keeping. If the latter, it was less likely. On the issue of this
question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony
Lodge, or turn my attention to the gentleman's chambers in the
Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the field of my
inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to
let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the
situation."

"I am following you closely," I answered.

"I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab
drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a
remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached--
evidently the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a
great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed past the
maid who opened the door with the air of a man who was thoroughly
at home.

"He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch
glimpses of him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and
down, talking excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see
nothing. Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried than
before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from
his pocket and looked at it earnestly, 'Drive like the devil,' he
shouted, 'first to Gross & Hankey's in Regent Street, and then to
the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if
you do it in twenty minutes!'

"Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do
well to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau,