uarter-past one--you've plenty of
time. Stroll across the park to this spot--I'll join you by two o'clock.
I believe you can get light refreshments at this tea-house; get
yourselves something, so as to look like mere loungers--but keep your
eyes open."

"Do you want me, sir?" asked Chettle, eyeing the parcel with evident
desire to know what mystery it concealed.

"No--you go with Blindway," answered the chief. "He'll tell you what's
happened. I must join Mr. Allerdyke and Mr. Appleyard--then we'll come
over to you. Don't take any notice of us."

The four detectives went off into Hyde Park, and there separated in
couples; the chief turned and went along the straight path which runs
parallel with Bayswater Road just within the shrubberies of Kensington
Gardens. Presently he caught sight of Allerdyke and Appleyard, who
occupied two chairs under a shady hawthorn tree, and he laid hold of
another, dragged it to them, and sat down. Each looked a silent inquiry,
and the chief, with a smile, held up the parcel.

"Chettle and I," he said, "have, in the presence of the manager and
manageress of the Pompadour, made a thorough examination of the room and
the belongings of the young lady who resides there under the name of Miss
Slade. There is not a jot or tittle of anything there to show that she is
also Mrs. Marlow--except one thing. That, Mr. Allerdyke, is the
all-important photograph of your cousin James, which is hanging, in a
neat silver frame, over her mantelpiece. What do you think of that,
gentlemen?"

"Odd!" said Appleyard, after a moment's reflective silence.

"Very queer!" said Allerdyke frowning. "Very queer, indeed--considering."

"Queer and odd!" assented the chief. "As to considering--well, I don't
quite know what it is that we are considering. If Miss Slade, alias Mrs.
Marlow, is a member of the gang--if there is one--which killed and robbed
James Allerdyke, it's a decidedly odd and queer thing that she should
frame the victim's portrait and hang it where she'll see it last thing at
night and first thing in the morning. Most extraordinary! And it's made
me think a good deal. I believe you once said, Mr. Allerdyke, that your
cousin was a bit of a ladies' man?"

"Bit that way inclined, was James," replied Allerdyke laconically.
"Yes--he fancied the ladies a bit, no doubt. In quite a proper way, you
know--liked their society, and so on."

"Just so!" assented the chief. "Well, I wonder if he and Miss Slade,
a