on his wide-awake hat and went out for a stroll. He
walked slowly past the doctor's house, but there was nothing to be seen or
heard. Remembering the room at the back, he was not surprised to find no
chink of light about the front windows, and thinking it better not to run
the risk of being seen lingering there, he walked on. He was in such good
spirits, and had been cooped up so continually for the last few days, that
he went on and on, and it was not till about a couple of hours had passed
that he approached his rooms again. As he came down the street he was
surprised to see by the light of a lamp that another four-wheeler was
standing before the doctor's house, also laden with luggage.

Two men jumped in, one after another, and when he had come at his fastest
walk within twenty yards or so, the cabman whipped up and drove rapidly
away, luggage and men and all.

He looked up and down for a hansom, but there were none to be seen. For a
few yards he set off at a run in pursuit, and then, finding that the horse
was being driven at a great rate, and remembering the paucity of stray
cabs in the quiet streets and roads round about, he stopped and considered
the question.

"After all," he reflected, "it may not have been Dr Twiddel who drove
away; in fact, if it was he who arrived in the first cab, it's any odds
against it. Pooh! It can't be. Still, it's a curious thing if two cabs
loaded with luggage came to the house in the same evening, and one drove
away without unlading."

With his spirits a little damped in spite of his philosophy, he went back
to his rooms.

In the morning the consulting-room blinds were still down, and the house
looked as deserted as ever.

He waited till lunch, and then he went out boldly and pulled the doctor's
bell. The same little maid appeared, but she evidently did not recognise
the fashionable patient who disappeared so mysteriously in the
demure-looking clergyman at the door.

"Is Dr Twiddel at home?"

"No, sir, he ain't back yet."

"He hasn't been back?"

"No, sir."

Mr Bunker looked at her keenly, and then said to himself, "She is lying."

He thought he would try a chance shot.

"But he was expected home last night, I believe."

The maid looked a little staggered.

"He ain't been," she replied.

"I happen to have heard that he called here," he hazarded again.

This time she was evidently put about.

"He ain't been here--as I knows of."

He slipped half-a-crown into