said the head of the
C.I.D., "and I have heard stories which beat the best and the worst of
detective stories hollow. I have listened to cranks, amateur detectives,
crooks, parsons and expert fictionists, but never in my experience have
I ever heard anything quite so improbable as your theory. It happens
that I have met Briggerland and I've met his daughter too, and a more
beautiful girl I don't think it has been my pleasure to meet."

Jack groaned.

"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the chief unpleasantly.

"I'm all right, sir," said Jack, "only I'm so tired of hearing about
Jean Briggerland's beauty. It doesn't seem a very good argument to
oppose to the facts--"

"Facts!" said the other scornfully. "What facts have you given us?"

"The fact of the Briggerlands' history," said Jack desperately.
"Briggerland was broke when he married Miss Meredith under the
impression that he would get a fortune with his wife. He has lived by
his wits all his life, and until this girl was about fifteen, they were
existing in a state of poverty. They lived in a tiny house in Ealing,
the rent of which was always in arrears, and then Briggerland became
acquainted with a rich Australian of middle age who was crazy about his
daughter. The rich Australian died suddenly."

"From an overdose of veronal," said the chief. "It was established at
the inquest--I got all the documents out after I received your
letter--that he was in the habit of taking veronal. You suggest he was
murdered. If he was, for what? He left the girl about six thousand
pounds."

"Briggerland thought she was going to get it all," said Jack.

"That is conjecture," interrupted the chief. "Go on."

"Briggerland moved up west," Jack went on, "and when the girl was
seventeen she made the acquaintance of a man named Gunnesbury, who went
just as mad about her. Gunnesbury was a midland merchant with a wife and
family. He was so infatuated with her that he collected all the loose
money he could lay his hands on--some twenty-five thousand pounds--and
bolted to the continent. The girl was supposed to have gone on ahead,
and he was to join her at Calais. He never reached Calais. The theory
was that he jumped overboard. His body was found and brought in to
Dover, but there was none of the money in his possession that he had
drawn from the Midland Bank."

"That is a theory, too," said the chief, shaking his head. "The identity
of the girl was never established. It was known th