New Scotland Yard. They'll tell you where he is. Drive like hell."

He went back into the house, ran upstairs, lit a candle in his room,
stuffed one pocket with handkerchiefs, and into another dropped a tin of
tobacco and an electric torch.

Why hadn't he brought a gun? Oh, well, it only meant five minutes at his
flat in Great Windmill Street.

As he came down the passage, his eyes, obeying a new habit which seemed
already old, lingered a moment on Amaryllis' door. But it was not
sentiment which checked his feet.

"There might be something," he muttered, and, without hesitation,
entered the room.

An oppression of silence weighed upon him painfully as he felt for his
match-box. When the candle showed it, the pretty room was a cruel jest.

His examination was made with business-like care. On the dressing-table
was nothing but the pretty things which served her toilet; but on the
writing-table in the window lay a pile of letters. The topmost he
recognised at once for that which she had read in his presence after
dinner.

As he pulled the stiff sheet from the envelope, he was aware once more
of the odour which he had smelt first in the alcove of the study.

He spread the letter open. It was signed "Alban Melchard."

It was written on good paper, stamped with the address, and read as
follows:

"Rue de la Harpe, 31,
"Paris,
"_June_ 18_th_.

"MY DEAR MISS CALDEGARD,

"I fear that you will be surprised at my venturing to write to you,
considering the distressing circumstances under which we parted.
Although the small request I have to make of you is of some
importance to me, I should not have the presumption to make it, if
it were not that it gives me the opportunity to assure you that the
passage of time has made a wiser man of me--and a grateful one, for
the delicate forbearance with which you taught me my place.

"I have recently met with good fortune in my profession, and am
settling down as a man of business in the neighbourhood of
Millsborough, with considerable prospect of success.

"In the happy days when it was my privilege to pick up unconsidered
scraps of your father's scientific wisdom, I kept, jotted down in a
notebook, many items for future use. Until recently I have had no
occasion to refer to these notes, which I now find are essential to
the success of my most promising scheme. I must have left the