over the little table at which they were all seated. "But the truth
is--I've been baulked! At the last moment as you may term it. Just when
things were getting really interesting!"

"Have you seen--anything?" asked Appleyard.

"I'll give you it in proper order, sir," replied Albert Gaffney. "I've
seen both of 'em--followed 'em, until this confounded accident happened.
This is the story of it. I kept watch there, outside C. House--you know
where I mean--till near on to six o'clock. Then he came out. But he
didn't get into his motor, though it was waiting for him. He sent it
away. Then he walked to the Temple Station, and I heard him book for
Cannon Street. So did I, and followed him. He got out at Cannon Street
and went up into the main line station and to the bookstall. There he met
her--she was waiting. They talked a bit, walking about; then they went
into the hotel. I had an idea that perhaps they were going to dine there,
so as I was togged up for any eventualities, I followed 'em in. They did
dine there--so did I, keeping an eye on 'em. They sat some time over and
after their dinner, as if they were waiting for something or somebody. At
last a man--better-class commercial traveller-looking sort of man--came
in and went up to them. He sat down and had a glass of wine, and they all
three talked--very confidential talk, you could see. At last they all
left and went down to the yard outside the station and got into a
taxi-cab--all three. I got another, gave the driver a quiet hint as to
what I was after, and told him to keep the other cab in view. So he
did--for a time. They went first to a little restaurant near Liverpool
Street Station--she and the commercial-looking chap got out and went in;
R. stopped in the cab. The other two came back after a bit with another
man--similar sort--and all three joined R. Then they went off towards
Aldgate way--and we were keeping nicely behind 'em when all of a sudden a
blooming 'bus came to grief right between us and them, and blocked the
traffic! And though I nearly broke my neck in trying to get through and
spot them, it was no use. They'd clean disappeared. But!--I've got the
number of the cab they took from Cannon Street."

Appleyard nodded approval.

"Good!" he said. "That's something, Gaffney--a good deal. We can work on
from that."

"Well?" he continued, turning to Allerdyke. "I think there's nothing else
we can do to-night? We'd better meet, all of us, at Gresham Street, at,
say, ten to-morrow morning; then I shall be able to say if they return to
the Pompadour to-night. It's my impression they won't--but we shall see."

Allerdyke presently drove him to his hotel, wondering all the way what
these last doings might really mean. They were surprising enough, but
there was another surprise awaiting him. As he walked into the Waldorf
the hall-porter stopped him.

"There's a gentleman for you, sir, in the waiting-room," he said. "Been
waiting a good hour. Name of Chettle."




CHAPTER XXIX

THE PARCEL FROM HULL


Chettle sat alone in the waiting-room, a monument of patient resignation
to his fate. His hands were bunched on the head of his walking-stick, his
chin propped on his hands; his eyes were bent on a certain spot on the
carpet with a fixed stare. And when Allerdyke entered he sprang up as if
roused from a fitful slumber.

"I should ha' been asleep in another minute, Mr. Allerdyke," he said
apologetically. "Been waiting over an hour, sir--and I'm dog-tired. I've
been at it, hard at it! every minute since I left you. And--I had to
come. I've news."

"Come up," said Allerdyke. "I've news, too--it's been naught else but
news all day. You haven't seen Fullaway while you've been waiting?"

"Seen nobody but the hotel folks," answered the detective. He followed
Allerdyke up to his private sitting-room and sighed wearily as he dropped
into a chair. "I'm dog-tired," he repeated. "Fair weary!"

"Have a drink," said Allerdyke, setting out his decanter and a syphon.
"Take a stiff 'un--I'll have one myself. I'm tired, too. I wouldn't like
this game to be on long, Chettle--it's too exhausting. But, by the Lord
Harry!--I believe it's coming to an end at last!"

The detective, who had gladly helped himself to Allerdyke's whisky, took
a long pull at his glass and sighed with relief.

"I believe so myself, Mr. Allerdyke," he said. "I do, indeed!--things are
clearing, sir, though Heaven knows they're thick enough still. You say
you've fresh news!"

Allerdyke lighted a cigar and pushed the box to his guest.

"Your news first," he said. "I daresay it's a bit out of the complete
web--let's see if we can fit it in."

