War Office."

Merrington glanced at a small clock which stood on the desk in front of
him.

"I will go immediately and see him myself," he said.

"I should like to accompany you."

"I shall be delighted to have you," replied Merrington with complete
untruth. "I have Nepcote's address included in the list of guests who
were at the moat-house at the time of the murder," he added, opening his
pocket-book and hastily scanning it. "Ah, here it is--10 Sherryman
Street. I'll send for a taxi-cab. Is there anything I can do for you in
return for your kindness in bringing me this information?"

"I should be obliged if you would lend me a copy of the coroner's
depositions in the Heredith case."

"With pleasure." Merrington touched a bell, and instructed the policeman
who answered it to bring a typescript of the Heredith murder depositions
and the revolver which figured as an exhibit in the case. "And tell
somebody to call a taxi, Johnson," he added.

When Merrington and Colwyn emerged from the swing doors of the entrance
a few moments later, a taxi-cab was waiting at the bottom of the stone
steps, with a pockmarked driver leaning against the door of the vehicle,
gazing moodily over the Thames Embankment. He received Merrington's
instructions morosely, cranked his cab wearily, and was soon threading
his way through the mazes of Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus with
a contemptuous disregard for traffic regulations, due to his prompt
recognition of the fact that he was carrying a high official of Scotland
Yard who was above rules of the road regulated by mere police
constables. He skimmed in a hazardous way along Regent Street, dipped
into the network of narrower streets which lay between that haunt of the
fox and the geese and Baker Street, and finally stopped abruptly outside
a tall house which was one of a row in a quiet street which led into the
highly fashionable locality of Sherryman Square.

Sherryman Street, in which the taxi-cab had stopped, was an offshoot and
snobbish mean relation of Sherryman Square, which housed a duke, an
ex-prime minister, and a fugitive king, to say nothing of several lesser
notabilities, such as a High Court Judge or two, several baronets, and a
war-time profiteer whose brand-new peerage had descended in the last
heavy downpour of kingly honours. Because of their proximity to these
great ones of the earth, the inhabitants of Sherryman Street assumed all
the airs of exclusiveness whic