o
conceal the facts, if my deductions prove correct."

"Are those all the known circumstances?" I inquired, much interested.

"There is one other. A week after the man's disappearance from
Stockwell, his landlady received a letter bearing the postmark of
Crawley in Sussex, telling her not to trouble on his account. He wrote:
'I am engaged upon an important mission, but shall return home within
ten days, when I will pay all I owe you. Do not trouble after me. Burn
this letter as soon as you have read it.--MAX STEINHEIM.' The other fact
I learned from the man's employer, an Englishman in New Bond Street. It
appears that to the establishment there often came a stout,
well-dressed, prosperous-looking German gentleman who waited for
Steinheim to shave him, or cut his hair, and on such occasions it was
noticed that they exchanged whispered words in their own tongue."

"Well?" asked Vera, looking up at her lover.

"The stout German's description tallies exactly with that of Hermann
Hartmann."

"Ah! I see," I remarked. "You've certainly not been idle, Ray." And with
my eyes fixed upon that puzzling array of figures and words, I added,
"If we could only decipher the whole of these we might elucidate the
truth."

"The injured man's knowledge of Hartmann, the crafty chief of the German
Secret Service in London, is certainly suspicious," Vera remarked. "But
cannot some information be gathered from the landlady at Hargwynne
Street? He may have had visitors there."

"And if he did, they would speak in German, which the good lady could
not understand," her lover replied thoughtfully, contemplating the end
of his cigarette.

"There could be no harm in seeing the good lady," the girl remarked.
"I'll go over to-morrow and have a chat with her."

"And in the meantime Jack and I will pursue another line of inquiry,"
remarked my friend.

Vera rose, a tall, fair-haired, and sweet-faced figure in black, and
seating herself at the table, served us our tea. She was no stranger at
our chambers, and as an Admiral's daughter, the question of German spies
in England, which her lover had taken up so strongly, interested her
most keenly. The Forth Bridge peril had already impressed a great and
serious truth upon the Government, but Ray Raymond's success had only
whetted his appetite for further exploration and discovery.

Therefore on the following morning I called at his chambers in Bruton
Street--a tastefully furnished bachelor suite,