As Jack Osborne said this, my thoughts flashed away to Berkshire, to
Holt Manor, to the dark, depressing hiding-hole there that I had peered
down into more than once. Who had spoken to me of that hiding-hole only
recently? Why, Dulcie, of course. She had mentioned it whilst telling me
about Mrs. Stapleton, and about Sir Roland's showing the young widow
over the house. Dulcie had mentioned it specially, because Mrs.
Stapleton had evinced such evident interest in it.

I checked my train of thought, focussing my mind upon that single
incident.

Mrs. Stapleton, the "mysterious widow" of whom nobody appeared to know
anything, had been strangely interested in that hiding-hole and in all
that Sir Roland had said about it--Dulcie had told me that. The
hiding-hole was in close proximity to Sir Roland's bedroom, and to one
other room from which valuable jewellery had been stolen. Mrs. Stapleton
had left the neighbourhood on the day after the robbery, had been absent
ever since--that of course might be, and probably was, merely a
coincidence. At supper at Gastrell's reception in Cumberland Place Mrs.
Stapleton had acknowledged "Mrs. Gastrell's" smile of recognition, and
an instant later the two women had stared at each other stonily, and
Mrs. Stapleton had assured me that she did not know the other woman,
that she had "never seen her before." Then those two men, of whom
Osborne had just spoken, had of their own accord joined him and "Mrs.
Gastrell" at supper, and eventually he had gone with the men to their
flat in Bloomsbury. And now here was an unseen man, evidently a
scoundrel, inquiring the whereabouts of a safe in a country house
belonging to a nobleman known to be extremely rich, and asking in
particular if the house possessed a priests' hiding-hole, and if so,
exactly where it was located--a man who threatened evil if the