from Paris to London with me in order to meet
clandestinely the poor girl who was the rich man's victim? That was
one point which arose in my mind.

But the main question was the reason of his supposed chance meeting
with me in the express between York and London.

During our chat I feared to refer to Gabrielle lest he should suspect
that I knew of his subtle intrigue. I could see that he was
congratulating himself upon his cleverness in misleading me, therefore
I chuckled inwardly.

What I desired most at that moment was to establish the connexion
between the elegant cosmopolitan Frenchman and Oswald De Gex with his
wily accomplice Moroni. That the latter was a man of criminal instinct
I had long ago established. He was a toady to a man of immense
wealth--a clever medical man who, by reason of his callous
unscrupulousness, was a dealer in Death in its most insidious and
least-looked-for form. The hand of death is ever at the command of
every medical man, hence mankind has to thank the medical
profession--one of the hardest-worked and least recognized in the
world--for its honesty, frankness and strict uprightness. In every
profession we have black sheep--even, alas! in the Church. But happily
unscrupulousness in those who practise medicine in Great Britain is
practically an unknown quantity.

But in Europe it is different, for in the dossiers held by the police
of Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin criminals who practise medicine are
written largely, as witnessed by the evidence in more than one famous
trial where the accused has been sentenced to death.

I longed to go to Scotland Yard and tell my story. Yet how could I do
so when, in a drawer in my room, there reposed that bundle of Bank of
England notes, the price paid to me for being the accomplice of a
mysterious crime? I could only seek a solution of the enigma alone and
unaided by the authorities. I seemed to be making a little headway,
yet each fact I established added complications to the amazing affair.

Further, I must here confess to you that during the past day or two I
had found myself actually in love with the beautiful girl whose
mentality had been wilfully destroyed by some means which medical
science failed to establish. From the first I had been filled with
great admiration for her. She was indeed very beautiful, with
wonderful eyes and a perfect complexion. There was grace in every
movement, save when at times she held herself rigid, with fixed b