p to the Continent. Don't
forget a rug and a greatcoat. Have the portmanteau on a cab at the door
within three minutes."

"I am sorry, Miss Talbot," he continued, with his charming smile and a
manner as free from perplexity as if he was announcing a formal visit to
his grandmother. "I have just decided to go to Paris at once. The train
leaves Victoria at 8.15. Lord Fairholme will take you home, and you will
both, I am sure, be able to convince Sir Hubert that to yield too
greatly to anxiety just now is to suffer needless pain."

"You are going to Paris, Mr. Brett!" cried Edith. "Why?"

"In obedience to an impulse. I always yield to impulses. They impress me
as constituting Nature's telegraphs. I have a favourite theory that we
all contain a neatly devised adaptation of Marconi's wireless system,
and the time may come when the secret will be scientifically laid bare.
Then, don't you see, it will be possible for a man in London to ring up
a sympathetic soul in San Francisco. At present the code is not
understood. It is not even properly named, so people are apt to distrust
impulses."

He rattled on so pleasantly that Edith, absorbed by the agony of her
brother's disappearance and possible disgrace, could not conceal an
expression of blank amazement at his levity.

Brett instantly became apologetic.

"Pray forgive my apparent flippancy, Miss Talbot," he said. "I am really
in earnest. I believe that a flying visit to Paris just now must
unquestionably advance us an important stage in this inquiry. Let me
explain exactly what I mean. Here is a letter from your brother, in
handwriting which you and others best qualified to judge declare to be
undeniably his. It also bears postmarks which would demonstrate to a
court of law that it was posted in Paris last night and received here
to-day. But it does not follow that it was written in Paris; it might
have been written anywhere. Now, according to the police, there is an
entry in the visitors' book at the Grand Hotel which appears to prove
that your brother wrote his name therein on Tuesday night. If the
handwriting in the Grand Hotel register corresponds beyond all doubt
with that in this letter and envelope, then your brother must be in
Paris. If it does not, he is not there. I am convinced that the latter
hypothesis is correct, but to make doubly sure I will go and see with my
own eyes. There now--I owed you an explanation, and I have barely time
to catch my train. Good-