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CHAPTER THE THIRD
WHO WAS GABRIELLE ENGLEDUE?

What, I wondered, had happened during my month of unconsciousness? I wandered into a café and sat pondering. Afterwards I walked about the town aimlessly and rather hungry. My own clothes had been returned to me, but before I assumed them I saw that every mark of identity had been purposely removed. Even the trousers buttons – which had borne the name of my tailor, a reputable firm in New Bond Street – had been substituted.

But by whom?

On the following afternoon I arrived in London and drove straight to Rivermead Mansions. I entered with my latchkey, and on glancing around saw signs that my friend Hambledon was still living there. The fire in the sitting-room had been lit by the “Kaiserin” ready for his home-coming, and everything seemed bright and cosy.

It was then about four o’clock, and Hambledon would certainly not return till six. Therefore after a good wash, a shave, and a clean collar, I set forth for Stretton Street to interview Oswald De Gex.

The house in the dusk was just as I recollected it on that eventful night when I was so unexpectedly called inside.

I rang the bell three times, until at last the door opened and a tall, stalwart man appeared.

I inquired for Mr. De Gex, whereupon he replied:

“Mr. De Gex is in Italy, sir.”

“Oh! When did he leave town?”

“About a month ago, sir,” the man answered.

“You are, I suppose, the caretaker?” I asked. “Now, I wonder if you will do me a very great favour. You may think me a thief or a burglar,” I laughed, “but the fact is I have a great desire to see Mr. De Gex’s house. I’ve heard so much about its beauties. I wonder if you would show me the drawing-room and the library?”

The man hesitated, saying:

“Well, sir, I’ve no orders to show anyone over. Have you a card?”

I at once produced one from my cigarette-case, and added that I was a personal friend of the millionaire’s. He read my name and looked again at me. I assured him that I was not prospecting with a view to burglary.

“I’m only asking you to do me a favour,” I went on, and I put a couple of Treasury notes into his hand. “You can inquire about me at my office to-morrow, if you like. They will tell you, I expect, that I have been away on a month’s leave.”

The little palm-oil no doubt propitiated him, for he invited me in. Then he switched on the light in the hall, and as he did so, said:

“I don’t know what trouble I’d get into with the master. He’s a very eccentric man – as you, of course, know.”

I laughed as we ascended the soft carpeted stairs. I recollected the pattern.

A few moments later we were in the library. Yes. It was just as I remembered it. Nothing had been altered. There was the writing-table whereon I had copied out the death certificate; the big fireplace, now empty, and the deep chair in which I had sat.

There was the window, too – the window which I had opened in order to gasp for air after that suffocating odour of pot-pourri.

As I stood there – the watchful caretaker with his eye upon me, wondering no doubt – I again took in every detail. My return held me more than ever puzzled.

“What is the room beyond?” I asked.

“Oh! That’s the mistress’s bedroom,” he replied. “A curious fancy to have her room next to the library. But it’s one of the best rooms in the house. The master hates London. He lives all the time in Italy, and is only over here just for a week or two in spring, and a week or so before Christmas.”

“I’d like to see that room,” I said, affecting ignorance.

He took me in.

In a second I saw that nothing had been changed since I had stood there at the death-bed of Gabrielle Engledue a little over a month ago.

There was the handsome bed-chamber with its inlaid cupboards, its great dressing-table, and its fine bed – the bed upon which the beautiful young woman had been lying dead. But now the bed had been re-made and its quilted coverlet of pale pink silk was undisturbed.

The corpse had been removed and buried upon my certificate!

I sniffed to see whether I could detect that curious odour of pot-pourri, but in vain. The air seemed fresh and not stifling as it had been on that well-remembered night.

Upon a side table stood a large photograph in a silver frame. I bent to look at it, whereupon the caretaker said:

“That’s a good photograph of Mr. De Gex, isn’t it, sir?”

“Excellent,” I said, for it was a really fine portrait. “Does your mistress come over from Italy often?”

“Oh, yes, and she brings the little boy over with her. She is frequently here, while her husband stays at Fiesole. I send on his correspondence every day to Mr. Henderson, his secretary.”

I stood gazing around the room. Upon that bed the beautiful girl lay dead, and I had certified the cause of her death! Yet I had, later on, been the victim of some devil’s trick of which I knew nothing.

I was there to investigate. Yet though I questioned the caretaker very closely, I confess that I met with little success. He was an old and trusted servant of the family. Hence to many of my inquiries he remained dumb.

