hortly.

"Well, then this is what I have done," the screw magnate went on in a
hoarse undertone. "I have sent a footman into the town direct for the
police-sergeant, and another to hurry up one of the local medicos. All
these maids will have skedaddled before either the sergeant or the
doctor can turn up. Now shall we go and have a look at the--the place?
You have no idea who the poor fellow is, I suppose?"

"I am not sure; it is on that point that I want Beauchamp to corroborate
me," was the reply. And, calling Reggie forward, Mr. Mallory told him,
as the three went towards the swamps under the embankment, of the
gruesome discovery he had made, and how he wished to learn if his view
of the dead man's identity coincided with his own.

No more was said till they had picked their way over the firmest
foothold they could find to the pool where the horrible sight awaited
them. The body lay half in and half out of the water, the upturned face
being afloat while the remains below the shoulders were embedded in the
ooze at the brink and nearly concealed by the reeds.

"Miss Maynard was right, you see, as to what the passenger called out
from the train--'the face in the pool,'" said Mr. Mallory. "The lower
limbs were probably invisible up there. Now, Beauchamp; do you recognize
the victim of this tragedy?"

Reggie looked blankly down at the features about which there lingered
none of the majesty of death--mean, commonplace features, which
nevertheless might have had their attraction for the unsophisticated by
reason of a certain sensual fullness of lip and smoothness of the now
marble-white skin. The wide-open eyes, staring skyward, conveyed the
impression of sudden, awful fear.

"No, I can't put a name to him," said the lieutenant after a long
scrutiny which he did not relax. "And yet there is a look about him that
seems vaguely familiar. That, though, is not quite the word for it. I
mean that I believe that I have seen him before."

"What about the French window in the reading room at the Club?"
suggested Mr. Mallory. "Does that help your memory?"

"Of course!" came the quick rejoinder. "It is the chap who called for
Chermside the other morning and walked away with him along the Parade. A
cockney visitor, I should judge by his clothes. And, by Jove, I expect
he's the man who is missing from the _Plume Hotel_. The club steward
knew him by sight as staying there."

A frosty gleam shone in the old diplomatist's eyes. "