the inspector, but unfortunately for its success that gentleman habitually took no notice of such manifestations as the superb attitude, the haughty stare, the frigid manner, and the crushing retort. It is true that he was not at all a diffident, sensitive, or feeble person. Although a man of worth, he was perhaps but a superior sort of peremptory sergeant, a very shrewd policeman with the political disregard of any weapon that might not be positively lethal. And nevertheless there are men of worth, and women, too, strange to say, whom the direct menace of the lethal weapon will affect less keenly than any footman's jeer or any courtesan's insult, the triumphal march of any illiterate. millionnaire, or the cold scorn of any handsome woman who, in her lounge through flowery meads of life, has not yet chanced to encounter the variola.

Inspector Byde enclosed his card within an envelope. The latter would easily open, being freshly gummed, he observed to the domestic; at the same time he would strongly advise him not to open it in the kitchen before delivering it to his mistress, for Miss Knollys. Measuring his interlocutor with another proud look, a look which a false Continental marquess standing on his dignity might have envied, the domestic vouchsafed a few contemptuous syllables to the effect that the strange visitor had apparently mistaken his whereabouts.

66

Allons donc!" interrupted the inspector, a little brutally. "Do you think I don't know the servants' hall?" The astonished footman looked twice at the cut of the inspector's clothes.

"It's a foreigner, Marotte," said he to the cook when he reached the kitchen; "but where he comes from I can't make out. Sometimes he speaks like a Marseillais, sometimes like a Swiss. The concierge must have told

him that our people are at home, for he insists. to be done with this card? Madame will be say the person is waiting while I take it in."

What's

angry if I

"You should not have allowed the person to wait. You had your orders, had you not?"

"Well, I don't know how it happened, but he had a manner! Not a person of the best world, I should say; but still he had a manner▬▬

Marotte suggested that he should refer to the English maid, who had returned from her walk some time ago. Lydia Murdoch betrayed some surprise at the sight of the superscription. It was impossible, however, for her to express any opinion, she commented. She could not

say who the visitor might be. Thereupon the simple process familiar to the servants' hall, as well as to the cabinet noir of certain Governments, was neatly and expeditiously performed.

It was his professional card that the inspector had enclosed within the envelope. The lines engraved upon it might have been Chaldaic writings for the eyes that now glanced over them,-except for the eyes of Lydia Murdoch. For Lydia Murdoch they were assuredly full of significance.

"You had better convey the card to mademoiselle," she said briefly.

Inspector Byde waited with the utmost patience, the delay convincing him that the "not at home" was no more than the conveniently untrue formula of ordinary usage. If after this delay, he pondered, the "not at at home" should be persisted in, despite the announcement of his visit in professional capacity, there would be not a bad ground for assuming, just inferentially, that the original supposition was being confirmed.

The original supposition had been, had it not? that young Mr. Sinclair, formerly Mr. Wilmot's private secretary, and suddenly dismissed a few months ago, was the actual thief in this matter of the diamonds, and that he had acted with some party, then unknown, whose office in the undertaking was to receive the property from him and to realize it. A vague suspicion had fallen upon Remington, the circumstances of whose death might possibly be held to justify that suspicion. But it had also been on the cards that the abstracted property, notwithstanding its exceptional value, had been despatched like a common parcel by Sinclair himself, or by some confederate, unknown, to an address in Paris, where it would be subsequently recovered. Now, he had learnt through the wire that Sinclair had been searched at Dover, and that the property had not been found upon him. Putting on one side for the moment the murder of Mr. Remington in the night-mail and the rifling of the breast-pocket— and the misdeed might, after all, have been fruitlessly committed suppose that the original conjecture were the accurate one, and that the parcel had been forwarded in the simplest manner to the Miss Knollys, of No. 95, Avenue Marceau, to whom it had been Sinclair's first thought, after his arrest, to write? Improbable--because the superscription upon his letter gave the police the clue? Not in the least improbable! It was important for him to communicate with the Avenue Marceau: was he not expected to arrive in Paris by the night-mail? A prompt telegram from him to the Paris address would of course attract attention; a letter might just possibly escape notice. The letter might be couched in perfectly commonplace terms, and yet might convey to its recipient both a warning and instructions. Or-it need not have

been actually to this address that the parcel was consigned; it would be quite sufficient, for the theory, that the address to which the parcel had been consigned was known to some one here. But had this place the air of a receiver's premises?

Judging by the apartment into which he had been ushered, the lady of the house must be in the enjoyment of considerable opulence. The vestibule, encumbered with evergreen plants and the few hardy blossoms of the season, had had the aspect of a carpeted conservatory as he passed through. The lofty apartment in which he was now seated reminded him of an antiquary's cabinet as much as of anything else. Across the walls here and there hung portions of old Flanders tapestry, the adventures of Ixion which they had once depicted in tones warm and rich having since become problematical, owing to the ravages of moths, and to the decolourizations of time. A curious old cabinet, with little columns of lapislazuli, stood at one end of the room; and a large Venetian mirror, with a frame of quaint carving, formed another conspicuous ornament. The chairs were Louis Treize; and half a hundred smaller articles completed the main effect. With dry logs blazing cheerfully on almost a bare hearth, it seemed a pity that the mantelpiece should mark the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

From his contemplation of this interior Mr. Inspector Byde was roused by the reappearance of the servant who had first answered his summons. Mdlle. Knollys had been slightly indisposed since the previous evening, but would receive the gentleman whose card had been enclosed to her. The next minute Mr. Byde was shown into a luxurious drawing-room, and, as he entered, two

ladies rose to their feet. Yes! they were the ladies who had visited the Morgue.

"Miss Knollys?" said the inspector inquiringly.

Any commmunication you may have to make to me may be freely made in the presence of this lady, Mrs. Bertram, my friend," replied the younger of the two, in a low voice.

"My business relates to a matter which concerns yourself intimately," hazarded the inspector. "I have received the fullest information from London on the subject, but have deemed it only proper to place myself in direct communication with you, Miss Knollys. I am aware that I have no right to intrude upon you here; I am here only by your courtesy. As you have been good enough to receive me, however, let me beg you, in your own interests, to facilitate, as far as you can do so, the inquiry I am engaged upon for Scotland Yard. My business relates to your acquaintance with Austin Wortley Sinclair, now 'wanted' by the police on a charge of diamond robbery."

"Mr. Sinclair must be the victim of an absurd mistake!" exclaimed the young lady. "The whole occurrence is inconceivable! Mr. Sinclair is either the victim of a perfectly ridiculous blunder—a stupid, idiotic piece of misunderstanding, or else --," she stopped, and twisted her handkerchief nervously, "or else of heartless malice-the most cruel, cruel, vindictive malice!"

She burst into tears.

"Oh, Adela!—my poor child!" murmured the elder lady moving to her side.

Adela?

Mr. Inspector Byde repeated the syllables mentally two or three times, in the hope of lighting upon the