ities.

The two following days passed uneventfully. Each evening, about ten,
Ambler Jevons came in to smoke and drink. He stayed an hour,
apparently nervous, tired, and fidgety in a manner quite unusual; but
to my inquiries regarding the success of his investigations he
remained dumb.

"Have you discovered anything?" I asked, eagerly, on the occasion of
his second visit.

He hesitated, at length answering----

"Yes--and no. I must see Ethelwynn without delay. Telegraph and ask
her to meet you here. I want to ask her a question."

"Do you still suspect her?"

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of distinct vagueness.

"Wire to her to-night," he urged. "Your man can take the message down
to the Charing Cross office, and she'll get it at eight o'clock in the
morning. The funeral is over, so there is nothing to prevent her
coming to town."

I was compelled to agree to his suggestion, although loth to again
bring pain and annoyance to my love. I knew how she had suffered when,
a few days ago, I had questioned her, and I felt convinced by her
manner that, although she had refused to speak, she herself was
innocent. Her lips were sealed by word of honour.

According to appointment Jevons met me when I had finished my next
morning's work at Guy's, and we took a glass of sherry together in a
neighbouring bar. Then at his invitation I accompanied him along the
Borough High Street and Newington Causeway to the London Road, until
we came to a row of costermongers' barrows drawn up beside the
pavement. Before one of these, piled with vegetables ready for the
Saturday-night market, he stopped, and was immediately recognised by
the owner--a tall, consumptive-looking man, whose face struck me
somehow as being familiar.

"Well, Lane?" my companion said. "Busy, eh?"

"Not very, sir," was the answer, with the true cockney twang. "Trade
ain't very brisk. There's too bloomin' many of us 'ere nowadays."

Leaving my side my companion advanced towards the man and whispered
some confidential words that I could not catch, at the same time
pulling something from his breast-pocket and showing it to him.

"Oh, yes, sir. No doubt abawt it!" I heard the man exclaim.

Then, in reply to a further question from Jevons, he said:

"'Arry 'Arding used to work at Curtis's. So I fancy that 'ud be the
place to find out somethink. I'm keepin' my ears open, you bet," and
he winked knowingly.

Where I had seen the man before I could not re