neither rang her bell nor came down. When evening arrived, as the man had
not returned, and no response could be got to repeated knocks at the
door, the landlady opened it with a master-key, and entered the room. She
found the woman dead--and according to the medical evidence she had been
dead since ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. Then, of course, the
police were called in. There was nothing in the room or in the suit-case
to establish or suggest identity. The body was removed, and an autopsy
has been held. And the conclusion of the medical men is that this woman
has been secretly and subtly poisoned."

Here the official paused, rang a bell, and remained silent until a
quiet-looking, middle-aged man who might have been a highly respectable
butler entered the room: then he turned again to his visitors.

"I want you, Miss Lennard, to accompany this man--one of my officers--to
the mortuary, to see if you can identify the body I have told you of.
Perhaps you gentlemen will accompany Miss Lennard? Then," he continued,
rising, "if you will all return here, we will go into this matter
further, and see if we can throw more light on it."

Allerdyke's next impressions were of a swift drive across London to a
quiet retreat in Paddington, where, in a red-brick building set amidst
trees, official-faced men conducted him and his two companions into a
sort of annex, one side of which was covered with sheet glass. On the
other side of that glass he became aware of a still figure, shrouded and
arranged in formal lines, of a white face, set amidst dark hair ... then
as in a dream he heard Celia Lennard's frightened whisper--

"That's she--that's Lisette! Oh, for God's sake, take me out!"




CHAPTER XI

THE RUSSIAN BANK-NOTES


The three searchers into what was rapidly becoming a most complicated
mystery drove back to New Scotland Yard in a silence which lasted until
they were set down at the door of the department whereat they had
interviewed the high official. Celia Lennard was thoroughly upset; the
sight of the dead woman had disturbed her even more than she let her
companions see; she remained dumb and rigid, staring straight before her
as if she still gazed on the white face set in its frame of dark hair.
Allerdyke, too, stared at the crowds in the streets as if they were
abstract visions--his keen brain felt dazed and mystified by this
accumulation of strange events. And Fullaway, active and mercurial though
he was, made no attempt at conversation--he sat with knitted forehead,
trying to think, to account, to surmise, only conscious that he was up
against a bigger mystery than life had ever shown him up to then.

The detective who had accompanied them to the mortuary conducted the
three straight back to his chief's office--the chief, noticing the effect
of the visit on Celia, hastened to give her a chair at the side of his
desk, and looked at her with a lessening of his official manner. He
signed to the other two to sit down, and motioned the detective to
remain. Then he turned to Celia.

"You recognized the woman?" he said softly. "Just so. I thought you
would, and I was sorry to ask you to perform such an unpleasant task but
it was absolutely necessary. Now," he continued, taking up his bundle of
papers again, "I want you to describe the man who met you and your maid
on your arrival at Hull the other night. Of course you saw him?"

"Certainly I saw him," replied Celia. "And I should know him again
anywhere--the scoundrel!"

The high official smiled and glanced at Fullaway.

"You are thinking, Miss Lennard, that the man you then saw is the man who
accompanied your maid to the hotel in which she was found dead," he said.
"Well, that may be so--but it mayn't. That is why I want you to give us
an accurate description of the man you saw. You described the maid very
well indeed. Now describe the man."

"I can do that quite well," said Celia, with assurance. "And I can tell
you the circumstances. The steamer--the _Perisco_--got into the river at
Hull about a quarter to nine and anchored off the Victoria Pier. We
understood that she couldn't get into dock just then because of the tide,
and that we must go on shore by tender. A tender came off--some of the
people on board it came on our deck. There was a good deal of bustle. I
went down to my cabin to see after something or other. Lisette came to me
there, evidently much agitated, saying that her brother had come off on
the tender to fetch her at once to their mother who was ill in
London--dying. She begged to be allowed to go with him. Of course I said
she might. She immediately picked up her suit-case and travelling coat
out of our pile of luggage, and I went up with her on deck. She and the
man--her brother, as I understood--got into a small boat which was
alongside and went straight off to the pier: the tender was not leaving
for shore for some time. And--that was the last I saw of her. It was all
done in a minute or two."

"Now--the man," suggested the chief softly.

