tleman
left a card for you; I was asked to give it to you as soon as you came."

Allerdyke took the visiting-card which the man produced from a letter
rack, and read the lines hastily scribbled on the back--

If you land here during the night, come straight up to my room--263--and
rouse me out. Want to see you at once.--J.A.

Allerdyke slipped the card into his pocket and turned to the
night-porter.

"My cousin wants me to go up to his room at once," he said. "Just show me
the way. Do you happen to know what time he got in last night?" he
continued, as they went upstairs. "Was it late?"

"Passengers from the _Perisco_, sir?" answered the night-porter.
"There were several of 'em came in last night--she got into the river
about eight-thirty. It 'ud be a bit after nine o'clock when your
friend came in."

Allerdyke's mind went back to the meeting at Howden.

"Did you have a lady set off from here in the middle of the night?" he
asked, out of sheer curiosity. "A lady in a motor-car?"

"Oh! that lady," exclaimed the night-porter, with a grim laugh. "Ah!
nice lot of bother she gave me, too. She was one of those _Perisco_
passengers--she got in here with the rest, and booked a room, and went
to it all right, and then at half-past twelve down she came and said she
wanted to get on, and as there weren't no trains she'd have a motor-car
and drive to catch an express at Selby, or Doncaster, or somewhere.
Nice job I had to get her a car at that time o' night!--and me
single-handed--there wasn't a soul in the office then. Meet her
anywhere, sir?"

"Met her on the road," replied Allerdyke laconically. "Was she a
foreigner, do you know?"

"I shouldn't wonder if she was something of that sort," answered the
night-porter. "Sort that would have her own way at all events. Here's the
room, sir."

He paused before the door of a room which stood halfway down a long
corridor in the centre of the hotel, and on its panels he knocked gently.

"Every room's filled on this floor, sir," he remarked. "I hope your
friend's a light sleeper, for there's some of 'em'll have words to say if
they're roused at four o'clock in the morning."

"He's a very light sleeper as a rule," replied Allerdyke. He stood
listening for the sound of some movement in the room: "Knock again," he
said, when a minute had passed without response on the part of the
occupant. "Make it a bit louder."

The night-porter, with evident unwillingness, repeated his summ