iration at his
junior, who remained perfectly unmoved.

"What I was about to remark, Miss Thurwell, was simply this. The chief
cause of our success has been that we have induced our clients at the
outset to give us their whole confidence. We lay great stress on this.
Everything that we are told in the way of business we consider
absolutely secret. But we like to know everything."

"I shall keep nothing back from you," she said quietly. "I have nothing
to conceal."

Mr. Benjamin nodded approval.

"Then, in order that the confidence between us may be complete, let me
ask you this question, Why have you brought this matter to us, instead
of leaving it to the ordinary authorities?"

Helen Thurwell lifted her veil for the first time, and looked at the
young man who was questioning her. Mr. Benjamin Levy, as a young man of
fashion, was an ape and a fool. Mr. Benjamin Levy, taking the lead in a
piece of business after his own heart, was as shrewd a young man as you
could meet with. Looking him steadily in the face, and noticing his keen
dark eyes and closely drawn lips, she began for the first time to think
that, after all, she might have done a wise thing in coming here.

"The ordinary authorities have had the matter in hand two months, and
they have done nothing," she answered. "I am very anxious that it should
be cleared up, and I am naturally beginning to lose faith in them. They
have so many other things to attend to. Now, if I paid you well, I
suppose you would give your whole time to the matter."

"Undoubtedly," assented Mr. Levy, senior, gravely.

"Undoubtedly," echoed his son. "I am quite satisfied, Miss Thurwell, and
I thank you for your candor."

"I suppose you will want me to tell you all about it," she said, with a
faint shudder.

"Not unless you know something fresh. I have every particular in my head
that has been published."

Helen looked surprised.

"You read all about it, I suppose?" she asked.

"Yes; such things interest us, naturally. This one did me particularly,
because, from the first, I saw that the police were on the wrong tack."

"What is your idea about it, then?" she asked.

"Simply this," he answered, turning round and facing her for the first
time. "All the time and trouble spent in scouring the country and
watching the ports and railway stations was completely wasted. The
murder was not committed by an outsider at all. The first thing I shall
want, when we begin to work this, i