"A young man--about Lisette's age, I should say--twenty-seven to thirty
anyway. Tallish. Dark hair, moustache, eyes, and complexion.
Good-looking--in a foreign way. I had no doubt he was her brother--he
looked French, though he spoke English quite well and without accent.
Very respectably dressed in dark clothes and overcoat. He would have
passed for a well-to-do clerk--that type. I spoke to him--a few words. He
spoke well--had very polite, almost polished manners. Of course he was
hurried--wanting to get Lisette away--he said they could just catch the
last train to London."

The chief shook his head.

"Not the man who accompanied her to the Paddington Hotel," he said.
"Listen--this is the description of that man, as given to the police by
the landlady and her servants: 'Age, presumably between forty and
forty-five years, medium height. Brown hair. Clean-shaven. Dressed in
grey tweed suit, over which he wore a fawn-coloured overcoat. Deerstalker
hat--light brown. Brown brogue shoes.' That, you see," continued the
chief, "describes a quite different person. You do not recognize the
description as that of any man you have ever seen in company with your
late maid, Miss Lennard?"

"I never saw my maid in any man's company," replied Celia. "Since I first
engaged her we have not been much in London. I was in New York and
Chicago for a time last year; then in Paris; then in Milan and Turin;
lately in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When we were at home, here in
London, she certainly had time of her own--her evenings out, you
know--but of course I don't know with whom she spent them. No--I don't
know any man answering that description."

The chief folded up his papers and restored them to his desk.

"Now that you are here," he said, "you may as well give me a few
particulars about your doings on the _Perisco_, especially as they relate
to Mr. James Allerdyke. When and where did you make his acquaintance?"

"On the steamer--a few hours after we left Christiania," replied Celia.

"Just as fellow-passengers, I suppose?"

"Quite so--just that. We sat next to each other at meals."

"Do you know where his cabin was on the steamer?"

"Yes, exactly opposite my own. He and I, I believe, were the only
passengers who had cabins all to ourselves."

"Did he ever mention to you these valuables which Mr. Fullaway tells us
he was carrying to England!"

"No--never at any time."

"Did you see him leave the _Perisco_ for the shore?"

"Why, yes, certainly! As a matter of fact, he and I came ashore at Hull
together, ahead of any other passengers. After Lisette had left the
steamer with her brother, I happened to come across Mr. James Allerdyke.
I told him what had just occurred, and asked him if he would help me
about my things, as my maid had gone. He immediately suggested that we
shouldn't wait for the tender, but should get a boat of our own--there
were several lying around. He said he was in a great hurry to get ashore,
because he'd a friend awaiting him at the Station Hotel. So he got a
boat, and his things and mine were put into it, and we left the steamer,
and were rowed to the landing-stage, just opposite."

"And you, of course, carried your jewel-case--or what you believed to be
your jewel-case--the duplicate chest which you subsequently carried to
Edinburgh?"

"Yes, of course--I had it in my hand when Lisette left, and, I never left
hold of it until I got into the hotel."

"Do you remember if Mr. James Allerdyke carried anything in his hand?"

"Yes, he carried a hand-bag. He had that bag in his hand when I met him
on deck; he kept it on his knee in the boat, and in the cab in which we
drove to the hotel from the landing-stage; I saw him carrying it upstairs
after we got to the hotel. What is more, I saw him bring it into the
coffee-room later on, and place it on the table at which he had some
supper. I saw it again in his room when I went in there to look at the
plans of the Norwegian estate which he had told me about. He didn't take
those plans out of that hand-bag; he took them out of a side flap-pocket
in a suit-case."

"Did you have supper with him that night?"

"No--I was sitting at another table, talking to a lady who had been with
us on the _Perisco_. A lot of _Perisco_ passengers--twenty, at least--had
come to the hotel by that time."

"Did any of them join Mr. James Allerdyke--at his table, I mean?"

"I don't remember--no, I think not. He sat at a table, one end of which
adjoined the wall--he put the hand-bag at that end. I remember wondering
why he carried his bag about with him. But then I, of course, was
carrying what I believed to be my jewel-case."

"Did you see him talking to any of your fellow-passengers that night?"

"Oh, yes--to two or three of them--in the hall of the hotel. I didn't
know who they were, particularly--except the doctor with the big beard. I
saw him talking to Mr. Allerdyke at the door of the smoking-room."

