s Rents was Royston Court, which was another cul-de-sac,
running parallel with Silvers Rents.

Mr. Mann returned to the house, and again searched the upstairs rooms,
looking particularly for a trapdoor, for the bamboo ladder suggested
some such exit. This time, however, he completely failed. Jasper Cole,
he found, had made only one visit to the house since John Minute's
death.

It is a curious fact, as showing the localizing of interest, that
Silvers Rents knew nothing of what had occurred almost at its doors,
and, though it had at its finger tips all the gossip of the docks and
the Thames Iron Works, it was profoundly ignorant of what was common
property in Royston Court. It is even more remarkable that Saul Arthur
Mann, with his squadron of detectives, should have confined their
investigations to Silvers Rents.

The investigator was baffled and disappointed, but by the oddest of
chances he was to pick up yet another thread of the Minute mystery, a
thread which, however, was to lead him into an ever-deeper maze than
that which he had already and so unsuccessfully attempted to penetrate.

Three days after his search of Silvers Rents, business took Mr. Mann to
Camden Town. To be exact, he had gone at the request of the police to
Holloway Jail to see a prisoner who had turned state's evidence on a
matter in which the police and Mr. Mann were equally interested. Very
foolishly he had dismissed his taxi, and when he emerged from the doors
there was no conveyance in sight. He decided, rather than take the trams
which would have carried him to King's Cross, to walk, and, since he
hated main roads, he had taken a short cut, which, as he knew, would
lead him into the Hampstead Road.

Thus he found himself in Flowerton Road, a thoroughfare of respectable
detached houses occupied by the superior industrial type. He was
striding along, swinging his umbrella and humming, as was his wont, an
unmusical rendering of a popular tune, when his attention was attracted
to a sight which took his breath away and brought him to a halt.

It was half past five, and dull, but his eyesight was excellent, and it
was impossible for him to make a mistake. The houses of Flowerton Road
stand back and are separated from the sidewalk by diminutive gardens.
The front doors are approached by six or seven steps, and it was on the
top of one of these flights in front of an open door that the scene was
enacted which brought Mr. Mann to a standstill.