f the disappearance
of her husband, William Kershaw, of no occupation, and apparently of no
fixed abode. She was accompanied by a friend--a fat, oily-looking
German--and between them they told a tale which set the police
immediately on the move.

"It appears that on the 10th of December, at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, Karl Mueller, the German, called on his friend, William
Kershaw, for the purpose of collecting a small debt--some ten pounds or
so--which the latter owed him. On arriving at the squalid lodging in
Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, he found William Kershaw in a wild
state of excitement, and his wife in tears. Mueller attempted to state
the object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild gestures, waved him
aside, and--in his own words--flabbergasted him by asking him
point-blank for another loan of two pounds, which sum, he declared,
would be the means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend who
would help him in his need.

"After a quarter of an hour spent in obscure hints, Kershaw, finding the
cautious German obdurate, decided to let him into the secret plan,
which, he averred, would place thousands into their hands."

Instinctively Polly had put down her paper; the mild stranger, with his
nervous air and timid, watery eyes, had a peculiar way of telling his
tale, which somehow fascinated her.

"I don't know," he resumed, "if you remember the story which the German
told to the police, and which was corroborated in every detail by the
wife or widow. Briefly it was this: Some thirty years previously,
Kershaw, then twenty years of age, and a medical student at one of the
London hospitals, had a chum named Barker, with whom he roomed,
together with another.

"The latter, so it appears, brought home one evening a very considerable
sum of money, which he had won on the turf, and the following morning he
was found murdered in his bed. Kershaw, fortunately for himself, was
able to prove a conclusive _alibi_; he had spent the night on duty at
the hospital; as for Barker, he had disappeared, that is to say, as far
as the police were concerned, but not as far as the watchful eyes of his
friend Kershaw were able to spy--at least, so the latter said. Barker
very cleverly contrived to get away out of the country, and, after
sundry vicissitudes, finally settled down at Vladivostok, in Eastern
Siberia, where, under the assumed name of Smethurst, he built up an
enormous fortune by trading in furs.

"N