menced to
discuss the situation. "It's quite plain that our friends the enemy are
actively at work, but surely the fact that Nella is missing would put
the Professor upon his guard. This young Italian Mellini is evidently a
new importation, and has pretended to form an attachment for Nella for
some ulterior object."

"Certainly," I said. "But what do you make of the incident of the
coffin?"

"There has been no funeral from that house in Brunswick Road?"

"Not as far as I can gather."

"The Registrar of Deaths would be able to inform us," he said
reflectively. "We must inquire."

Next day all three of us returned to Richmond, and while Ray and Vera
crossed the bridge to the opposite side of the Thames to find the
Registrar's office, I lingered and watched in the vicinity of the
Professor's house.

I waited for many weary hours in the wet--for rain fell the whole
day--but Ray did not return, which caused me considerable misgivings. I
was compelled to resort to all sorts of subterfuges in order not to
attract attention; but as my friend had directed me to remain and watch,
I waited patiently at my post.

Just after the street lamps were lit, a telegraph messenger arrived, and
ten minutes after he had gone the girl Annie came out with hat and
jacket on, and turning to the left hurried in my direction.

As she passed I spoke to her, and, recognising me, she explained that
she was going for a cab to convey the Professor to the station.

"Miss Nella is at Liverpool," she added excitedly. "The master has had a
wire from her, asking him to go there at once. She's very ill, it seems.
The poor master is greatly excited. He's just telephoned to the police
saying that Miss Nella has been found."

And then the girl hurried away, down the hill to the foot of the bridge,
where there was a cab-stand.

Nella at Liverpool! What could possibly have occurred?

Later on I watched the Professor, carrying only a handbag, enter a cab
and drive rapidly to the station, while Annie returned to the house and
closed the front door.

It was then about six o'clock, and I had been watching there for nearly
eight hours. Therefore I decided to go in search of Ray, who was over at
St. Margaret's, and who, I thought, would most probably be watching the
house to which the coffin had been taken.

In this I was not mistaken, for I found him idling at the end of that
quiet, dark suburban road. He was on the alert the instant he recognised
me