step in the hall. She
glanced through the window and then turned to Copplestone with an
arch smile.

"Talk of the--you know," she exclaimed. "Here's Addie Chatfield herself!"

CHAPTER VI

THE LEADING LADY

Copplestone looked up with interest as the door of the private parlour
was thrown open, and a tall, handsome young woman burst in with a
briskness of movement which betokened unusual energy and vivacity. He
got an impression of the old estate agent's daughter in one glance,
and wondered how Chatfield came to have such a good-looking girl as
his progeny. The impression was of dark, sparkling eyes, a mass of
darker, highly-burnished hair, bright colour, a flashing vivacious
smile, a fine figure, a general air of sprightliness and glowing
health--this was certainly the sort of personality that would
recommend itself to a considerable mass of theatre-goers, and
Copplestone, as a budding dramatist, immediately began to cast Addie
Chatfield for an appropriate part.

The newcomer stopped short on the threshold as she caught sight of a
stranger, and she glanced with sharp inquisitiveness at Copplestone as he
rose from his chair.

"Oh!--I supposed you were alone, Mrs. Wooler," she exclaimed. "You
usually are, you know, so I came in anyhow--sorry!"

"Come in," said the landlady. "Don't go, Mr. Copplestone. This is Miss
Adela Chatfield. Your father has just been to see this gentleman,
Addie--perhaps he told you?"

Addie Chatfield dropped into a chair at Mrs. Wooler's side, and looked
the stranger over slowly and carefully.

"No," she answered. "My father didn't tell me--he doesn't tell me
anything about his own affairs. All his talk is about mine--the iniquity
of them, and so on."

She showed a fine set of even white teeth as she made this remark, and
her eyes sought Copplestone's again with a direct challenge. Copplestone
looked calmly at her, half-smiling; he was beginning, in his youthful
innocence, to think that he already understood this type of young woman.
And seeing him smile, Addie also smiled.

"Now I wonder whatever my father wanted to see you about?" she said, with
a strong accent on the personal pronoun. "For you don't look his sort,
and he certainly isn't yours--unless you're deceptive."

"Perhaps I am," responded Copplestone, still keeping his eyes on her.
"Your father wanted to see me about the strange disappearance of Mr.
Bassett Oliver. That was all."

The girl's glance, bold and chall