liceman on duty looked at them inquiringly.

Colwyn asked him the name of the officer in charge of the district, and
received the reply that it was Superintendent Galloway. The policeman
looked somewhat doubtful when Colwyn asked him to take in his card with
the request for an interview. He compromised between his determination
to do the right thing and his desire not to offend two well-dressed
gentlemen by taking Colwyn into his confidence.

"Well, you see, sir, it's like this," he said, sinking his voice so that
his remarks should not be heard by the surrounding rabble. "I don't like
to interrupt Superintendent Galloway unless it's very important. The
chief constable is with him."

"Do you mean Mr. Cromering, from Norwich?" asked Colwyn.

The policeman nodded.

"He came over here by the morning train," he explained.

"Very good. I know Mr. Cromering well. Will you please take this card to
the chief constable and say that I should be glad of the favour of a
short interview? This is a piece of luck," he added to Sir Henry, as the
constable took the card and disappeared into the building. "We shall now
be able to find out all we want to know."

The police constable came hastening back, and with a very respectful air
informed them that Mr. Cromering would be only too happy to see Mr.
Colwyn. He led them forthwith into the building, down a passage, knocked
at a door, and without waiting for a response, ushered them into a
large room and quietly withdrew.

There were two officials in the room. One, in uniform, a heavily built
stout man with sandy hair and a red freckled face, sat at a large
roll-top desk writing at the dictation of the other, who wore civilian
clothes. The second official was small and elderly, of dry and meagre
appearance, with a thin pale face, and sunken blue eyes beneath
gold-rimmed spectacles. This gentleman left off dictating as Colwyn and
Sir Henry Durwood entered, and advanced to greet the detective with a
look which might have been mistaken for gratitude in a less important
personage.

Mr. Cromering's gratitude to Colwyn was not due to any assistance he had
received from the detective in the elucidation of baffling crime
mysteries. It arose from an entirely different cause. Wolfe is supposed
to have said that he would sooner have been remembered as the author of
Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" than as the conqueror of Quebec.
Mr. Cromering would sooner have been the editor of the _