mains in his
unoccupied bedroom."

"Do you mean to say he never came back all night?" Miss Morriston asked.

"Never," Kelson assured her. "Old Dipper came to us, half asleep, at four
o'clock to ask whether he was justified in locking up the establishment."

"And nothing has been seen or heard of the man since," Gifford put in.

"That is queer," Morriston said, as though scarcely knowing whether to
take it seriously or otherwise. "Now I come to think of it I don't
recollect seeing anything of the man after quite the first part of the
evening. Did you, Painswick?"

"No, can't say I did," Painswick answered.

"And," observed Kelson, "he was not a man to be easily overlooked when
he was on show. I missed him, not altogether disagreeably, after the
early dances."

"What is the idea?" Edith Morriston inquired. "Is there any theory to
account for his disappearance?"

"No," Kelson answered, "unless a discreditable one. Gone off at a
tangent."

"And still in his evening things?" Painswick said with a laugh. "Rather
uncomfortable this weather."

"That reminds me," Morriston said with sudden animation, "one of the
footmen brought me a fur coat and a soft hat this morning and asked me if
they were mine. They had been unclaimed after the dance and he had
ascertained that they belonged to none of the men who were staying here.
Nor were they mine."

"That is most curious," Kelson said with a mystified air. "Henshaw was
wearing a fur coat and soft hat when we saw him in the hall of the _Lion_
just before starting. Don't you remember, Hugh?"

"Yes; certainly he was," Gifford answered.

"Then they must be his," Morriston concluded.

"And where is he--without them?" Painswick added with a laugh.
"Dead of cold?"

"It is altogether quite mysterious," Morriston observed with a puzzled
air. "He can't be here still."

"Hardly," his sister replied. "You know him?" she asked Kelson.

"Quite casually. So far as nearly coming to a rough and tumble with the
fellow for his cheek in scoffing our fly at the station constitutes an
acquaintance. Gifford acted as peacemaker, and we put up with the
fellow's company to the town. But neither of us imbibed a particularly
high opinion of the sportsman, did we, Hugh?"

"No," Gifford assented; "his was not a taking character, to men at any
rate; and we rather wondered how he came to be going to the
Cumberbatch Ball."

"No doubt he got his ticket in the ordinary way," Morriston said.