for all this--but
who's got any right to ask her for one? Not me, certainly!"

He had no intention of asking Miss Slade anything when he left the City
for Bayswater that evening, but chance threw him into her immediate
company in one of the lounges, where, after dinner, they met at a table
on which the evening newspapers were laid out. As Miss Slade picked up
one, Appleyard picked up another--certain big, strong letters on the
front sheets of both gave him an opening.

"Have you read anything about this affair?" he asked, with apparent
carelessness, pointing to a row of capitals. "This extraordinary
murder-robbery business which is becoming the talk of the town? Murders
of three people--theft of nearly three hundred thousand pounds' worth of
jewels--and fifty thousand pounds reward! It's colossal!"

Miss Slade, without showing the slightest shade of interest, shook her
head.

"I don't read murders," she answered. "Fifty thousand pounds reward!
That's an awful lot, isn't it?"

"Worth trying for, anyway!" replied Appleyard. He gave her a sly look,
and smiled grimly. "I think I'll try for it," he said. "Fifty thousand!"

"How could any one try unless he or she's some clue?" she asked. "If you
don't know anything about it, or any of the persons concerned, where
would you begin?"

"There are plenty of persons named in these accounts about whom one could
find something out, at any rate," replied Appleyard, tapping the
newspaper with his finger. "There's a Russian Princess with a sneezy sort
of name; a Yorkshire manufacturer named Allerdyke; an American man called
Franklin Fullaway--all seem to be well-known people in town. You ever
hear of any of them?"

Miss Slade turned a face of absolute indifference on him and the paper to
which he was pointing.

"Never," she answered calmly. "But I daresay I shall hear of them
now--for nine days."

Then she went off, with her own newspaper, and Appleyard carried his to a
corner and sat down.

"That's a lie!" he said to himself. "And a woman who will tell a lie as
calmly and quietly as that will tell a thousand with equal assurance and
cleverness. She--"

There he stopped. In the doorway Miss Slade had also stopped--stopped to
speak to another resident, a man, about whom Ambler Appleyard had often
wondered as keenly as he was now wondering about Miss Slade herself.

CHAPTER XVI

MR. GERALD RAYNER

There were various reasons why Ambler Appleyard's wonder had of