"It's this," answered Chettle, pulling his chair nearer to the table at
which he and his host sat. "When I got back to Hull they told me at the
police headquarters that a young man had been in two or three times,
while I was away, asking if he could see the London detective who was
down about the Station Hotel affair. They told him I'd gone up to town
again, and tried to find out what he wanted, but he wouldn't tell them
anything--said he'd either see me or go up to London himself. So then
they let him know I was coming back, and told him he'd probably find me
there at noon to-day. And at noon to-day he turns up at the
police-station--a young fellow about twenty-five or so, who looked like
what he was, a clerk. A very cute, sharp chap he was, the sort that's
naturally keen about his own interests--name of Martindale--and before
he'd say a word he wanted to see my credentials, and made me swear to
treat what he said as private, and then he pulled out a copy of that
reward bill of yours, and wanted to know a rare lot about that, all of
which amounted to wanting to find out what chance he had of getting hold
of some of the fifty thousand, if not all. And," continued Chettle with a
laugh, "I'd a lot of talking and explaining and wheedling to do before
he'd tell anything."

"Had he aught to tell?" asked Allerdyke. "So many of 'em think they have,
and then they haven't."

"Oh, he'd something to tell!" replied Chettle. "Right enough, he'd a good
deal to tell. This--he told me at last, as if every word he let out was
worth a ransom, that he was a parcels office clerk in the North Eastern
Railway Station at Hull, and that since the 13th of May until the day
before yesterday he'd been away in the North of Scotland on his
holidays--been home to his people, in fact--he is a Scotsman, which, of
course, accounts for his keenness about the money. Now, then--on the
night of May 12th--the night, as you know, Mr. Allerdyke, of your
cousin's supposed murder, but anyway, of his arrival at Hull--this young
man Martindale was on duty in the parcels office till a very late hour.
About ten to a quarter past ten, as near as he could recollect, a
gentleman came into the parcels office, carrying a small, square parcel,
done up in brown paper and sealed in several places with black wax. He
wanted to know when the next express would be leaving for London, and if
he could send the parcel by it. Martindale told him there would be an
express leaving for Selby very shortly, and there would be a connection
there for a Great Northern express to King's Cross. The gentleman then
wanted to know what time his parcel would be likely to be delivered in
London if he sent it by that train. Martindale told him that as near as
he could say it would be delivered by noon on the next morning, and added
that he could, by paying an extra fee, have it specially registered and
delivered. The gentleman at once acceded to this, handed the parcel
over, paid for it, and left. And in a few minutes after that, Martindale
himself gave the parcel to the guard of the outgoing train."

Chettle paused for a moment, and took a reflective pull at his glass.

"Now, then," he went on, after an evident recollecting of his facts,
"Martindale, of course, never saw the gentleman again, and dismissed such
a very ordinary matter from his mind. Early next morning he went off on
his holiday--where he went, right away up in Sutherland, papers were few
and far between. He only heard mere bits of news about all this affair.
But when he got back he turned up the Hull newspapers, and became
convinced that the man who sent that parcel was--your cousin!"

"Aye!" said Allerdyke, nodding his head. "Aye! I expected that."

"He was sure it was your cousin," continued Chettle, "from the
description of him in the papers, and from one or two photos of him that
had appeared, though, as you know, Mr. Allerdyke, those were poor things.
But to make sure, I showed him the photo which is inside Lydenberg's
watch-case. 'That's the man!' he said at once. 'I should have known him
again anywhere--I'd a particularly good look at him.' Very well--that
established who the sender of the parcel was. Now then, the next thing
was--to whom was it sent. Well, this Martindale had copied down the name
and address from the station books, and he handed me the slip of paper.
Can you make any guess at it, Mr. Allerdyke?"

"Damn guess-work!" replied Allerdyke. "Speak out!"

Chettle leaned nearer, with an instinctive glance at the door. He
lowered his voice to a whisper.

"That parcel was addressed to Franklin Fullaway, Esq., The Waldorf Hotel,
Aldwych, London," he said. "There!"

Allerdyke slowly rose from his seat, stared at his visitor, half-moved
across the floor, as if he had some instinctive notion of going
somewhere--and then suddenly sat down again.

