is terpsichorean efforts! It was, however,
perfectly evident to me that he intended to deny that he had been in
the hotel during the night, and probably had had time to establish some
sort of an _alibi_. I therefore decided to move cautiously in the
matter.

I turned on my heel and went into the dining-room to breakfast without
another word.

But I made it my business during the morning to inquire of the hall
porter, who I found had been on duty up to eleven o'clock on the
previous night, whether Mr. Saumarez--for that I discovered was the
name he had entered in the hotel visitors' book--had left the hotel on
the previous evening.

The porter unhesitatingly informed me that he had to go to a ball at
Bristol!

Really, when I left this man I began to wonder whether I had been
dreaming, until I recollected the glass eye which was securely locked
up in my dressing-case, such things not being produced in dreams and
found under the pillow in the morning wrapped in an old telegram as
this had been.

I went next to the chambermaid who presided over the corridor in which
Mr. Saumarez' room was.

Being a good-looking girl I gave her half-a-crown and chucked her under
the chin.

"Look here, Maria," I said, "just tell me whether 340, Mr. Saumarez,
was in or not last night. I'm rather curious to know and have got a
bet on about it with a friend."

She looked at me knowingly and giggled.

"Why, _out_, sir, of course," she replied; "he came in at half-past ten
this morning with his boots unblacked. We all know that _that_ means."

This evidence to me appeared conclusive. I gave the chambermaid a
parting chuck under the chin--no one being about--and dismissed her.

Then, it being a fine morning, I went out for a walk.

I went right over the hills by Sham Castle and across the Golf Links,
being heartily sworn at--in the distance--by sundry retired officers
for not getting out of the way. But I was trying to have a good think
over Mr. Saumarez, his duplicate glass eyes, and the reason why he
wanted the key of the old lady's safe.

I so tired myself out with walking and thinking, with no result, that
when I got back and had lunched late all by myself in the big
dining-room, I went into the smoking-room, which this time was quite
empty, and fell asleep in front of the great fire.

My sleep was curiously broken and unrestful, and full of that undefined
cold apprehension which sometimes attacks one without any appare