he would be absent for two or three nights. He went away into the
country, the smart young clerk believed.

Hence I established the curious fact that Gaston Suzor when in London
had two places of abode, one in that best-known hotel, and the other
in the obscurity of a frowsy house patronized by lower-class visitors
to London.

What could be the motive, I wondered?

I returned to the Carlton at midnight and inquired for Monsieur Suzor.
The night-clerk told me that he had not yet returned.

So I went back to the cold cheerlessness of Rivermead Mansions, and
slept until the following morning.

At each turn I seemed to be confronted by mystery which piled upon
mystery. Ever before my eyes I saw that handsome girl lying cold and
lifeless, and I had forged a certificate in the name of a well-known
medical man, upon which her body had been reduced to ashes! That I had
acted as accomplice to some cunning and deliberate crime I could not
disguise from myself. It was now up to me to make amends before God
and man, to strive to solve the enigma and to bring the guilty persons
to justice.

This was what I was endeavouring, with all my soul, to accomplish.

Yet the point was whether Gabrielle Engledue was really dead, or
whether she still existed in the person of Gabrielle Tennison. That
was the first fact for me to establish.

Next morning I rose early and gazed across the cold misty Thames to
the great factories and wharves upon the opposite bank. The outlook
was indeed dull and dispiriting, I stood recalling how Moroni had
walked with the beautiful girl in the streets of Florence, unwillingly
it seemed, for he certainly feared lest his companion be recognized. I
also recollected the strange conversation I had heard with my own
ears, and the curious attitude which little Mrs. Cullerton had adopted
towards me, even though she had revealed to me the whereabouts of
Gabrielle Tennison.

My breakfast was ready soon after eight o'clock, and afterwards I went
to Earl's Court to watch the house in Longridge Road. By dint of
careful inquiries in the neighbourhood I was told that Mrs. Tennison
had gone away a few days before--to Paris, they believed.

"The young lady, Miss Tennison, appears to be rather peculiar," I
remarked casually to a woman at a baker's shop near by, after she had
told me that she served them with bread.

"Yes, poor young lady!" replied the woman. "She's never been the same
since she was taken ill last N