lishments of its class in
Bayswater, was a place of peace and of comparative solitude during the
greater part of the day. It was busy enough up to ten o'clock in the
morning, and it began to be busy enough again by six o'clock in the
evening, but from ten to six more than two-thirds of its denizens were
not to be found within its walls. The business man had gone to the City;
the professional women had departed to their offices; nothing of humanity
but a few elderly widows and spinsters, and an old gentleman or two were
left in the various rooms. Everything, therefore, was quiet enough when
the chief, accompanied by Chettle, drove up, entered the hall, and asked
to see the manager and manageress. As for Allerdyke and Appleyard, who
naturally felt considerable dislike to appearing on this particular scene
of operations, they were a few hundred yards away, walking about just
within the confines of Kensington Gardens, and waiting with more or less
patience until the police officials came to them with news of the result
of the search.

The manageress of the hotel, a smart lady who wore dignified black gowns
all day long--stuff in the morning, and silk at night as if she were a
barrister, gradually advancing in grandeur--gazed at the two callers with
some suspicion as she ushered them into a private room at the back of her
office. The chief, an irreproachably attired man, might have been an army
gentleman, she thought; an instinctive wonder rose in her mind as to
whether he was not some elderly man of standing who, accompanied by his
valet, desired to arrange about a suite of rooms. But his first words
gave her an unpleasant shock--she felt for all the world as if somebody
had suddenly turned a shower of ice-cold water on her.

"Now, ma'am," said the chief, "your husband the manager is out, and you
are in sole and responsible charge, I understand? Pray don't be
alarmed--this is nothing that concerns you or your affairs, personally,
and we will endeavor to arrange everything so that you have no annoyance.
The fact of the case is, we are police officers from the Criminal
Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard, and I hold two warrants,
just granted by a justice of peace, which are in relation to an inmate of
your hotel."

The manageress dropped into a chair and stared at her visitors.
Police officers? Warrants? Justices? It was the first time in her highly
respectable Bayswater existence that she had ever been brought i