"Had you taken any special notice of your fellow passengers on board the
_Perisco_?"

"No--not at all. They were just the usual sort of passengers--I wasn't
interested in them. Of course, I talked to some of them, in the ordinary
way, as one does talk on board ship. But I don't remember anything
particular about them, nor any of their names, even if I ever knew their
names. Of course I remember Mr. James Allerdyke's name, because of the
business talk."

The chief, who had been making shorthand notes of this conversation,
paused for a moment, evidently considering matters, and then turned to
Celia with a smile.

"Why did you leave the hotel at Hull so suddenly?" he asked. "I daresay
you had good reasons, but I should just like to know what they were, if
you don't mind."

"I'd no reason at all," replied Celia, with almost blunt directness. "At
least, if I had, they were only a woman's reasons. I was a bit upset at
being left alone. I didn't like the hotel. I knew I shouldn't sleep. It
was a most beautiful moonlight night, and I suddenly thought I'd like to
go motoring. I knew enough of the geography of those parts to know if I
motored across country I should strike the Great Northern main line
somewhere and catch a train to Edinburgh in the early morning. So--I just
cleared out."

"Ah--you see you had quite a number of reasons!" said the chief,
smiling again. "Very well. Now then, before you go, Miss Lennard, I
want you to do just one thing more which may be useful to us in our
work." He turned to the detective. "Get those things," he said quietly.
"Bring the lot in here."

Celia made a little sound of distaste as the detective presently returned
to the room carrying in one hand a brown leather suit-case, and in the
other a cardboard dress-box, to which was strapped a travelling-coat,
lined with fur. Her face, which had regained its colour, paled again.

"Lisette's things!" she muttered. "Oh--I don't--don't like to see them!
What is it you want?"

"We want you to identify them--and, if you will, to look them over,"
replied the chief. "The cardboard box contains everything she was wearing
when she went to the hotel in Eastbourne Terrace; the suit-case and coat
are what she took in with her. Spread the things out on that side table,"
he continued, turning to the detective.

"Let Miss Lennard look them over."

Celia performed the task required of her with dislike--it seemed
somehow as if she were inspecting the dead woman afresh. She hurried
over the task.

"All these things are hers, of course," she said. "That's the suit-case
she had with her when she left me at Hull, and that's the coat I gave
her--and the other things are hers, too. Oh--I don't like looking at
them. Can't we go, please?"

"One moment," said the chief. "I wanted to tell you that amongst all
these things there is nothing that establishes the woman's identity--I
mean in the way of papers or anything of that sort. There were no letters
in this case--not a scrap of paper. There is money in that purse--two or
three pounds in gold, some silver. There is her watch--a good gold
watch--and there are two or three rings she was wearing. Now we have only
made a superficial examination of all these personal belongings--can you,
as her mistress, suggest if she was likely to hide anything in her
clothing, and if so, in what article? You might save us some trouble,
Miss Lennard."

Allerdyke, who was more interested in Celia than in what was going on,
saw a sudden gleam come into her eyes--her feminine spirit of curiosity
was aroused. She hesitated, turned back to the side-table, paused
before the various articles laid out there, took up and fingered two or
three, and suddenly wheeled round on the men, exhibiting a quilted
handkerchief case.

"There's something been sewn into the padding of this!" she said. "I can
feel it. Can any one lend me pocket-scissors or a penknife?"

The men gathered round as Celia's deft fingers ripped open the satin
covering: a moment later she drew out a wad of folded paper and handed it
to the chief. Fullaway and Allerdyke craned their necks over his
shoulders as he unwrapped and spread the bits of paper out before them.
And it was Fullaway who broke the silence with a sharp exclamation.

"Bank-notes!" he said. "Russian bank-notes! And new ones!"




CHAPTER XII

THE THIRD MURDER


Fullaway's exclamation was followed by a murmur of astonishment from
Celia, and by a low growl which meant many things from Allerdyke. The
chief turned the banknotes over silently, moved to his desk, and picked
up a reference book.

"I'm not very familiar with Russian money--paper or otherwise," he
remarked. "How much does this represent in ours, now?"

