bear having been moved forward from a position it had long occupied was indisputable. Dorcas got up and went to the door of the drawing-room.

"Go and stand behind that bear," she said. "Stand as compact as you can, as though you were endeavouring to conceal yourself."

I obeyed, and Dorcas, standing in the drawing-room doorway, declared that I was completely hidden.

"Now," she said, coming to the centre of the room and turning her back to me, "reach down from where you are and see if you can pick up the shovel from the fireplace without making a noise."

I reached out carefully and had the shovel in my hand without making a sound.

"I have it," I said.

"That's right. The poker would have been on the same side as the shovel, and much easier to pick up quietly. Now, while my back is turned, grasp the shovel by the handle, leap out at me, and raise the shovel as if to hit me—but don't get excited and do it, because I don't want to realise the scene too completely."

I obeyed. My footsteps were scarcely heard on the heavy-pile drawing-room carpet. When Dorcas turned round the shovel was above her head ready to strike.

"Thank you for letting me off," she said, with a smile. Then her face becoming serious again, she exclaimed: "The murderer of Mrs. Hannaford concealed himself behind that brown bear lamp, and attacked her in exactly the way I have indicated. But why had he moved the bear two or three inches forward?"

"To conceal himself behind it."

"Nonsense! His concealment was a sudden act. That bear is heavy—the glass chimney of the lamp would have rattled if it had been done violently and hurriedly while Mrs. Hannaford was coming downstairs—that would have attracted her attention and she would have called out, 'Who's there?' at the doorway, and not have come in looking about for her husband."

Dorcas looked the animal over carefully, prodded it with her fingers, and then went behind it.

After a minute or two's close examination, she uttered a little cry and called me to her side.

She had found in the back of the bear a small straight slit. This was quite invisible. She had only discovered it by an accidentally violent thrust of her fingers into the animal's fur. Into this slit she thrust her hand, and the aperture yielded sufficiently for her to thrust her arm in. The interior of the bear was hollow, but Dorcas's hand as it went down struck against a wooden bottom. Then she withdrew her arm and the aperture closed up. It had evidently been specially prepared as a place of concealment, and only the most careful examination would have revealed it.

"Now," exclaimed Dorcas, triumphantly, "I think we are on a straight road! This, I believe, is where those missing bank-notes lay concealed for years. They were probably placed there by Mr. Drayson with the idea that some day his frauds might be discovered or he might be made a bankrupt. This was his little nest-egg, and his death in Paris before his fraud was discovered prevented his making use of them. Mrs. Hannaford evidently knew nothing of the hidden treasure, or she would speedily have removed it. But someone knew, and that someone put his knowledge to practical use the night that Mrs. Hannaford was murdered. The man who got in at the front door that night, got in to relieve the bear of its valuable stuffing; he moved the bear to get at the aperture, and was behind it when Mrs. Hannaford came in. The rest is easy to understand."

"But how did he get in at the front door?"

"That's what I have to find out. I am sure now that Flash George was in it. He was seen outside, and some of the notes that were concealed in the brown bear lamp have been traced to him. Who was Flash George's accomplice we may discover to-night. I think I have an idea, and if that is correct we shall have the solution of the whole mystery before dawn to-morrow morning."

"Why do you think you will learn so much to-night?"

"Because Flash George met a man two nights ago outside the Criterion. I was selling wax matches, and followed them up, pestering them. I heard George say to his companion, whom I had never seen with him before, 'Tell him Hungerford Bridge, midnight, Wednesday. Tell him to bring the lot and I'll cash up for them!'"

"And you think the 'him'——?"

"Is the man who rifled the brown bear and killed Mrs. Hannaford."

* * * * * * *

At eleven o'clock that evening I met Dorcas Dene in Villiers Street. I knew what she would be like, otherwise her disguise would have completely baffled me. She was dressed as an Italian street musician, and was with a man who looked like an Italian organ-grinder.

Dorcas took my breath away by her first words.

"Allow me to introduce you," she said, "to Mr. Thomas Holmes. This is the gentleman who was Charles Drayson's partner, and was sentenced to five years' penal servitude over the partnership frauds."

"Yes," replied the organ-grinder in excellent English. "I suppose I deserved it for being a fool, but the villain was Drayson—he had all my money, and involved me in a fraud at the finish."

"I have told Mr. Holmes the story of our discovery," said Dorcas. "I have been in communication with him ever since I discovered the notes were in circulation. He knew Drayson's affairs, and he has given me some valuable information. He is with us to-night because he knew Mr. Drayson's former associates, and he may be able to identify the man who knew the secret of the house at Haverstock Hill."

