l the car stopped at the Savoy.

Entering the hotel, he ascended to his room. In it, he mixed himself a
whisky-and-soda, sat down at the writing-table, and unlocked a
despatch-box.

He took out two photographs--each of a remarkably beautiful woman.

Under one was neatly written--

_Colette d'Orsel. Nice. August 1900._

And under the other--

_Margaret McCall. Boston. Dec. 1910._

From his pocket he took the photograph which the inspector had allowed
him to appropriate, and laid it beside the others. The face that smiled
up at him was the most beautiful of the three.

He dipped a pen in the ink, and wrote under it, in the same neat
handwriting--

_Christine Manderson. London. July 1919._

CHAPTER XIV

WITHOUT TRACE

At ten o'clock, Tranter and Monsieur Dupont stood with Inspector Fay in
the garden. The Rev. Percival Delamere joined them a few minutes later,
and the theatrical manager arrived shortly afterwards. Finally, still in
the same half-dazed condition, George Copplestone emerged from the
house.

"_Mon Dieu_," Monsieur Dupont whispered quickly. "Look at that man!"

His face was white, with a sickly pasty whiteness. In the few hours that
had passed he seemed to have wasted to a startling gauntness. His cheeks
were drawn, his sunken eyes dull and filmy. He moved slowly and heavily,
as if compelling himself under an utter weariness.

"What do you want first?" he asked the inspector curtly.

"First," replied Inspector Fay, "I want to be shown the spot where the
body was found."

Copplestone led the way across the lawns. In the daylight Monsieur
Dupont eagerly followed the maze of winding paths and hedges that had
imprisoned him so helplessly in the darkness. It was a veritable
looking-glass garden. The end of every path mocked its beginning. To
reach an object it was necessary to walk away from it. To arrive at the
bank of the river, Copplestone conducted his followers in the opposite
direction.

"This garden might have been designed for a crime," the inspector
remarked, as they turned yet another corner.

"It was," Monsieur Dupont agreed from the rear. "It was designed for the
most abominable crime of making men and women go backwards instead of
forwards. And last night it attained the height of its purpose."

For an instant Copplestone glanced back at him, a quickening in his dull
eyes. A moment afterwards they turned a final corner, and emerged on to
the broad lawns, sloping down t