"I can tell you that," said Fullaway, taking the wad of notes and rapidly
counting them. "Five hundred pounds English," he announced. "And you see
that all the notes are new--don't forget to note that."

"Yes?--what do you argue from it?" asked the chief, with obvious
interest. "It proves--what?"

"That these notes were given to this woman in Russia, recently--most
likely in St. Petersburg," replied the American. "And, in my opinion,
their presence--their discovery--proves more. It suggests at any rate
that this woman, the dead maid, was a tool in the conspiracy to rob Miss
Lennard and Mr. James Allerdyke, that this money is her reward, or part
of it, and that the whole scheme was hatched and engineered in Russia."

"Good!" muttered Allerdyke. "Now we're getting to business."

"We shall have to get some evidence from Russia," observed the chief
meditatively. "That's very evident. If the thing began there, or was put
into active shape there--"

"The Princess Nastirsevitch is on her way now," said Fullaway. He pulled
out his pocket-book, and began searching amongst its papers. "Here you
are," he continued producing a cablegram. "That's from the Princess--you
see she says she's leaving for London at once, via Berlin and Calais, and
will call upon me at my hotel as soon as she arrives. Now, that was sent
off two days ago--she'd leave St. Petersburg that night. It's seventy-two
hours' journey--three days. She'll be in London tomorrow evening."

The chief sat down at his desk and picked up a pen.

"Give me your addresses please, all of you," he said. "Then I can
communicate with you at any moment. Miss Lennard, you mentioned Bedford
Court Mansions. What number? Right.--yours, Mr. Fullaway, is the Waldorf
Hotel--permanently there? Very good. You, Mr. Allerdyke, live in
Bradford? It will be advisable, if you really want to clear up the
mystery of your cousin's death, to remain in town for a few days, at any
rate--now that we've got all this in hand, you'd better be close to the
centre of things. Can you give me an address here?"

"I've a London office," answered Allerdyke. "I can always be heard of
there when I'm in town. Allerdyke and Partners, Limited, Gresham
Street--ask for Mr. Marshall Allerdyke. But as I'll have to put up here,
I'll go to the Waldorf, with Mr. Fullaway, so if you want me you'll find
me there. And look here," he went on, as the chief noted these
particulars, "I want to know, to have some idea, you know, of what's
going to be done. I tell you, I'll spare no time, labour, or expense in
getting at the bottom of this! If it's a question of money, say the
word, and--"

"All right, Mr. Allerdyke, leave it to us--for the present," said the
chief, with an understanding smile. "I know what you mean. We're only
beginning. This affair is doubtless a big thing, as Mr. Fullaway has
suggested, and it will need some clever work. Now, at present, this
case--the joint case of the Hull affair and the Eastbourne Terrace
affair, for they're without doubt both parts of one serious whole--is in
the hands of two of my best men. This is one of them: Detective-Sergeant
Blindway. If and when Blindway wants any of you, he'll come to you. Miss
Lennard, you'll be wanted at the inquest on your late maid--the Coroner's
officer will let you know when. You two gentlemen will doubtless go with
Miss Lennard. You'll all three certainly be wanted at that adjourned
inquest at Hull. Now, that's all--except that when you, Miss Lennard,
return home, you must at once begin searching for the references you had
with your maid--let me have them as soon as they're found--and that you,
Mr. Fullaway, must bring the Princess Nastirsevitch here as soon as you
can after her arrival."

Outside New Scotland Yard Celia Lennard relieved her feelings with a
fervent exclamation.

"I wish I'd never spent a penny on pearls or diamonds in my life!" she
said vehemently. "Insane folly! What good have they done? Leading to all
this bother, and to murder. What fools women are! All that money thrown
away!--for of course I shall never see a sign of them again!"

"That's a rather hopeless way of looking at it," observed Fullaway.
"You've got the cleverest police in Europe on the search for them; also
you've got our friend Allerdyke and myself on the run, and we're
neither of us exactly brainless. So hasten home in this taxi-cab, get
some lunch, have an hour's nap, and then begin putting your papers
straight and looking for those references. Search well!--you don't know
what depends on it."

He and Allerdyke strolled up Whitehall when Celia had gone--in silence at
first, both wrapped in meditation.

