ms that night; though
nothing would ever induce me to believe she was his murderess.

"Well, I fail to see how that clue could have led him to me," I said,
forcing a laugh. I didn't mean to let Southbourne, or any one else,
guess that I knew who that hairpin had belonged to.

"It didn't; it led him nowhere; though I believe he spent several days
going round the West End hairdressers' shops. There's only one of them,
a shop in the Haymarket, keeps that particular kind of hairpin, and they
snubbed him; they weren't going to give away their clients' names. And
there was nothing in the rooms to give him a clue. All Cassavetti's
private papers had been carried off, as you know. Then there was the
old Russian you told about at the inquest. He seems to have vanished off
the face of the earth; for nothing has been seen or heard of him. So,
as I said, Freeman was on a cold scent, and thought of you again. He
came to me, ostensibly on other business. I'd just got the wire from
Petersburg--Nolan of _The Thunderer_ sent it--saying you'd walked out of
your hotel three nights before, and hadn't been seen or heard of since.
It struck me that the quickest way to trace you, if you were still above
ground, was to set Freeman on your track straight away. So I told him at
once of your disappearance; and he started cross-questioning me, with
the result,--well--he went off eventually with the fixed idea that you
were more implicated in the murder than had appeared possible at the
time, and that your disappearance was in some way connected with it.
Wait a bit,--let me finish! The next I heard was that he was off to St.
Petersburg with an extradition warrant; and, from what he told me just
now, he was just in time. Yes, it was the quickest way; they'd never
have released you on any other consideration!"

"No, I guess they wouldn't," I responded. "You've certainly done me a
good turn, Lord Southbourne,--saved my life, in fact. But what about
this murder charge? Is it a farce, or what? You don't believe I murdered
the man, do you?"

"I? Good heavens, no! If I had I shouldn't have troubled to set Freeman
on you," he answered languidly. I've met some baffling individuals, but
never one more baffling than Southbourne.

"As far as we are concerned it is a farce,--though he doesn't think it
one. He imagines he's got a case after his own heart. To snatch a man
out of the jaws of death, nurse him back to life, and hand him over to
be hanged; that'