a guardian. The young lady's father must
have known yours very intimately indeed, or very little, it does not
matter which. Still, I don't suppose that Sir Charles had many of these
affairs on hand. Now, see if you can recollect anything of the kind
happening during the last three or four years, Miss Darryll."

Beatrice thought the matter over carefully for a moment. Her face
lighted up presently.

"I fancy that I have it," she said. "Lord Edward Decie, who was a great
friend of my father, died about three years ago. The two men did a lot
of speculating together, and indeed Lord Edward passed for a shrewd and
successful man. When he died I know my father was executor under the
will and that he had some control over the Hon. Violet Decie. I never
saw the girl, because she went to India with a married brother, and,
for all I know she is there still. I understood that she was rather an
impulsive kind of girl who did wild things on the spur of the moment.
But you can easily inquire."

Field's face expressed a guarded satisfaction. So far he was not very
much out.

"That is the young lady, miss," he cried. "I'll put the inquiries on
foot at once. And I don't think that I need detain you any longer."

"One minute," Beatrice said. "What about Colonel Berrington? What steps
have you taken to find him? Are you going to have that house at
Wandsworth watched?"

Field intimated that he was, though in his opinion it was time wasted.

"They will expect something of the kind, you see," he said. "Of course
it is a help to me that my presence in the house was not suspected. They
may conclude that Berrington was alone in the business, and on the other
hand they may not conclude anything of the kind. But, all the same, I am
going to have the house carefully watched."

Before the day was out the disappearance of Sir Charles's body was
obscured by the strange absence of Colonel Berrington. Field would have
kept this latter fact concealed as far as possible, but then
Berrington's landlady had been his old nurse, and she was not rational
in the matter at all. The authorities had promised to do all they could,
though the press accused them of being exceedingly lax in the business.
As a matter of fact, Field had given his chiefs an inkling of the
situation, so that they were really doing their best all the time. A
carefully planned watch on the Wandsworth Common house had come to
nothing, but the people there had not yet returned; inde