"There's only one thing one can say with any certainty about this affair,
Allerdyke," remarked the American at last, "and that is precisely what
the man we've been talking to said--it's a big do. The folk at the back
of it are smart and clever and daring. We'll need all our wits. Well,
come along to the Waldorf and let's lunch--then we'll talk some more.
There's little to be done till the Princess turns up tomorrow."

"There's one thing I want to do at once," said Allerdyke. "If I'm going
to stop in town I must wire to my housekeeper to send me clothes and
linen, and to the manager at my mill. Then I'm with you--and I wish to
Heaven we'd something to do! What I can't stand is this forced inaction,
this hanging about, waiting, wondering, speculating--and doing naught!"

"We may be in action before you know it's at hand," said Fullaway. "In
these cases you never know what a minute may bring forth. All we can do
is to be ready."

He led the way to the nearest telegraph office and waited while Allerdyke
sent off his messages. The performance of even this small task seemed to
restore the Yorkshireman's spirits--he came away smiling.

"I've told my housekeeper to pack a couple of trunks with what I want,
and to send my chauffeur, Gaffney, up with them, by the next express," he
said. "I feel better after doing that. He's a smart chap, Gaffney--the
sort that might be useful at a pinch. If any one wanted anything
ferreted out, now!--he's the sense of an Airedale terrier, that chap!"

"High praise," laughed Fullaway. "And original too. Well, let's fix up
and get some food, and then we'll go into my private rooms and have a
talk over the situation."

Mr. Franklin Fullaway, following a certain modern fashion, introduced
into life by twentieth-century company promoters and magnates of the high
finance, had established his business quarters at his hotel. It was a
wise and pleasant thing to do, he explained to Allerdyke; you had the
advantage of living over the shop, as it were; of being able to go out of
your private sitting-room into your business office; you had the bright
and pleasant surroundings; you had, moreover, all the various rooms and
saloons of a first-rate hotel wherein to entertain your clients if need
be. Certainly you had to pay for these advantages and luxuries, but no
more than you would have to lay out in the rents, rates, and taxes of
palatial offices in a first-class business quarter.

"And my line of business demands luxurious fittings," remarked the
American, as he installed Allerdyke in a sybaritic armchair and handed
him a box of big cigars of a famous brand. "You're not the first
millionaire that's come to anchor in that chair, you know!"

"If they're millionaires in penny-pieces, maybe not," answered Allerdyke.
He lighted a cigar and glanced appraisingly at his surroundings--at the
thick velvet pile of the carpets, the fine furniture, the bookcases
filled with beautiful bindings, the choice bits of statuary, the two or
three unmistakably good pictures. "Doing good business, I reckon?" he
said, with true Yorkshire curiosity. "What's it run to, now?"

Fullaway showed his fine white teeth in a genial laugh.

"Oh, I've turned over two and three millions in a year in this little
den!" he answered cheerily. "Varies, you know, according to what people
have got to sell, and what good buyers there are knocking around."

"You keep a bit of sealing wax, of course?" suggested Allerdyke. "Take
care that some of the brass sticks when you handle it, no doubt?"

"Commission and percentage, of course," responded Fullaway.

"Ah, well, you've an advantage over chaps like me," said Allerdyke. "Now,
you shall take my case. We've made a pile of money in our firm,
grandfather, father, and myself; but, Lord, man, you wouldn't believe
what our expenses have been! Building mills, fitting machinery--and then,
wages! Why, I pay wages to six hundred workpeople every Friday afternoon!
Our wages bill runs to well over fourteen hundred pound a week. You've
naught of that sort, of course--no great staff to keep up?"

"No," answered Fullaway. He nodded his head towards the door of a room
through which they had just passed on their way into the agent's private
apartments. "All the staff I have is the young lady you just saw--Mrs.
Marlow. Invaluable!"

"Married woman?" inquired Allerdyke laconically.

"Young widow," answered Fullaway just as tersely. "Excellent business
woman--been with me ever since I came here--three years. Speaks and
writes several languages--well educated, good knowledge of my particular
line of business. American--I knew her people very well. Of course, I
don't require much assistance--merely clerical help, but it's got to be
of a highly intelligent and specialized sort."