“When do you expect your master back?” I asked at last.

“Oh, not for another six months or so.”

“Where is Mrs. De Gex?”

“Ah! That I can’t quite make out,” he replied. “It’s a bit of a mystery. One night she went away quite unexpectedly and, as a matter of fact, nobody knows where she is. Her husband doesn’t know – or pretends he doesn’t,” he said with a knowing grin.

“Then she has disappeared!” I exclaimed.

“That’s just it. And they were always such a devoted pair. Little Oswald was the only thing she lived for.”

“Lived!” I echoed. “Then do you think she’s dead?” I asked quickly.

“Dead! Why should we think so? If she were, we should surely have seen it in the papers?”

“But your master has very funny fits sometimes,” I said. “I’ve heard about his eccentric ways.”

“Of course he has. He’s overburdened with money – that’s what it is. Mr. Henderson looks after all his affairs. Mr. De Gex has no regard for money. Mr. Henderson attends to everything. Phew! I wish I were a millionaire! I find it hard enough nowadays to pay the butcher and baker and make both ends meet.”

“And so do I,” I said, laughing. “But, tell me, where is the young lady who used to live here – Mr. De Gex’s niece?”

“His niece! I don’t think he has a niece.”

“Miss Gabrielle Engledue.”

“Who’s she? I’ve never heard of her,” was the man’s reply.

I described her, but he shook his head.

“To my knowledge Mr. De Gex hasn’t got a niece,” he said.

“Were you here five weeks ago?” I inquired.

“Five weeks ago? No. I and my wife went away down to Swanage to see her sister. The master gave us a fortnight’s holiday. Why?”

“Oh – nothing,” I replied. “I merely inquired as I want to clear up a mystery – that’s all.”

“What mystery?”

“The mystery of Miss Engledue – your master’s niece,” I answered.

“But I’ve never heard of any niece,” he said.

“A young lady of about twenty-one with dark hair and eyes, and a beautiful complexion,” I said.

But the old servant’s mind was a blank.

“Of course, sir, many people come to visit Mr. De Gex. Horton would know them, but I don’t. When the master is in town the servants are here, and I’m down in Cornwall at the castle.”

“Then you are only here as caretaker when the family is away?”

“That’s it, sir,” he said. “But what is the mystery about this young lady? You said you knew Mr. De Gex, and yet you wanted to look over the house.”

“Yes,” I responded with a laugh. “I have my own object – to clear up the mystery of Mr. De Gex’s niece.”

“Well, as far as I know, he has no niece! But you could easily find out, I suppose!”

The man was evidently no fool.

“Of course I don’t know who comes here, or who stays here when the family is in town,” he went on. “I simply come up and look after the place with my wife.”

“Then you were away in Swanage during the first week of November?” I asked very seriously.

“Yes, we went down on the last day of October, and we were back here in the middle of November. My wife’s sister was very ill, and her husband didn’t expect her to live. So I remember the dates only too well.”

“Then the family were in town on the date I mention.”

He considered a moment.

“Oh! Of course they were. They must have been.”

I glanced again around the room, full of amazement and wonder.

The man’s failure to give me any details regarding the extremely attractive girl who had died upon his mistress’s bed held me gripped in uncertainty. The mystery was even more puzzling now that I had started to investigate.

As I stood in that room a thousand strange reflections flashed across my mind.

Why had I, a mere passer-by, been called in so suddenly to be taken into the intimacy of the millionaire’s household? Was it by mere accident that I had been invited in, or was it by careful design? I had lost five thousand pounds by foolish speculation, and yet I had regained it by being party to a criminal offence.

Again, who was the pretty, dark-haired girl who had first uttered those hysterical screams, and then, while fully dressed, had died upon Mrs. De Gex’s bed? Further, if the mysterious dead girl had been niece of the millionaire surely my friend the caretaker would have known her?

I confess that I now became more bewildered than ever.

That a girl named Gabrielle Engledue – whoever she might have been – had died, and that I had forged a certificate showing the cause of death were hard, solid facts. But the mystery of it all was complete.

That I had been the victim of some very carefully prepared and subtle plot was apparent, and it had become my own affair to investigate it and bring to justice those who were responsible for the poor girl’s death.

Time after time I questioned the caretaker regarding the existence of the millionaire’s niece, Miss Engledue, but it was plain to me that he had no knowledge of any such person.