"Aye!" he said. "Aye!--but was it ever delivered?"

"I'm coming to that," replied Chettle. "That, of course, is the big
thing--the prime consideration. I heard all this young fellow Martindale
had to tell--nothing much more than that, except small details as to what
would be the likely progress of the parcel, and then I gave him strict
instructions to keep his own counsel until I saw him again--after which I
caught the afternoon train to town. Martindale had told me where the
parcel would be delivered from, so as soon as I arrived at King's Cross I
went to the proper place. I had to tell 'em, of course, who I was, and
what I was after, and to produce my credentials before they turned up
their books and papers to trace the delivery of the parcel. That, of
course, wasn't a long or difficult matter, as I had the exact date--May
13th. They soon put the delivery sheet of that particular morning before
me. And there it all was--"

"And--it was delivered to and received by--who?" broke in Allerdyke
eagerly. "Who, man?"

"Signed for by Mary Marlow for Franklin Fullaway," answered Chettle in
the same low tones. "Delivered--here--about half-past twelve. So--there
you are! That is--if you know where we are!"

Allerdyke, whose cigar had gone out, relighted it with a trembling hand.

"My God!" he said in a fierce, concentrated voice as he flung the match
away. "This is getting--you're sure there was no mistaking the
signature?" he went on, interrupting himself. "No mistake about it?"

"It was a woman's writing, and an educated woman's writing, anyway," said
Chettle. "And plain enough. But there was one thing that rather struck me
and that they couldn't explain, though they said I could have it
explained by inquiry of the clerk who had the books in charge on May 13th
and the boy who actually delivered the parcel--neither of 'em was about
this evening."

"What?" demanded Allerdyke.

"Why, this," answered Chettle. "The parcel had evidently been signed for
twice. The line on which the signatures were placed had two initials in
pencil on it--scribbled hurriedly. The initials were 'F.F.' Over that was
the other in ink--what I tell you: Mary Marlow for Frank Fullaway."

Allerdyke let his mind go back to the events of May 13th.

"You say the parcel was delivered here at twelve-thirty noon on May
13th?" he said presently. "Of course, Fullaway wasn't here then. He'd set
off to me at Hull two or three hours before that. He joined me at Hull
soon after two that day. And what I'm wondering is--does he know of that
parcel's arrival here in his absence. Did he ever get it? If he did, why
has he never mentioned it to me? Coming, as it did, from--James!"

"There's a much more important question than that, Mr. Allerdyke," said
Chettle. "This--what was in that parcel?"

Allerdyke started. So far he had been concentrating on the facts given
him by the detective--further he had not yet gone.

"Why!" he asked, a sudden suspicion beginning to dawn on him. "Good
God!--you don't suggest--"

"My belief, Mr. Allerdyke," said Chettle, quietly and emphatically, "is
that the parcel contained the Russian lady's jewels! I do believe it--and
I'll lay anything I'm right, too."

Allerdyke shook his head.

"Nay, nay!" he said incredulously. "I can't think that James would send a
quarter of a million pounds' worth of jewels in a brown paper parcel by
train! Come, now!"

Chettle shook his head, too--but in contradiction, "I've known of much
stranger things than that, Mr. Allerdyke," he said confidently. "Very
much stranger things. Your cousin, according to your account of him, was
an uncommonly sharp man. He was quick at sizing up things and people. He
was the sort--as you've represented him to me--that was what's termed
fertile in resource. Now, I've been theorizing a bit as I came up in the
train; one's got to in my line, you know. Supposing your cousin got an
idea that thieves were on his track?--supposing he himself fancied that
there was danger in that hotel at Hull? What would occur to him but to
get rid of his valuable consignment, as we'll call it? And what
particular danger was there in sending a very ordinary-looking parcel as
he did? The thing's done every day--by train or post every day valuable
parcels of diamonds, for instance, are sent between London and Paris. The
chances of that parcel being lost between Hull and this hotel
were--infinitesimal! I honestly believe, sir, that those jewels were in
that parcel--sent to be safe."

"In that case you'd have thought he'd have wired Fullaway of their
dispatch," said Allerdyke.

