to discovering the mysterious woman with whom Lord Loudwater had had the
furious quarrel between eleven and a quarter-past.

With this end in view, on his return to the Castle, he went straight to
the library, where Mr. Carrington was engaged, along with Mr. Manley, in
an examination of the murdered man's papers. They were uncommonly few,
and Mr. Manley had already set them in order. Lord Loudwater seemed to
have kept but few letters, and the papers consisted chiefly of receipted
and unreceipted bills.

When he found that Mr. Flexen had come to confer with the lawyer, Mr.
Manley assumed an air of extraordinary discretion and softly withdrew.

"I want to know--it is most important--whether there was any
entanglement between Lord Loudwater and a woman," said Mr. Flexen.

"I should think it very unlikely," said Mr. Carrington without
hesitation. "At least, I have never heard of anything of the kind,
and so far I have come across no trace of anything of the kind among
his papers."

Mr. Flexen frowned, considering; then he said: "Do you happen to know
whether he employed any one besides your firm to do legal work for him?"

"As to that I can't say. But I should not think it likely. It was always
a business to get him to attend to anything that wanted doing, and he
always made a fuss about it. I can't see him employing another firm too.
But he may have done. The only thing is that I ought to have found either
their bills or the receipts for them among those papers--except that my
late client does not appear to have taken the trouble to keep many
receipts."

"The thing is that I've learnt that Lord Loudwater had a furious quarrel
with some unknown woman between eleven and a quarter-past on the night of
his death, and I want to find her. You can see how important it is. It
may be that she stabbed him, or it may be that she provided him with the
motive to commit suicide--not that that seems likely. But you can't tell:
she might have been able to threaten him with some exposure. Those people
without any self-control are always doing the most senseless
things--bigamy, for instance, is often one of their weaknesses."

"Loudwater was certainly without self-control; but I hardly think that he
was the man to commit bigamy," said the lawyer.

"It would very much simplify matters if he had," said Mr. Flexen in
a dissatisfied tone. "I wonder whether Manley would know anything
about it?"

"He might," said Mr. Carrington.

Mr