they were not so much astonished as the two detectives themselves were.
For in all that room--always excepting the photograph of James
Allerdyke--there was not a single object, a scrap of paper, anything
whatever, which connected the Miss Slade of the Pompadour with the Mrs.
Marlow of Fullaway's or bore reference to the matter in hand. The
searchers finally retired utterly baffled.

"Drawn blank," murmured the chief good-humouredly. He turned to the
lookers-on. "I suppose you have nothing of Miss Slade's?" he said.
"Nothing confined to your care, eh?"

The manageress glanced at her husband, with whom she had kept up a
whispered conversation. The manager nodded.

"Better tell them," he said. "No good keeping anything back."

"Ah!" said the chief. "You have something?"

"A small parcel," admitted the manageress, "which she gave me a few days
ago to lock up in our safe. She said it contained something valuable, and
she hadn't anything to lock it up in. It's in the safe now."

"I'm afraid we must see it," said the chief.

At the foot of the stairs the hall-porter accosted the party and looked
at the chief narrowly.

"Name of Chettle, sir?" he asked. "You're wanted at our
telephone--urgent."

The chief motioned to Chettle, who went off with the hall-porter; he
himself followed the manageress into her office. She unlocked a safe,
rummaged amongst its contents, and handed him a small square parcel, done
up in brown paper and sealed with black wax. Before he could open it,
Chettle returned, serious and puzzled, and whispered to him. Then, with
the shortest of leave-takings, the two officers hurried away from the
Pompadour, the chief carrying the little parcel tightly grasped in his
right hand.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE HYDE PARK TEA-HOUSE

Once outside the Pompadour Hotel the chief and his subordinate hurried at
a great pace towards the Lancaster Gate entrance to Kensington Gardens.
And when they had crossed Bayswater Road the superior pulled himself up,
took a breath, and looked around him.

"No sign of them yet, Chettle," he observed. "Did he say at once?"

"Said they'd be on their way in two minutes, sir," answered Chettle. "And
it wouldn't take them many minutes to run up here."

"I wonder what it's all about?" mused the chief. "Some new development
since we left the Yard, of course. Well--I think we may probably find
something in this parcel, Chettle, that will surprise us as much as any
new developme