"How do we know that he didn't intend to, first thing in the morning?"
asked Chettle. "He probably did intend to--but he wasn't there to do it
in the morning, poor gentleman! No--and now the thing is, Mr.
Allerdyke--prompt action! What do you think, sir?"

"You mean--go and tell everything to your people at headquarters?" asked
Allerdyke.

"I shall have to," answered Chettle. "There's no option for me--now. What
I meant was--are you prepared to tell them all you know?"

"Yes!" replied Allerdyke. "At least, I will be in the morning--first
thing. I'll just tell you how things have gone to-day. Now," he
continued, when he had given Chettle a full account of the recent
happenings, "you stay here to-night--you can have my chauffeur's room,
next to mine--and in the morning I'll telephone to Appleyard to meet us
outside of New Scotland Yard, and after a word or two with him, we'll see
your chief, and then--"

Chettle shook his head.

"If that woman got a night's start, Mr. Allerdyke--" he began.

"Can't help it now," said Allerdyke decisively. "Besides, you don't know
what Appleyard mayn't have learned during the night."

But when Appleyard met them in Whitehall next morning, in response to
Allerdyke's telephone summons, his only news was that neither Rayner nor
Miss Slade had returned to the Pompadour, and without another word
Allerdyke motioned Chettle to lead the way to the man in authority.




CHAPTER XXX

THE PACKET IN THE SAFE


It was to a hastily called together gathering of high police officials
that the three visitors told all they knew. One after another they
related their various stories--Chettle of his doings and discoveries at
Hull, Allerdyke of what had gone on at the hotel, Appleyard of the
mysterious double identity of the woman who was Miss Slade in one place
and Mrs. Marlow in another. The officials listened quietly and
absorbedly, rarely interrupting the narrators except to ask a searching
question. And in the end they talked together apart, after which all went
away except the man who had kept his hands on the reins from the
beginning. He turned to his visitors with an air of decision.

"Well, of course, there's but one thing to be done, now," he said. "We
must get a warrant for this woman's arrest at once. We must also get a
search warrant and examine her belongings at that private hotel you've
told us of, Mr. Appleyard. All that shall be done immediately. But first
I want you to tell me one or two things. What are those two men you spoke
of doing--the Gaffneys?"

"One of them, the chauffeur, is hanging about the Pompadour," replied
Appleyard. "The other--Albert--has gone down to Cannon Street to see if
he can trace the driver of the taxi-cab in which Rayner and Miss Slade
drove away from there last night."

"He'll do no harm in trying to find that out," observed the chief. "But
I should like to see him--I want to ask some questions about the man who
joined those two after dinner at Cannon Street last night, and the other
man whom he saw them take up near Liverpool Street Station. Will he keep
himself in touch with your warehouse in Gresham Street?"

"Sure to," answered Appleyard.

"Then just telephone to your people there, and tell them to tell him, if
he comes in asking for you, to come along and seek you here," said the
chief. "I'm afraid I can't spare either you or Mr. Allerdyke, for your
joint information'll be wanted presently for these warrants, and when
we've got them I want you to go with me--both of you--to the Pompadour."

"You're going to search?" asked Allerdyke when Appleyard had gone to the
telephone. "You think you may find something--there?"

"There's enough evidence to justify a search," answered the chief.
"Naturally we want to know all we can. But I should say that if she's
mixed up with a gang, and if they've got those jewels through her--as
seems uncommonly likely--she'll have been ready for a start at any
minute, and the probability is we'll find nothing to help us. The great
thing, of course, will be to get hold of the woman herself. It's a most
unfortunate thing that Albert Gaffney was stopped from following that
cab, last night--I've no opinion, Mr. Allerdyke, of your amateur
detective as a rule, but from Mr. Appleyard's account of him, this one
seems to have done very well. If we only knew where those two went--"

Appleyard presently came back from the telephone with a face alive with
fresh news.

"Albert Gaffney's at the warehouse now," he announced. "I've just had a
word with him. He found the taxi-cab driver an hour ago, and he got the
information he wanted. And I'm afraid it's--nothing!"

"What is it, anyhow?" asked the chief, with a smile. "Perhaps Albert
Gaffney doesn't know its value."

