ham House."

"Ah, I see. Then she is a neighbour of Barrington-Edwards?"

"Yes. From the back windows of her residence one can look into
the grounds of his. That is how--Cleek!" Mr. Narkom's voice shook
with agitation--"You will remember I said, a little time back, that
I would have something startling to tell you in connection with
Barrington-Edwards--something that was not connected with that old
army scandal? If it had not been for the high character of my
informant; if it had been any other woman in all England I should
have thought she was suffering from nerves--fancying things as the
result of an overwrought mind sent into a state of hysteria through
all those abominable crimes in the neighbourhood; but when it was
she, when it was Miss Valmond----"

"Oho!" said Cleek, screwing round suddenly. "Then Miss Valmond told
you something with regard to Barrington-Edwards?"

"Yes--a horrible something. She came to me this morning looking
as I hope I shall never see a good woman look again--as if she had
been tortured to the last limit of human endurance. She had been
fighting a silent battle for weeks and weeks she said, but her
conscience would not let her keep the appalling secret any longer,
neither would her duty to Heaven. Wakened in the dead of night by
a sense of oppression, she had gone to her window to open it for
air, and, looking down by chance into the garden of Lemmingham
House, she had seen a man come rushing out of the rear door of
Barrington-Edwards' place in his pajamas, closely followed by
another, whom she believed to be Barrington-Edwards himself, and
she had seen that man unlock the door in the side wall and push the
poor wretch out into the road where he was afterward found by
the constable."

"By Jupiter!"

"Ah, you may be moved when you connect that circumstance with what
you have yourself unearthed. But there is worse to come. Unable
to overcome a frightful fascination which drew her night after
night to that window, she saw that same thing happen again to the
fourth, and finally, the fifth man--the web-footed one--and that
last time she saw the face of the pursuer quite plainly. It _was_
Barrington-Edwards!"

"Sure of that, was she?"

"Absolutely. It was the positive certainty it was he that drove her
at last to speak!"

Cleek made no reply, no comment; merely screwed round on his heel and
took to pacing the floor again. After a minute however:

"Mr. Narkom," he said halting abrupt