“Was there not a death in this house – about five weeks ago?” I asked.

“Death?” he echoed. “Why, no, sir. You must be dreaming. If there had been a death while I was away, either my wife or I would certainly have heard about it.” And he looked suspiciously at me as though he believed I had taken leave of my senses.

An hour later I was back at Rivermead Mansions, where Harry, for whom I had left a note, was awaiting me.

As we sat together before a cheerful fire I told him of my lapse into unconsciousness, of my loss of memory, but I did not explain all that had happened, for, as a matter of fact, I had no desire that anyone should know of my guilt in posing as a medical man and thus becoming implicated in the mysterious death of Gabrielle Engledue.

My friend sat and heard me, smoking his pipe in silence.

“Extraordinary!” he said. “You ought to go to the police, Garfield. You were doped – without a doubt. But what was the motive? I’ve been very worried about you. When you had been missing a week they sent over from your office, and I then went to the police at Hammersmith. They made every inquiry and circulated your description. But they could discover no trace of you. I’ll have to report that you’ve been found.”

“Yes, do so to-morrow morning,” I urged. “I don’t want the police following me about – thank you,” and I laughed, rather grimly perhaps.

During the hours that I lay awake that night a thought suddenly crossed my mind – an idea which next day I promptly put into execution.

I went to Somerset House, and there searched the register of deaths. At first my efforts were in vain, but at last I discovered what I sought, namely an entry that a young woman named Gabrielle Engledue, single, aged twenty-one, of unknown parentage, had died of heart trouble at No. 9 Stretton Street, Park Lane, on the night of November the Seventh, the body having been cremated five days later!

I pursued my inquiries in various quarters that day, and further discovered that the funeral expenses had been defrayed by some person named Moroni. There had been only two mourners, of whom Moroni had been one.

Still feeling very ill, I was compelled – after reporting to the office – to remain at home for the three days which followed.

To the two heads of the firm I fear the story that I told must have appeared somewhat lame, yet they exhibited no disbelief, but on the contrary sympathized with me in my strange and unaccountable affliction.

In a drawer in my bedroom lay the five thousand pounds in bank notes just as Oswald De Gex had given to me. I, of course, said nothing of them to Harry. But once or twice I drew them from the old envelope in which I had placed them, and turned them over in wonder.

I decided that they would be safer in the bank, but I hesitated to place them to my credit, so I at last put them away in the bottom of an old writing-case which had belonged to my father, resolving to try to forget their existence.

Though perhaps I did at last manage to forget the bribe, yet I could not put from myself the memory of that beautiful girl, the cause of whose death I had certified. The perfect countenance haunted me constantly. In my dreams I often saw her alive and well. The marvellous face was turned towards me, with merry, dancing dark eyes and a tantalizing smile – an enticing smile of mystery.

At last I resolved to go and face Oswald De Gex, so with that object I one morning left Charing Cross for Florence. Travelling by the Rome express from the Gare de Lyon, in Paris, I changed at Pisa, and at last, as the “snail train,” as it is known in Italy on account of its slowness, wound slowly up the beautiful valley of the Arno, the old red roofs and domes of Firenze La Bella came into view.

The winter morning was sunny and brilliant with a clear blue sky, and as I drove through the streets, past the marble-built Duomo with its wonderful campanile, the city was agog, for it happened to be the Festa of the Befana.

I had left my bag at the station, and the taxi took me to Fiesole, the high-up little town outside which lived the “rich Inglese” – Oswald De Gex.

Long before we arrived the driver pointed out the huge, mediæval country house situated among the olives and vines, and commanding extensive views over Florence and the Arno, with the blue mountains beyond. It was a great white house with red tiles and overhanging eaves, palatial indeed in its dimensions, and for centuries the summer residence of the head of the great family of Clementini, from whom the English millionaire had bought it fifteen years before, together with all its pictures, tapestries, and antiques, with the farms adjoining.

On entering the great gates of seventeenth century wrought iron, we found ourselves in a glorious old-world Italian garden, with a wonderful marble fountain, and a good deal of antique statuary, and then driving through the extensive grounds – past a lake – I at last rang the bell.

Quickly the great iron-studded door was opened by an elderly Englishman in livery, to whom I gave my card, and asked to see his master.

The man, without hesitation, ushered me through a huge marble-built hall, with a wonderfully frescoed ceiling, into a large room hung with priceless tapestry, and furnished with old gilt chairs covered with faded green silk damask.

