well-dressed
good-looking young lady arrived at the bank with them. This L24 a month
suggests that Sir Horace had something choice and not too expensive
stowed away in a flat. That is a matter on which Hill ought to be able to
throw some light. If he knows anything I'll get it out of him. It struck
me as extraordinary that Sir Horace should have taken Hill into his
service knowing what he was. But this, apparently, is the explanation. He
knew that Hill wouldn't gossip about him for fear of being exposed, for
that would mean that Hill would lose his situation and would find it
impossible to get another one without a reference from him. We'll have
Hill brought here--"

There was a knock at the door, and a boy in buttons entered and handed
Inspector Chippenfield a card.

"Seldon from Hampstead," he explained to Rolfe. "Don't go away yet. It
may be something about this case."

Police-Inspector Seldon entered the office, and held the door ajar for a
man behind him. He shook hands with Inspector Chippenfield and Rolfe, and
then motioned his companion to a chair.

"This is Mr. Robert Evans, the landlord of the Flowerdew Hotel, Covent
Garden," he explained. He looked at Mr. Evans with the air of a
police-court inspector waiting for a witness to corroborate his
statement, but as that gentleman remained silent he sharply asked,
"Isn't that so?"

"Quite right," said Mr. Evans, in a moist, husky voice.

He was a short fat man, with an extremely red face and bulging eyes,
which watered very much and apparently required to be constantly mopped
with a handkerchief which he carried in his hand. This peculiarity gave
Mr. Evans the appearance of a man perpetually in mourning, and this
effect was heightened by a species of incipient palsy which had seized on
his lower facial muscles, and caused his lips to tremble violently. He
was bald in the front of the head but not on the top. The baldness over
the temples had joined hands and left isolated over the centre of the
forehead a small tuft of hair, which, with the playfulness of second
childhood, showed a tendency to curl.

"Yes, you're quite right," he repeated huskily, as though some one had
doubted the statement. "Evans is my name and I'm not ashamed of it."

"He came to me this morning and told me that Hill gave false evidence at
the inquest yesterday," Inspector Seldon explained. "So I brought him
along to see you."

"False evidence--Hill?" exclaimed Inspector Chippenfield