aid, "I have to offer you my apologies. I have
apparently been deceived by some false information. The charge is
withdrawn."

He turned on his heel and left the room. The two policemen followed him.

"Keep them under observation," Dory ordered shortly, "but I am afraid
this fellow Cawdor has sold me."

He found a hansom outside, and sprang into it.

"Number 27, Southampton Row," he ordered.

Rounceby and his partner were alone in the little smoking room. The
former was almost inarticulate. The night porter brought them brandy,
and both men drank.

"We've got to get to the bottom of this, Marnstam," Mr. Rounceby
muttered.

Mr. Marnstam was thinking.

"Do you remember that sound through the darkness," he said--"the beating
of an engine way back on the road?"

"What of it?" Rounceby demanded.

"It was a motor bicycle," Marnstam said quietly. "I thought so at the
time."

"Supposing some one followed us and pulled him out," Rounceby said,
hoarsely, "why are we treated like this? I tell you we've been made
fools of! We've been treated like children--not even to be punished!
We'll have the truth somehow out of that devil Cawdor! Come!"

They made their way to the courtyard and found a cab.

"Number 27, Southampton Row!" they ordered.

They reached their destination some time before Dory, whose horse fell
down in the Strand, and who had to walk. They ascended to the fourth
floor of the building and rang the bell of Vincent Cawdor's room--no
answer. They plied the knocker--no result. Rounceby peered through the
keyhole.

"He hasn't come home yet," he remarked. "There is no light anywhere in
the place."

The door of a flat across the passage was quietly opened. Mr. Peter
Ruff, in a neat black smoking suit and slippers, and holding a pipe in
his hand, looked out.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but I do not think that Mr. Cawdor is
in. He went out early this evening, and I have not heard him return."

The two men turned away.

"We are much obliged to you, sir," Mr. Marnstam said.

"Can I give him any message?" Peter Ruff asked, politely. "We generally
see something of one another in the morning."

"You can tell him--" Rounceby began.

"No message, thanks!" Marnstam interrupted. "We shall probably run
across him ourselves to-morrow."

John Dory was nearly a quarter of an hour late. After his third useless
summons, Mr. Peter Ruff presented himself again.

"I am afraid," he said, "you will not find