hers.
He proposed that I should identify and give a name to this mysterious
woman. But how could I? No woman, excepting Mrs. Wilson, had been
mentioned in connection with the case. This new <i>dramatis persona</i> had
appeared suddenly from nowhere and straightway vanished without leaving
a trace, excepting the two or three beads that we had picked up in
Jeffrey's room.

Nor was it in the least clear what part, if any, she had played in the
tragedy. The facts still pointed as plainly to suicide as before her
appearance. Jeffrey's repeated hints as to his intentions, and the very
significant preparations that he had made, were enough to negative any
idea of foul play. And yet the woman's presence in the chambers at that
time, the secret manner of her arrival and her precautions against
recognition, strongly suggested some kind of complicity in the dreadful
event that followed.

But what complicity is possible in the case of suicide? The woman might
have furnished him with the syringe and the poison, but it would not
have been necessary for her to go to his chambers for that purpose.
Vague ideas of persuasion and hypnotic suggestion floated through my
brain; but the explanations did not fit the case and the hypnotic
suggestion of crime is not very convincing to the medical mind. Then I
thought of blackmail in connection with some disgraceful secret; but
though this was a more hopeful suggestion, it was not very probable,
considering Jeffrey's age and character.

And all these speculations failed to throw the faintest light on the
main question: "Who was this woman?"

A couple of days passed, during which Thorndyke made no further
reference to the case. He was, most of the time, away from home, though
how he was engaged I had no idea. What was rather more unusual was that
Polton seemed to have deserted the laboratory and taken to outdoor
pursuits. I assumed that he had seized the opportunity of leaving me in
charge, and I dimly surmised that he was acting as Thorndyke's private
inquiry agent, as he seemed to have done in the case of Samuel Wilkins.

On the evening of the second day Thorndyke came home in obviously good
spirits, and his first proceedings aroused my expectant curiosity. He
went to a cupboard and brought forth a box of Trichinopoly cheroots. Now
the Trichinopoly cheroot was Thorndyke's one dissipation, to be enjoyed
only on rare and specially festive occasions; which, in practice, meant
those occasions