maid
began to bustle with garments and trunks, the two men attended to all
other necessary matters, and at two o'clock in the morning the three sped
out of Edinburgh for the South, each secretly wondering what was going to
come of their journey. Allerdyke, preparing to go to sleep in the
compartment which he and Fullaway occupied by themselves, dropped one
grim remark to his companion as he settled himself.

"Seems like a wild-goose chase this, my lad, but it's one we've got to go
through with! What'll the next stage be?"

The next stage was an arrival in London in the middle of a lovely May
morning, a swift drive to Celia Lennard's flat in Bedford Court Mansions,
the hurried rummaging of its owner amongst an extraordinary mass of
papers, books, and documents, and the ultimate discovery of the French
maid's address. Celia held it up with a sigh of vast relief, which
changed into a groan of despairing doubt.

"There it is!" she exclaimed. "Lisette Beaurepaire, 911 Bernard Street,
Bloomsbury--I knew it was Bloomsbury. That's where she lived when I
engaged her, anyhow--but then her sick mother mayn't live there! The man
who met her at Hull, who said he was her brother, didn't say where the
mother lived, except that it was in London."

"We must go to Bernard Street, anyway, at once," said Fullaway. "We may
get some information there."

But such information as they got on the door-step of 911 Bernard Street
was scanty and useless. The house was a typical Bloomsbury lodging-place,
let off in floors and rooms. Its proprietor, summoned from a
neighbouring house, recollected, with considerable difficulty and after
consultation of a penny pocket-book, that he had certainly let a
top-floor room to a young Frenchwoman about a year ago, but he had never
caught her name properly, and simply had her noted down as Mamselle. She
had paid her rent regularly, and had remained in the house five
weeks--that was all he knew about her. Had he ever seen her since? Not
that he knew of--in fact, he shouldn't know her if he saw her--they were
all pretty much alike, these young Frenchwomen. Did he know where she
came from to his house--where she went from his house? Not he! he knew no
more than what he had just told.

"What now?" asked Allerdyke as the three searchers paced dejectedly up
the street. "This is doing no good--it's worse than the Hull affair.
However, there's one thing suggests itself to me. Didn't you say," he
went on, turnin