the larder?"

Tuppence directed him, and he returned in a few minutes with a cold pie
and three plates.

After a hearty meal, the girl felt inclined to pooh-pooh her fancies of
half an hour before. The power of the money bribe could not fail.

"And now, Miss Tuppence," said Sir James, "we want to hear your
adventures."

"That's so," agreed Julius.

Tuppence narrated her adventures with some complacence. Julius
occasionally interjected an admiring "Bully." Sir James said nothing
until she had finished, when his quiet "well done, Miss Tuppence," made
her flush with pleasure.

"There's one thing I don't get clearly," said Julius. "What put her up
to clearing out?"

"I don't know," confessed Tuppence.

Sir James stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"The room was in great disorder. That looks as though her flight was
unpremeditated. Almost as though she got a sudden warning to go from
some one."

"Mr. Brown, I suppose," said Julius scoffingly.

The lawyer looked at him deliberately for a minute or two.

"Why not?" he said. "Remember, you yourself have once been worsted by
him."

Julius flushed with vexation.

"I feel just mad when I think of how I handed out Jane's photograph to
him like a lamb. Gee, if I ever lay hands on it again, I'll freeze on to
it like--like hell!"

"That contingency is likely to be a remote one," said the other dryly.

"I guess you're right," said Julius frankly. "And, in any case, it's the
original I'm out after. Where do you think she can be, Sir James?"

The lawyer shook his head.

"Impossible to say. But I've a very good idea where she has been."

"You have? Where?"

Sir James smiled.

"At the scene of your nocturnal adventures, the Bournemouth nursing
home."

"There? Impossible. I asked."

"No, my dear sir, you asked if anyone of the name of Jane Finn had been
there. Now, if the girl had been placed there it would almost certainly
be under an assumed name."

"Bully for you," cried Julius. "I never thought of that!"

"It was fairly obvious," said the other.

"Perhaps the doctor's in it too," suggested Tuppence.

Julius shook his head.

"I don't think so. I took to him at once. No, I'm pretty sure Dr. Hall's
all right."

"Hall, did you say?" asked Sir James. "That is curious--really very
curious."

"Why?" demanded Tuppence.

"Because I happened to meet him this morning. I've known him slightly on
and off for some years, and this morning I ran across him in t