"You think that is the man Flash George is to meet?"

"I do. What else can 'Tell him to bring the lot and I'll cash up' mean but the rest of the bank-notes?"

Shortly before twelve we got on to Hungerford Bridge—the narrow footway that runs across the Thames by the side of the railway.

I was to walk ahead and keep clear of the Italians until I heard a signal.

We crossed the bridge after that once or twice, I coming from one end and the Italians from the other, and passing each other about the centre.

At five minutes to midnight I saw Flash George come slowly along from the Middlesex side. The Italians were not far behind. A minute later an old man with a grey beard, and wearing an old Inverness cape, passed me, coming from the Surrey side. When he met Flash George the two stopped and leant over the parapet, apparently interested in the river. Suddenly I heard Dorcas's signal. She began to sing the Italian song, "Santa Lucia."

I had my instructions. I jostled up against the two men and begged their pardon.

Flash George turned fiercely round. At the same moment I seized the old man and shouted for help. The Italians came hastily up. Several foot passengers rushed to the scene and inquired what was the matter.

"He was going to commit suicide," I cried. "He was just going to jump into the water."

The old man was struggling in my grasp. The crowd were keeping back Flash George. They believed the old man was struggling to get free to throw himself into the water.

The Italian rushed up to me.

"Ah, poor old man!" he said. "Don't let him get away!"

He gave a violent tug to the grey beard. It came off in his hands. Then with an oath he seized the supposed would-be suicide by the throat.

"You infernal villain!" he said.

"Who is he?" asked Dorcas.

"Who is he!" exclaimed Thomas Holmes, "why, the villain who brought me to ruin—my precious partner—Charles Drayson!"

As the words escaped from the supposed Italian's lips, Charles Drayson gave a cry of terror, and leaping on to the parapet, plunged into the river.

Flash George turned to run, but was stopped by a policeman who had just come up.

Dorcas whispered something in the man's ear, and the officer, thrusting his hand in the rascal's pocket, drew out a bundle of bank-notes.

A few minutes later the would-be suicide was brought ashore. He was still alive, but had injured himself terribly in his fall, and was taken to the hospital.

Before he died he was induced to confess that he had taken advantage of the Paris fire to disappear. He had flung his watch down in order that it might be found as evidence of his death. He had, previously to visiting the Opéra Comique, received a letter at his hotel which told him pretty plainly the game was up, and he knew that at any moment a warrant might be issued against him. After reading his name amongst the victims, he lived as best he could abroad, but after some years, being in desperate straits, he determined to do a bold thing, return to London and endeavour to get into his house and obtain possession of the money which was lying unsuspected in the interior of the brown bear lamp. He had concealed it, well knowing that at any time the crash might come, and everything belonging to him be seized. The hiding-place he had selected was one which neither his creditors nor his relatives would suspect.

On the night he entered the house, Flash George, whose acquaintance he had made in London, kept watch for him while he let himself in with his latch-key, which he had carefully preserved. Mr. Hannaford's leaving the house was one of those pieces of good fortune which occasionally favour the wicked.

With his dying breath Charles Drayson declared that he had no intention of killing his wife. He feared that, having heard a noise, she had come to see what it was, and might alarm the house in her terror, and as she turned to go out of the drawing-room he struck her, intending only to render her senseless until he had secured the booty.

* * * * * * *

Mr. Hannaford, completely recovered and in his right mind, was in due time released from Broadmoor. The letter from his mother to Dorcas Dene, thanking her for clearing her son's character and proving his innocence of the terrible crime for which he had been practically condemned, brought tears to my eyes as Dorcas read it aloud to Paul and myself. It was touching and beautiful to a degree.

As she folded it up and put it away, I saw that Dorcas herself was deeply moved.

"These are the rewards of my profession," she said. "They compensate for everything."

THE END

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Table of Contents

- Dorcas Dene, Detective Her Adventures
- Table of Contents
- I. THE COUNCIL OF FOUR
- II. THE HELSHAM MYSTERY
- III. THE MAN WITH THE WILD EYES
- IV. THE SECRET OF THE LAKE
- V. THE DIAMOND LIZARD
- VI. THE PRICK OF A PIN
- VII. THE MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE
- VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE
- IX. THE CLOTHES IN THE CUPBOARD
- X. THE HAVERSTOCK HILL MURDER
- XI. THE BROWN BEAR LAMP
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE