agreed.

Then Colonel Vane interested Sir Walter in spite of himself. The latter
had spoken of an inquiry, and Vane urged a distinguished name upon him.

"Do get Peter Hardcastle if you can," he said. "He's absolutely top hole
at this sort of thing at present--an amazing beggar."

"I seem to have heard the name."

"Who hasn't? It was he who got to the bottom of that weird murder in
Yorkshire."

"It was weird," said Handford. "I knew intimate friends of the murdered
man."

"A crime for which no logical reason existed," continued the colonel.
"It puzzled everybody, till Hardcastle succeeded where his superior
officers at Scotland Yard had failed. I believe he's still young. But
that was less amazing than the German spy--you remember now, Sir Walter?
The spy had been too clever for England and France--thanks to a woman
who helped him. Peter Hardcastle got to know her; then he
actually disguised himself as the woman--of course without her
knowledge--arrested her, and kept an appointment that she had made with
the spy. What was the spy called? I forget."

"Wundt," said Felix Fayre-Michell.

"No, I don't think so. Hardt or Hardfelt, or something like that."

"Anyway, a jolly wonderful thing. He's the first man at this business,
and I hope you'll be able to secure him."

"If he comes, Sir Walter, don't let it be known that he is here. Keep it
a secret. If Hardcastle could come down as your guest, and nobody know
he was here, it might help him to succeed."

"And if he fails, then I hope you'll invite the Psychical Research
Society."

Sir Walter let the chatter flow past him; but he concentrated on the
name of Peter Hardcastle. He remembered the story of the spy, and the
sensation it had aroused.

Millicent Fayre-Michell also remembered it.

"Mr. Hardcastle declined to let his photograph be published in
the halfpenny papers, I remember," she said. "That struck me as so
wonderful. There was a reason given--that he did not wish the public to
know him by sight. I believe he is never seen as himself, and that he
makes up just as easily to look like a woman as a man."

"Some people believe he is a woman."

"No! You don't say that?"

"To have made up as that German's friend and so actually reached his
presence--nay, secured him! It is certainly one of the most remarkable
pages in the annals of crime," said Ernest Travers.

"Is he attached to Scotland Yard still, or does he work independently?"
asked Miles Hand