ood in the corner hidden by a side-table, and from this Walter
had taken a bundle of papers and carried them with him to his chair.

One by one he carefully went through them, until at last he found the
document of which he was in search.

"Yes," he exclaimed to himself after he had scanned it, "so I was not
mistaken after all! The mystery is deeper than I thought. By Jove! that
fellow, Joseph Blot, alias Weirmarsh, alias Detmold, Ponting and half a
dozen other names, no doubt, is playing a deep game--a dangerous customer
evidently!"

Then, again returning to the safe, he took out a large packet of
miscellaneous photographs of various persons secured by an elastic band.
These he went rapidly through until he held one in his hand, an unmounted
_carte-de-visite_, which he examined closely beneath the green-shaded
reading-lamp.

It was a portrait of Doctor Weirmarsh, evidently taken a few years
before, as he then wore a short pointed beard, whereas he was now shaven
except for a moustache.

"No mistake about those features," he remarked to himself with evident
satisfaction as, turning the photographic print, he took note of certain
cabalistic numbers written in the corner, scribbling them in pencil upon
his blotting-pad.

"I thought I recollected those curious eyes and that unusual breadth of
forehead," he went on, speaking to himself, and again examining the
pictured face through his gold pince-nez. "It's a long time since I
looked at this photograph--fully five years. What would the amiable
doctor think if he knew that I held the key which will unlock his past?"

He laughed lightly to himself, and, selecting a cigarette from the silver
box, lit it.

Then he sat back in his big arm-chair, his eyes fixed upon the fire,
contemplating what he realised to be a most exciting and complicated
problem.

"This means that I must soon be upon the move again," he murmured to
himself. "Enid has sought my assistance--she has asked me to save her,
and I will exert my utmost endeavour to do so. But I see it will be
difficult, very difficult. She is, no doubt, utterly unaware of the real
identity of this brisk, hard-working doctor. And perhaps, after all," he
added slowly, "it is best so--best that she remain in ignorance of this
hideous, ghastly truth!"

At that same moment, while Walter Fetherston was preoccupied by these
curious apprehensions, the original of that old _carte-de-visite_ was
seated in the lounge of the Savoy