ere is she
gone?" He shook the woman roughly by the shoulder. "Go to the bottom of
the stairs, Green, and see that no one slips in or out. Take that chap
outside down with you."

"My daughter?" exclaimed the woman helplessly. "She has gone to stay
with her aunt. We are respectable people. You frightened her. We don't
like the police coming here."

"Highly respectable," repeated Foyle under his breath. Aloud he said
menacingly, "We shall soon know whether you are respectable. Where does
the girl's aunt live?"

"Twenty-two Shadwell Lane," was the reply, glib and prompt.

Foyle looked for an instant penetratingly at her. Her eyes dropped. His
hand went to his pocket and he calmly lighted a cigar. Then he went
downstairs to where Green was on guard and politely apologised to
Israels. Casually he repeated the question he had put to the woman. Yes,
the Jew had seen his daughter go out. She said she was going to her
aunt. Her aunt lived at 48 Sussex Street.

"I see," said the superintendent quietly. "The fact is, of course, that
she is not your daughter, and that she has not gone to her aunt's. You
are in an awkward corner, my man," he went on, changing his tone and
moving a step nearer. "Better tell us the truth. Your wife has let me
know something."

As if mechanically, he was dangling a pair of shiny steel handcuffs in
his fingers. Handcuffs seldom formed a part of his equipment, but
to-night he had carried them with him on the off-chance that he might
have to use them. The Jew shrank away, but the sight had proved
effective.

"I'll tell all the truth," he whined, with an outspreading gesture of
his hands. "I've done no wrong. You can't hurt me. She came here a day
or two ago and paid five pounds for a week's lodging. I was to tell any
one who inquired that she was my daughter. She slept with my wife. What
harm was there? I am poor. Five pounds isn't picked up like that every
day. The man came afterwards. He said he was a journalist and asked me
to buy him a typewriting machine. I asked no questions. Why should I?"

His manner was that of a much-injured man. Foyle cut him short now and
again as he rambled on with a question. In half an hour he felt that he
had extracted a fair amount of truth, mingled though it was with cunning
lies. He guessed now that the woman whom he had vaguely seen was she
whose part in the mystery of the house in Grosvenor Gardens had always
been shadowy and vague. She could be none other t