nd as sure
as I am his niece I'll probe the whole thing to the bottom. Are you
going to admit me to those rooms?"

The door of the private room, which Joseph had left slightly ajar
behind him, was pushed open a little, and Gabriel's colourless face
looked out.

"Tell the young woman to go and see a solicitor," he said, and vanished
again.

Joseph glanced at Betty, who was still staring indignantly at him.

"You hear?" he said quietly. "Now you'd better go away. You are not
going in there."

Betty suddenly turned and walked out. She was across the Market-Place
and at the door of the Scarnham Arms before her self-possession had come
back to her. And she was aware then that a gentleman, who had just
alighted from a horse which a groom was leading away to the stable yard,
was looking and smiling at her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it you, Lord Ellersdeane?--I beg your pardon--I
was preoccupied."

"So I saw," said the Earl. "I'd watched you come across from the Bank.
Is there any news this morning?"

"Come up to my sitting-room and let us talk," said Betty. She led the
way upstairs and closed her door on herself and her visitor. "No news of
my uncle," she continued, turning to the Earl. "Have you any?"

The Earl shook his head disappointedly.

"No!" he replied. "I wish I had! I myself and a lot of my men have been
searching all round Ellersdeane--practically all night. We've made
inquiries at each of the neighbouring villages--without result. Have the
police heard anything?--I've only just come into town."

"You haven't seen Polke, then?" said Betty. "Oh, well, he heard
something last night." She went on to tell the Earl of the meeting with
the tinker, and of Mrs. Pratt's account of the mysterious stranger, and
of what Starmidge was now doing. "It all seems such slow work," she
concluded, "but I suppose the police can't move any faster."

"You heard nothing at the bank itself--from the Chestermarkes?" asked
the Earl.

"I heard sufficient to make me as--as absent-minded as I was when you
met me just now! I went there, as my uncle's nearest relation, with a
simple request to see his papers and things--a very natural desire,
surely. The Chestermarkes have locked up his rooms--and they ordered me
out--showed me the door!"

"How very extraordinary!" exclaimed the Earl. "Really!--in so many
words?"

"I think Joseph had the grace to say I had better go away," said Betty.
"And Gabriel--who called me a young woman-