"The man drove them, all four, to the corner of Whitechapel Church," said
Appleyard. "There he set them down, and there he left them. That's all."

"Well, that's something, anyway," remarked the chief. "It carries the
thing on another stage. Now we'll leave that and attend to our own
business."

The Pompadour Private Hotel, like most establishments of its class in
Bayswater, was a place of peace and of comparative solitude during the
greater part of the day. It was busy enough up to ten o'clock in the
morning, and it began to be busy enough again by six o'clock in the
evening, but from ten to six more than two-thirds of its denizens were
not to be found within its walls. The business man had gone to the City;
the professional women had departed to their offices; nothing of humanity
but a few elderly widows and spinsters, and an old gentleman or two were
left in the various rooms. Everything, therefore, was quiet enough when
the chief, accompanied by Chettle, drove up, entered the hall, and asked
to see the manager and manageress. As for Allerdyke and Appleyard, who
naturally felt considerable dislike to appearing on this particular scene
of operations, they were a few hundred yards away, walking about just
within the confines of Kensington Gardens, and waiting with more or less
patience until the police officials came to them with news of the result
of the search.

The manageress of the hotel, a smart lady who wore dignified black gowns
all day long--stuff in the morning, and silk at night as if she were a
barrister, gradually advancing in grandeur--gazed at the two callers with
some suspicion as she ushered them into a private room at the back of her
office. The chief, an irreproachably attired man, might have been an army
gentleman, she thought; an instinctive wonder rose in her mind as to
whether he was not some elderly man of standing who, accompanied by his
valet, desired to arrange about a suite of rooms. But his first words
gave her an unpleasant shock--she felt for all the world as if somebody
had suddenly turned a shower of ice-cold water on her.

"Now, ma'am," said the chief, "your husband the manager is out, and you
are in sole and responsible charge, I understand? Pray don't be
alarmed--this is nothing that concerns you or your affairs, personally,
and we will endeavor to arrange everything so that you have no annoyance.
The fact of the case is, we are police officers from the Criminal
Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard, and I hold two warrants,
just granted by a justice of peace, which are in relation to an inmate of
your hotel."

The manageress dropped into a chair and stared at her visitors.
Police officers? Warrants? Justices? It was the first time in her highly
respectable Bayswater existence that she had ever been brought into
contact with these dreadful things. And--an inmate of her establishment!

"Oh, you must be mistaken!" she exclaimed in horror-stricken accents. "A
warrant?--that means you want to arrest somebody. An inmate--surely none
of my servants--"

"Nothing to do with servants," interrupted the chief. "I said an inmate.
Pray don't be alarmed. We want a young lady who is known to you as Miss
Mary Slade."

The manageress got up as quickly as she had sat down. For one moment she
gazed at her visitor as if he had demanded her very life--the next her
lip curled in scorn.

"Miss Slade!" she exclaimed. "Impossible, sir! Miss Slade is a young lady
of the very highest respectability--she has resided in this hotel for
three years!"

"I am quite prepared to believe that a residence of three months under
your roof is enough to confer an irreproachable character on any one,
ma'am," replied the chief with a polite smile. "But the fact remains, I
have here a warrant for Miss Slade's arrest--never mind on what
charge--and here another empowering me to search her room or rooms, her
trunk, any property she has in this house. And as time presses I must ask
you to give us every facility in the performance of our unpleasant duty.
But first a question or two. Miss Slade is not at home?"

"She is not!" replied the manageress emphatically.

"And I think she did not return home last night?" suggested the chief.

"No--she didn't," assented the much perplexed woman. "That's quite true."

"Was that unusual?" asked the chief.

The manageress bit her lip. She did not want to talk, but she had a vague
idea that the law compelled speech.

"Well, I don't know what it's all about," she said, "and I don't want to
say anything that would bring trouble to Miss Slade, but--it was unusual.
For two reasons. I've never known Miss Slade to be away from here for a
night except when she went for her usual month's holiday, and I'm
surprised that she should stop away without giving me word or sending a
telephone message."

"Then her absence was unusual," said the chief smiling. "Now, was there
anything else that was unusual, last night--in connection with it?"

