been a detective-sergeant in the
T Division of Metropolitan Police for years before his appointment as
director of that section. He knew more of the criminal undercurrents on
the Continent than any living Englishman, and it was he who furnished
accurate information to the Surete in Paris concerning the great Humbert
swindle.

"Well," he said, "if I recollect aright, the inquiries regarding him were
not altogether satisfactory. Previous to his engagement by Harry he had,
it seems, been valet to a man named Mitchell, a horse-trainer of rather
shady repute."

"Where is he now?"

"I really don't know, but I can easily find out--I gave orders that he
was not to be lost sight of." And, scribbling a hasty memorandum, he
pressed the electric button upon the arm of his chair.

His secretary, a tall, thin, deep-eyed man, entered, and to him he gave
the note.

"Well, let us proceed while they are looking up the information," the
chief went on. "Harry Bellairs, as you know, was on the staff of Sir
Hugh Elcombe, that dear, harmless old friend of yours who inspects troops
and seems to do odd jobs for Whitehall. I knew Harry before he went to
Sandhurst; his people, who lived up near Durham, were very civil to me
once or twice and gave me some excellent pheasant-shooting. It seems that
on that day in September he came up to town from Salisbury--but you know
all the facts, of course?"

"I know all the facts as far as they were related in the papers," Walter
said. He did not reveal the results of the close independent inquiries he
had already made--results which had utterly astounded, and at the same
time mystified, him.

"Well," said Trendall, "what the Press published was mostly fiction. Even
the evidence given before the coroner was utterly unreliable. It was
mainly given in order to mislead the jury and prevent public suspicion
that there had been a sensational tragedy--I arranged it so."

"And there had been a tragedy, no doubt?"

"Of course," declared the other, leaning both elbows upon the table
before him and looking straight into the novelist's pale face. "Harry
came up from Salisbury, the bearer of some papers from Sir Hugh. He duly
arrived at Waterloo, discharged his duty, and went to his rooms in Half
Moon Street. Now, according to Barker's story, his master arrived home
early in the afternoon, and sent him out on a message to Richmond. He
returned a little after five, when he found his master absent."

"That was