know what persons visited these rooms last night?" Thorndyke
asked him, when he entered looking somewhat sheepish.

"A good many were in and out of the building," was the answer, "but I
can't say if any of them came to this flat. I saw Miss Curtis pass in
about nine."

"My daughter!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis, with a start. "I didn't know that."

"She left about nine-thirty," the porter added.

"Do you know what she came about?" asked the inspector.

"I can guess," replied Mr. Curtis.

"Then don't say," interrupted Mr. Marchmont. "Answer no questions."

"You're very close, Mr. Marchmont," said the inspector; "we are not
suspecting the young lady. We don't ask, for instance, if she is
left-handed."

He glanced craftily at Mr. Curtis as he made this remark, and I noticed
that our client suddenly turned deathly pale, whereupon the inspector
looked away again quickly, as though he had not observed the change.

"Tell us about those Italians again," he said, addressing the porter.
"When did the first of them come here?"

"About a week ago," was the reply. "He was a common-looking man--looked
like an organ-grinder--and he brought a note to my lodge. It was in a
dirty envelope, and was addressed 'Mr. Hartridge, Esq., Brackenhurst
Mansions,' in a very bad handwriting. The man gave me the note and asked
me to give it to Mr. Hartridge; then he went away, and I took the note
up and dropped it into the letter-box."

"What happened next?"

"Why, the very next day an old hag of an Italian woman--one of them
fortune-telling swines with a cage of birds on a stand--came and set up
just by the main doorway. I soon sent her packing, but, bless you! she
was back again in ten minutes, birds and all. I sent her off again--I
kept on sending her off, and she kept on coming back, until I was
reg'lar wore to a thread."

"You seem to have picked up a bit since then," remarked the inspector
with a grin and a glance at the sufferer's very pronounced bow-window.

"Perhaps I have," the custodian replied haughtily. "Well, the next day
there was a ice-cream man--a reg'lar waster, _he_ was. Stuck outside as
if he was froze to the pavement. Kept giving the errand-boys tasters,
and when I tried to move him on, he told me not to obstruct his
business. Business, indeed! Well, there them boys stuck, one after the
other, wiping their tongues round the bottoms of them glasses, until I
was fit to bust with aggravation. And _he_ kept me going all day.