ssness about her not to have
noticed that the buckle was loose on her shoe. But as he put the buckle
safely away in his own travelling bag, he began to speculate on matters
of deeper import--how did it come to be lying there in James Allerdyke's
room? How long had it been lying there? Had its owner been into that
room recently? Had she, in fact, been in the room since James Allerdyke
took possession of it on his arrival at the hotel?

He realized the possibility of various answers to these questions. The
buckle might have been dropped by a former occupant of the room. But was
that likely? Would an object sparkling with diamonds have escaped the
eyes of even a careless chambermaid? Would it have escaped the keener
eyes of James Allerdyke? Anyhow, that question could easily be settled by
finding out how long that particular room had been unoccupied before
James was put into it. A much more important question was--had the owner
of the buckle been in the room between nine o'clock of the previous
evening and five o'clock that morning? Out of that, again, rose certain
supplementary questions: What had she been doing there? And most
important of all--who was she? That might possibly be solved by an
inspection of the hotel register, and after he had drunk the coffee which
was presently brought up to him, Allerdyke went down to the office to set
about that necessary, yet problematic, task.

As he reached the big hall on the ground floor of the hotel, the manager
came across to him, displaying a telegram.

"For your cousin, sir," he announced, handing it over to Allerdyke.
"Just come in."

Allerdyke slowly opened the envelope, and as he unfolded the message,
caught the name Franklin Fullaway at its foot--

"Let me know what time you arrive King's Cross to-day and I will meet
you, highly important we should both see my prospective client at once."

This message bore the same address which Allerdyke had found in the
telegram discovered in James's pocket-book--Waldorf Hotel--and he
determined to wire Mr. Franklin Fullaway immediately. He sat down at a
writing-table in the hall and drew a sheaf of telegraph forms towards
him. But it was not easy to compose the message which he wished to send.
He knew nothing of the man to whom he must address it, nothing of his
business relations with James; he had no clear notion of what the present
particular transaction was, nor how it might be connected with what had
just happened. After co