"

"What I cannot understand," Penelope said coldly, "is why you should
bother me about your duty. When I saw you at the Carlton Hotel, I told
you exactly how much I knew of Mr. Hamilton Fynes."

"My dear young lady," Inspector Jacks said, "I will not ask for your
sympathy, for I am afraid I should ask in vain; but we are just now,
we people at Scotland Yard, up against one of the most extraordinary
problems which have ever been put before us. We have had two murders
occurring in two days, which have this much, at least, in common--that
they have been the work of so accomplished a criminal that at the
present moment, although I should not like to tell every one as much, we
have not in either case the ghost of a clue."

"That sounds very stupid of you," Penelope remarked, "but I still ask--"

"Don't ask for a minute or two," the Inspector interrupted. "I think
I remarked just now that these two crimes had one thing in common, and
that was the fact that they had both been perpetrated by a criminal of
unusual accomplishments. They also have one other point of similitude."

"What is that?" Penelope asked.

"The victim in both cases was an American," the Inspector said.

Penelope sat very still. She felt the steely eyes of the man who had
chosen his seat so carefully, fixed upon her face.

"You do not connect the two affairs in any way?" she asked.

"That is what we are asking ourselves," Mr. Jacks continued. "In the
absence of any definite clue, coincidences such as this are always
interesting. In this case, as it happens, we can take them even a little
further. We find that you, for instance, Miss Penelope Morse, a young
American lady, celebrated for her wit and accomplishments, and well
known in London society, were to have lunched with Mr. Hamilton Fynes
on the day when he made his tragical arrival in London; we find too,
curiously enough, that you were one of the party with whom Mr. Richard
Vanderpole was to have dined and gone to the theatre on the night of his
decease."

Penelope shivered, and half closed her eyes.

"Don't you think," she said, "that the shock of this coincidence, as
you call it, has been quite sufficient, without having you come here to
remind me of it?"

"Madam," Mr. Jacks said, "I have not come here to gratify any personal
curiosity. I have come here in the cause of justice. You should find
me a welcome visitor, for both these men who have lost their lives were
friends of yours."

"