I, however, took very little note of my surroundings, so anxious was I to again meet my host of Stretton Street face to face.

Not long did I have to wait before the door opened, and he stood before me.

“Well, Mr. Garfield?” he asked quietly, as he advanced. “To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”

“Ah!” I cried. “Then you recollect me, I see! You know my name?”

“Yes. It was upon your card,” was his quiet reply. “But, forgive me, I do not recollect ever having met you before!”

I held my breath. I tried to speak, but for the moment words failed me, so angry was I at his cleverly pretended ignorance and flat denial.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH
FACING THE MUSIC

“Do you seriously mean to say that you have no knowledge of me?” I demanded angrily, looking the millionaire straight in the face.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I seriously mean what I say. But, tell me,” he demanded resentfully, “why are you here to claim acquaintance with me?”

“Do you really deny you have ever seen me before?” I asked, astounded at his barefaced pretence of ignorance.

“Never to my knowledge,” replied the sallow-faced man whose countenance I so well recollected.

“Then you forget a certain night not so long ago when I was called into your house in Stretton Street, and you chatted confidentially with me – about your wife and your little son?”

“My dear sir!” he cried. “Whatever do you mean? I have never seen you at Stretton Street; and I have certainly never discussed my wife with you!”

I stood aghast at his continued denial.

“But you did,” I asserted. “And there was another matter – a matter about which I must question you – the – ”

“Ah! I see!” he interrupted. “You’re here to blackmail me – eh? Well – let me hear the worst,” and across his rather Oriental face there spread a mocking, half amused smile.

“I am not a blackmailer!” I protested angrily. “I want no money – only to know the truth.”

“Of what?”

“Well, the truth concerning the death of Miss Gabrielle Engledue.”

“The death of Miss Gabrielle Engledue!” he cried. “I really don’t understand you, Mr. – Mr. Garfield!”

At mention of the name I saw that he started, but almost imperceptibly. The man was certainly a most perfect actor, and his protestations of ignorance were, indeed, well-feigned.

“Then you actually deny all knowledge of the young lady!” I said.

“I know no lady of that name.”

“But she is your niece.”

“I have only one niece – Lady Shalford.”

“And how old is she?”

He hesitated for a few moments. Then he answered.

“Oh! She must be about thirty-five. She married Shalford about ten years ago, and she lives at Wickenham Grange, near Malton, in Yorkshire.”

“And you have no other niece?”

“None – I assure you. But why do you ask such a question? You puzzle me.”

“Not more than you puzzle me, Mr. De Gex,” I replied with pique. “It would be so much easier if you would be frank and open with me.”

“My dear sir, you seem to me to have a bee in your bonnet about something or other. Tell me, now, what is it?”

“Simply that you know me very well, but you deny it. You never thought that I should make this unwelcome reappearance.”

“Your appearance here as a mad-brained person is certainly unwelcome,” he retorted. “You first tell me that you visited me at Stretton Street. Well, you may have been in the servants’ quarters for all I know, and – ”

“Please do not be insulting!” I cried angrily.

“I have no intention of offering you an insult, sir, but your attitude is so very extraordinary! You speak of a girl named Engledue – that was the name, I think – and allege that she is my niece. Why?”

“Because the young lady is dead – she died under most suspicious circumstances. And you know all about it!” I said bluntly.

“Oh! perhaps you will allege that I am a murderer next!” he laughed, as though enjoying the joke.

“It is no laughing matter!” I cried in fury.

“Why not? I find all your allegations most amusing,” and across his dark handsome face there spread a good-humoured smile.

His was a face that I could never forget. At one moment its expression was kindly and full of bonhomie, the next it was hard and unrelenting – the face of an eccentric criminal.

“To me they are the reverse of amusing,” I said. “I allege that on the night of Wednesday, November the seventh last, I was passing your house in Stretton Street, Park Lane, when your man, Horton, invited me inside, and – well, well – I need not describe what occurred there, for you recollect only too vividly – without a doubt. But what I demand to know is why you asked me in, and what happened to me after you gave me that money?”

“Money! I gave you money?” he cried. “Why, man alive, you’re dreaming! You must be!”

“I’m not dreaming at all! It is a hard fact. Indeed, I still have the money – five thousand pounds in bank notes.”

Oswald De Gex looked at me strangely. His sallow face coloured slightly, and his lips compressed. I had cornered him. A little further firmness, and he would no doubt admit that we had met at Stretton Street.