"Leave your business in her hands if need be, I reckon?" suggested
Allerdyke, with a sidelong nod at the closed door.

"In ordinary matters, yes--comfortably," answered Fullaway. "She's a bit
a specialist in two things that I'm mainly concerned in--pictures and
diamonds. She can tell a genuine Old Master at a glance, and she knows a
lot about diamonds--her father was in that trade at one time, out in
South Africa."

"Clever woman to have," observed Allerdyke; "knows all your business,
of course?"

"All the surface business," said Fullaway, "naturally! Anything but a
confidential secretary would be useless to me, you know."

"Just so," agreed Allerdyke. "Told her about this affair yet?"

"I've had no chance so far," replied Fullaway. "I shall take her advice
about it--she's a cute woman."

"Smart-looking, sure enough," said Allerdyke. He let his mind dwell for a
moment on the picture which Mrs. Marlow had made as Fullaway led him
through the office--a very well-gowned, pretty, alert, piquant little
woman, still on the sunny side of thirty, who had given him a sharp
glance out of unusually wide-awake eyes. "Aye, women are clever nowadays,
no doubt--they'd show their grandmothers how to suck eggs in a good many
new fashions. Well, now," he went on, stretching his long legs over
Fullaway's beautiful Persian rug, "what do you make of this affair,
Fullaway, in its present situation? There's no doubt that everything's
considerably altered by what we've heard of this morning. Do you really
think that this French maid affair is all of a piece, as one may term it,
with the affair of my cousin James?"

"Yes--without doubt," replied Fullaway. "I believe the two affairs all
spring from the same plot. That plot, in my opinion, has originated from
a clever gang who, somehow or other, got to know that Mr. James Allerdyke
was bringing over the Princess Nastirsevitch's jewels, and who also
turned their eyes on Zelie de Longarde's valuables. The French maid,
Lisette, was probably nothing but a tool, a cat's paw, and she, having
done her work, has been cleverly removed so that she could never split.
Further--"

A quiet knock at the door just then prefaced the entrance of Mrs. Marlow,
who gave her employer an inquiring glance.

"Mr. Blindway to see you," she announced. "Shall I show him in?"

"At once!" replied Fullaway. He leapt from his chair, and going to the
door called to the detective to enter. "News?" he asked excitedly, when
Mrs. Marlow had retired, closing the door again. "What is it--important?"

The detective, who looked very solemn, drew a letter-case from his
pocket, and slowly produced a telegram.

"Important enough," he answered. "This case is assuming a very
strange complexion, gentlemen. This arrived from Hull half an hour
ago, and the chief thought I'd better bring it on to you at once. You
see what it is--"

He held the telegram out to both men, and they read it together, Fullaway
muttering the words as he read--

From _Chief Constable, Hull, to Superintendent C.I.D., New
Scotland Yard_.

Dr. Lydenberg, concerned in Allerdyke case, was shot dead in High Street
here this morning by unseen person, who is up to now unarrested and to
whose identity we have no clue.




CHAPTER XIII

AMBLER APPLEYARD


Fullaway laid the telegram down on his table and looked from it to the
detective.

"Shot dead--High Street--this morning?" he said wonderingly. "Why!--that
means, of course, in broad daylight--in a busy street, I suppose? And
yet--no clue. How could a man be shot dead under such circumstances
without the murderer being seen and followed?"

"You don't know Hull very well," remarked Allerdyke, who had been pulling
his moustache and frowning over the telegram, "else you'd know how that
could be done easy enough in High Street. High Street," he went on,
turning to the detective, "is the oldest street in the town. It's the old
merchant street. Half of it--lower end--is more or less in ruins. There
are old houses there which aren't tenanted. Back of these houses are
courts and alleys and queer entries, leading on one side to the river,
and on the other to side streets. A man could be lured into one of those
places and put out of the way easily and quietly enough. Or he could be
shot by anybody lurking in one of those houses, and the murderer could be
got away unobserved with the greatest ease. That's probably what's
happened--I know that street as well as I know by own house--I'm not
surprised by that! What I'm surprised about is to hear that Lydenberg has
been shot at all. And the question is--is his murder of a piece with all
the rest of this damnable mystery, or is it clean apart from it?
Understand, Fullaway?"