The manageress started and looked at her visitor as if she half suspected
him of possessing the power of seeing through brick walls.

"Well," she said, a little reluctantly, "there was certainly another of
our guests away last night, too--one who scarcely ever is away, and
certainly never without letting us know that he's going away. And it's
quite true he's a very great friend of Miss Slade's--somebody did say,
jokingly, this morning, that perhaps they'd run away and got married."

"Ah!" said the chief, with another smile. "I scarcely think Miss Slade
would contract such an important engagement at this moment, she has
evidently much else to think about. But now let us see Miss Slade's
apartment, if you please, and I shall be obliged to you, ma'am, if you
will accompany us."

Not only did the manageress accompany them, but the manager also, who
just then arrived and was filled with proper horror to hear that such
things were happening. But, being a man, he knew that it is every
citizen's duty to assist the police, and he accepted his fate cheerfully,
and bade his wife give the gentlemen every help that lay in her power.
After which both conducted the two visitors to Miss Slade's room, and
became fascinated in acting as spectators.

Miss Slade's apartment was precisely that of any other young lady of
refined taste. It was a good-sized, roomy apartment, half bedroom, half
sitting-room, and it was bright and gay with books and pictures, and
evidences of literary and artistic fancies and leanings. And Chettle,
taking a first comprehensive look round, went straight to the mantelpiece
and pointed out a certain neatly framed photograph to his superior.

"That's it, sir," he said in a low voice. "That's what the other was
taken from. You know, sir--Mr. James A. Mr. Marshall A. said she said she
was going to have it framed. Odd, ain't it, sir?--if she really is
implicated."

The chief agreed with his man. It was certainly a very odd thing that
Miss Slade, alias Mrs. Marlow, if she really had any concern with the
murder of James Allerdyke, should put his photograph in a fairly
expensive silver frame, and hang it where she could look at it every
day. But, as Chettle sagely remarked, you never can tell, and you never
can account, and you never know, and meanwhile there was the urgent
business on hand.

The business on hand came to nothing. Manager and manageress watched with
interested amazement while the two searchers went through everything in
that room with a thoroughness and rapidity produced by long practice.
They were astounded at the deftness with which the heavy-looking Mr.
Chettle explored drawers and trunks, and the military-looking chief
peered into wardrobes and cupboards and examined desks and tables. But
they were not so much astonished as the two detectives themselves were.
For in all that room--always excepting the photograph of James
Allerdyke--there was not a single object, a scrap of paper, anything
whatever, which connected the Miss Slade of the Pompadour with the Mrs.
Marlow of Fullaway's or bore reference to the matter in hand. The
searchers finally retired utterly baffled.

"Drawn blank," murmured the chief good-humouredly. He turned to the
lookers-on. "I suppose you have nothing of Miss Slade's?" he said.
"Nothing confined to your care, eh?"

The manageress glanced at her husband, with whom she had kept up a
whispered conversation. The manager nodded.

"Better tell them," he said. "No good keeping anything back."

"Ah!" said the chief. "You have something?"

"A small parcel," admitted the manageress, "which she gave me a few days
ago to lock up in our safe. She said it contained something valuable, and
she hadn't anything to lock it up in. It's in the safe now."

"I'm afraid we must see it," said the chief.

At the foot of the stairs the hall-porter accosted the party and looked
at the chief narrowly.

"Name of Chettle, sir?" he asked. "You're wanted at our
telephone--urgent."

The chief motioned to Chettle, who went off with the hall-porter; he
himself followed the manageress into her office. She unlocked a safe,
rummaged amongst its contents, and handed him a small square parcel, done
up in brown paper and sealed with black wax. Before he could open it,
Chettle returned, serious and puzzled, and whispered to him. Then, with
the shortest of leave-takings, the two officers hurried away from the
Pompadour, the chief carrying the little parcel tightly grasped in his
right hand.




CHAPTER XXXI

THE HYDE PARK TEA-HOUSE


Once outside the Pompadour Hotel the chief and his subordinate hurried at
a great pace towards the Lancaster Gate entrance to Kensington Gardens.
And when they had crossed Bayswater Road the superior pulled himself up,
took a breath, and looked around him.