“Look here, Mr. Garfield,” he said in a changed voice. “This is beyond a joke. You now tell me that I presented you with five thousand pounds.”

“I do – and I repeat it.”

“But why should I give you this sum?”

“Because I assisted you in the commission of a crime.”

“That’s a lie!” he declared vehemently. “Forgive me for saying so, but I can only think that you are not quite in your right mind.”

“I have not been in my right mind for a month or more – thanks to your deep plotting,” I retorted sharply. “Further, I am telling the truth – as I shall later on tell it before a court of law. I intend to solve the mystery of the death of Gabrielle Engledue.”

“Well – I will not hinder you,” he laughed grimly.

“You mean that you will not assist me?”

“I mean that I have no knowledge of any such person; nor have I any knowledge of you,” he said. “A perfect stranger, you come here, present your card, and at once start a series of most serious allegations against me, the chief of them being that I gave you five thousand pounds for some assistance which you refuse to describe.”

“If I tell you, you will only deny it, Mr. De Gex,” I exclaimed bitterly. “So what is the use?”

“None. In fact I don’t see that any object is to be gained in prolonging this interview,” was his quick retort. “If, as you say, I gave you five thousand – which I certainly never did – then what more can you want? I however, suspect that the five thousand exists only in your own imagination.”

“But I have the sum intact – in a drawer at my home in London.”

“It would be of interest to see it. Are they the same notes which you say I gave you?”

“The same,” I answered, and then I went on to tell him how I had awakened to find myself in St. Malo, and how the French police had taken possession of the money found upon me.

“Ah!” he exclaimed at last. “It all seems quite clear now. You’ve had a bad illness, my dear fellow! Your brain has become unbalanced, and you are now subject to hallucinations. I regret my hard words, Mr. Garfield,” he added in a kindly tone. “I also regret that your mental state is what it is.”

“I desire no sympathy!” I protested, raising my voice angrily. “All I want to know is the truth.”

“I have already told you that, as far as I am personally concerned.”

“No. You have denied everything, and now you try to treat me as one demented!” I declared in a fury. “The existence of the bank notes you gave me are sufficient evidence against you.”

“I think not. First, I doubt if they exist anywhere save in your imagination; secondly, if they do, then someone else may have given them to you.”

“You did. I would recognize you among ten thousand men. On the night in question you wore a dinner jacket, and now you are in grey. That is all the difference.”

“Well, have it your own way,” he replied smiling, though I could see that he had become palpably perturbed by my allegations. Whatever had been administered to me – some dope or other, no doubt – it had been intended that I should be cast adrift on the Continent as a semi-imbecile.

It was that fact which maddened me. The poor girl might not have been his niece, of course, but whoever she had been, this man had had some very strange and distinct motive in getting rid of her.

What it was I had vowed to discover.

It was apparent that De Gex was anxious to get rid of me. Indeed, as we stood together in that fine old room, across the marble floor of which strayed long beams of sunlight, the door opened and a pretty woman came in. She was dressed to go out, and asked:

“Will you be long, dear?”

It was the beautiful Mrs. De Gex! In an instant I recognized her by the many photographs I had seen in the picture papers.

“No. I’ll be with you in a minute, dear. Is the car there?” he asked.

“It’s been there a quarter of an hour, and if we don’t go now we shall be late in meeting Hylda at the station,” she said, glancing at me with undisguised annoyance.

Then she left, closing the door after her.

Across my brain ran strange thoughts. I recollected his words in Stretton Street regarding his spiteful wife when I had been called in to listen to his matrimonial troubles. But husband and wife now appeared to be on quite amicable and even affectionate terms.

I confess that I was still bewildered, as you, my reader, in whom I am here reposing confidence, would, I believe, have been, had you found yourself in similar circumstances.

“I see that your wife is eager to go out,” I said. “But I fear I must, before I go, press for a direct answer to my questions, Mr. De Gex.”

“My dear sir, I have answered them. What more can I say?” he exclaimed with affected dismay.

“A very great deal. You can tell me the truth.”

“I have,” he snapped. “Who this girl Engledue is I have not a ghost of an idea. Are you certain she is dead?”

“Positive. I saw her lying dead in the room which adjoins your library.”

“What! My wife’s room!” he cried. “Oh, come – let us finish all this silly talk.”

“When you are, at least, frank with me!”

“I am.”