"I'm thinking," answered the American. "It takes a lot of thinking, too."

"You see," continued Allerdyke, turning to Blindway again, "we're all
in a hole--in a regular fog. We know naught! literally naught. This
Lydenberg was a foreigner--Swede, Norwegian, Dane, or something. We
know nothing of him, except that he said he'd come to Hull on business.
He may have been shot for all sorts of reasons--private, political. We
don't know. But--mark me!--if his murder's connected with the others,
if it's all of a piece with my cousin's murder, and that French girl's,
why then--"

He paused, shaking his head emphatically, and the other two, impressed by
his earnestness, waited until he spoke again.

"Then," he continued at last, after a space of silence, during which he
seemed to be reflecting with added strenuousness--"then, by Heaven! we're
up against something that's going to take it out of us before we get at
the truth. That's a dead certainty. If this is all conspiracy, it's a big
'un--a colossal thing! What say, Fullaway?"

"I should say you're right," replied Fullaway. "I've been trying to
figure things up while you talked, though I gave you both ears. It looks
as if this Lydenberg had been shot in order to keep his tongue quiet
forever. Maybe he knew something, and was likely to split. What are your
people going to do about this?" he asked turning to the detective. "I
suppose you'll go down to Hull at once?"

"I shan't," answered Blindway. "I've enough to do here. One of our men
has already gone--he's on his way. We shall have to wait for news. I'm
inclined to agree with Mr. Allerdyke--it's a big thing, a very big thing.
If Mr. Allerdyke's cousin was really murdered, and if the Frenchwoman's
death arose out of that, and now Lydenberg's, there's a clever
combination at work. And--where's the least clue to it?"

Allerdyke helped himself to a fresh cigar out of a box which lay on
Fullaway's table, lighted it, and smoked in silence for a minute or two.
The other men, feeling instinctively that he was thinking, waited.

"Look you here!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Clue? Yes, that's what we want.
Where's that clue likely to be found? Why, in this, and this only--who
knew, person or persons, that my cousin was bringing those jewels from
the Princess Nastirsevitch to this country? Get to know that, and it
narrows the field, d'ye see?"

"There's the question of Miss Lennard's jewels, too," remarked Fullaway.

"That may be--perhaps was--a side-issue," said Allerdyke. "It may have
come into the big scheme as an after-thought. But, anyway, that's what
we want--a first clue. And I don't see how that's to be got at until
this Princess arrives here. You see, she may have talked, she may have
let it out in confidence--to somebody who abused her confidence. What is
certain is that somebody must have got to know of this proposed deal
between the Princess and your man, Fullaway, and have laid plans
accordingly to rob the Princess's messenger--my cousin James. D'ye see,
the deal was known of at two ends--to you here, to this Princess,
through James, over there, in Russia. Now, then, where did the secret
get out? Did it get out there, or here?"

"Not here, of course!" answered Fullaway, with emphasis. "That's dead
sure. Over there, of a certainty. The robbery was engineered from there."

"Then, in that case, there's naught to do but wait the arrival of the
Princess," said Allerdyke. "And you say she'll be here to-morrow night.
In the meantime no doubt you police gentlemen'll get more news about this
last affair at Hull, and perhaps Miss Lennard'll find those references
about the Frenchwoman, and maybe we shall mop things up bit by bit--for
mopped up they'll have to be, or my name isn't what it is! Fullaway," he
went on, rising from his chair, "I'll have to leave you--yon man o'
mine'll be arriving from Yorkshire with my things before long, and I must
go down to the hotel office and make arrangements about him. See you
later--at dinner to-night, here, eh?"

He lounged away through the outer office, giving the smart lady secretary
a keen glance as he passed her and getting an equally scrutinizing, if
swift, look in return.

"Clever!" mused Allerdyke as he closed the door behind him. "Deuced
clever, that young woman. Um--well, it's a pretty coil, to be sure!"

He went down to the office, made full and precise arrangements about
Gaffney, who was to be given a room close to his own, left some
instructions as to what was to be done with him on arrival, and then,
hands in pockets, strolled out into Aldwych and walked towards the
Strand, his eyes bent on the ground as if he strove to find in those hard
pavements some solution of all these difficulties. And suddenly he lifted