"No sign of them yet, Chettle," he observed. "Did he say at once?"

"Said they'd be on their way in two minutes, sir," answered Chettle. "And
it wouldn't take them many minutes to run up here."

"I wonder what it's all about?" mused the chief. "Some new development
since we left the Yard, of course. Well--I think we may probably find
something in this parcel, Chettle, that will surprise us as much as any
new development can possibly do. It strikes me--"

"Here they are, sir!" interrupted Chettle. He had lingered on the
kerb, looking towards the rise of the road going towards the Marble
Arch, and his quick eyes had spotted a closed taxi-cab which came out
of the Marlborough Gate at full speed and turned down in their
direction. "Blindway and two others," he announced. "Seems to be in
force, sir, anyhow!"

The taxi-cab pulled up at the little gate leading into Kensington Gardens
by the pumping-station, and Blindway, followed by two other men,
hurriedly descended and joined his superior.

"Well, what is it?" demanded the chief. "Something new? And about
this affair?"

Blindway made a gesture suggesting that they should enter the Gardens;
once within he drew the chief aside, leaving his companions with Chettle.

"About half an hour ago," he said, "a telephone message came on from the
City police. They said they'd received some queerish information about
this affair, but only particularly about the death of that man down at
the hotel in the Docks. Their information ran to this--that the actual
murderer has an appointment with some of his associates this afternoon at
that tea-house in Hyde Park, and that if the City police would send some
plain-clothes men up there he'll be pointed out. So the City lot want us
to join them, and I was sent along to meet you here, sir--I've brought
those two men and of course there's Chettle. We're all to go along to
this tea-house, not in a body, naturally, but to sort of drop in, and to
wait events. Of course, sir, that last murder occurred in the City, and
so the City police want to come in at it, and--"

"No further details?" asked the chief, obviously puzzled. "Nothing as to
who's going to point out the murderer, and so on?"

"Nothing!" replied Blindway. "At least, nothing reported to us. All we've
got to do is to be there, on the spot, and to keep our eyes open for the
critical moment."

"And what time is the critical moment to be?" asked the chief, a little
superciliously. "It all seems remarkably vague, Blindway--why couldn't
they give us more news?"

"Don't know, sir--they seemed purposely vague," replied the detective.
"However, the time fixed is two o'clock. To be there about two--that was
the request--at least four of us."

The chief turned and summoned the other three men.

"You'd better break up," he said. "Two of you approach the place from one
way--two from another. It's now a quarter-past one--you've plenty of
time. Stroll across the park to this spot--I'll join you by two o'clock.
I believe you can get light refreshments at this tea-house; get
yourselves something, so as to look like mere loungers--but keep your
eyes open."

"Do you want me, sir?" asked Chettle, eyeing the parcel with evident
desire to know what mystery it concealed.

"No--you go with Blindway," answered the chief. "He'll tell you what's
happened. I must join Mr. Allerdyke and Mr. Appleyard--then we'll come
over to you. Don't take any notice of us."

The four detectives went off into Hyde Park, and there separated in
couples; the chief turned and went along the straight path which runs
parallel with Bayswater Road just within the shrubberies of Kensington
Gardens. Presently he caught sight of Allerdyke and Appleyard, who
occupied two chairs under a shady hawthorn tree, and he laid hold of
another, dragged it to them, and sat down. Each looked a silent inquiry,
and the chief, with a smile, held up the parcel.

"Chettle and I," he said, "have, in the presence of the manager and
manageress of the Pompadour, made a thorough examination of the room and
the belongings of the young lady who resides there under the name of Miss
Slade. There is not a jot or tittle of anything there to show that she is
also Mrs. Marlow--except one thing. That, Mr. Allerdyke, is the
all-important photograph of your cousin James, which is hanging, in a
neat silver frame, over her mantelpiece. What do you think of that,
gentlemen?"

"Odd!" said Appleyard, after a moment's reflective silence.

"Very queer!" said Allerdyke frowning. "Very queer, indeed--considering."

"Queer and odd!" assented the chief. "As to considering--well, I don't
quite know what it is that we are considering. If Miss Slade, alias Mrs.