“But do you deny that the young lady, Gabrielle Engledue, died there? Do you not recollect that we both stood at her death-bed?”

“Don’t talk such piffle!” De Gex snapped, no doubt believing in the end that he would convince me of his ignorance of the whole tragedy.

Whatever had happened on that November night was, no doubt, to the distinct advantage of the wealthy man who stood before me. Yet I was faced with a difficulty. He had uttered that most ugly word “blackmail.” Suppose he called the police and accused me of it! His word – the word of a wealthy financier – would, no doubt, be taken by a jury before my own!

On the other hand, I had up my sleeve a trump-card – the death and cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle Engledue. Probably the poor victim was poisoned – hence the object of her cremation to remove all traces of it! Yet, opposed to that, there still remained my own most serious offence of posing as a medical man and giving a forged certificate concerning the cause of death.

Yes. I was only too keenly alive to my own very precarious position. Yet I was emboldened by De Gex’s agitation, and the pallor in his sallow cheeks.

He was, no doubt, feeling very uneasy. And even a millionaire can feel uneasy when faced with a witness of his own offence.

“Mr. De Gex, I am not talking rubbish,” I said in all seriousness. “You appear to forget that night when your wife deserted your son in Westbourne Grove, and then laughed at you over the telephone from a public call-office.”

He looked at me very straight with those deep-set eyes of his.

“Really,” he exclaimed. “That is quite a new feature in the affair. Let me see, what did I tell you?”

“Your man, Horton, invited me, a mere passer-by, into your house in Stretton Street. He said you were very much worried and asked if I would meet you. Why? I cannot imagine. When we met you were very vague in your statements, and at first I could not for the life of me discover why I had been asked to meet you. But soon you confided to me the fact that your wife, being spiteful towards you, had abandoned your heir, little Oswald, in Westbourne Grove, and had then rung up from a call-office telling you to find him.”

“Bosh! My dear fellow! Bosh!” was his reply. “First, you were never there; and secondly, I’ve never complained of my wife’s behaviour to anyone; certainly not to a stranger.”

“You did to me. I certainly am not dreaming.”

“But you have already admitted that you’ve been in hospital in St. Malo suffering from loss of memory.”

“My memory has now fortunately been restored,” I replied.

“Distorted – without a doubt. You would never travel all the way from London to relate these absolutely silly stories to me if you were in your right senses, my dear Mr. Garfield,” he said.

“They’re not silly stories, but hard, indisputable facts!” I declared resentfully.

The millionaire had assumed an air of nonchalance, for leaning against a big old buhl table he took out a cigarette from his gold case and slowly lit it, after which he said:

“You must, I think, really excuse me. We have to go down into Florence to meet my sister-in-law, who is coming from London. I’m afraid, Mr. Garfield, that I cannot help you any further.”

“You mean you won’t!”

“Not at all. If I knew anything of this young lady who, you said, died in my wife’s bedroom in Stretton Street, and at whose bedside you and I stood together, I would tell you. But I really don’t.”

He tossed his cigarette hastily out of the open window.

“No,” he added. “I won’t hear any more. I haven’t the time or the inclination to listen to the wanderings of any insane person. I’ve had enough!”

“And so have I!” I retorted. “You are trying to mislead me by affecting ignorance of my very existence, but I don’t intend that you shall escape!” I added, again raising my voice.

“Hush, please,” he said in a calmer tone. “My wife may overhear.”

“I don’t care!” I cried in desperation. “You never dreamed that I should arise against you, as I have. You are not fair towards me! If you revealed to me in confidence the reason you gave me that bribe of five thousand pounds, then I, on my part, would have played the straight game.”

“My dear sir, play whatever game you like. It is immaterial to me whether straight or crooked. I don’t know anything about what you have been talking, and you have only wasted your breath and got out of temper for nothing.”

Again I looked him straight in the face. There was no doubt that the strain of his clever denials was telling upon him. His dark complexion had paled; in his eyes there was a fierce, haunted look as that of a man who was straining every effort to remain calm under the gravest circumstances.

“I have no game to play,” I declared. “I only demand the truth. Why was I invited into your house in Stretton Street to be present as witness at the poor girl’s death?”

“I don’t know. Find out for yourself, my dear Mr. Garfield,” laughed the rich man. “I have no time to discuss this silly affair further. I’m sorry you have troubled to come out from London to see me. But really yours has been a fool’s errand,” and he turned towards the door.