logetic tone, "I hope I'm not too inquisitive?"

"I've been here about two months--ever since she took the house."

"Don't you think your mistress a rather curious person?" I asked,
slipping half-a-sovereign into her hand. She regarded the coin, and then
looked at me with a smile of surprise and satisfaction.

"I--I hardly know what you mean, sir," she faltered.

"Well, I'll be quite frank with you," I said. "I'm anxious to know
something about what company she keeps here. Last night, for instance, a
gentleman called in a taxi. Did you see him?"

"No, sir," she answered. "Mistress sent me out on an errand to the other
side of the town, and when I came back just before half-past eleven I
found the front door ajar, and everybody gone. And nobody's been back
here since."

After disposing of my body, then, the precious trio had fled.

I knew that Phrida must now be in hourly peril of arrest--for that woman
would, now that she believed me dead, lose not an instant in making a
damning statement to the police regarding what had occurred on that night
in Harrington Gardens.

CHAPTER XXI.

RECORDS A STRANGE STATEMENT.

"Will you permit me to come inside a moment?" I asked the girl. "I want
you to tell me one or two things, if you will."

At first she hesitated, but having surveyed me critically and finding, I
suppose, that I was not a tramp she opened the door wider and admitted me
to the room wherein her mistress had entertained me on the previous
night.

I glanced quickly around. Yes, nothing had been altered. There was the
chair in which I had sat, and the round, mahogany table upon which my
head had laid so helplessly while the reptile, charmed by the Hindu's
music, had sat erect with swaying head.

Ah! as that terrible scene again arose before my eyes I stood horrified.
The girl noticed my demeanour, and looked askance at me.

"Does your mistress have many visitors?" I asked her. "To tell you the
truth, I'm making these confidential inquiries on behalf of an insurance
company in London. So you can be perfectly open with me. Mrs. Petre will
never know that you have spoken."

"Well, sir," replied the dark-eyed maid, after a pause, during which time
she twisted her dainty little apron in her hand, "I suppose I really
ought not to say anything, but the fact is mistress acts very curiously
sometimes. Besides, I don't like Ali."

"You mean the Indian?"

"Yes. He's too crafty and cunning," she replied.