o doubt," I remarked. "Has anything
further been discovered?"

"Yes, Jack," replied my friend Ray Raymond, rolling a fresh cigarette
between his fingers. "On investigation, the mystery grows more
complicated, more remarkable, and--for us--much more interesting."

We were seated together in our dismal chambers in New Stone Buildings,
Lincoln's Inn, one wet afternoon about six weeks after the Forth Bridge
affair. With us, lolling in the shabby old easy chair beside the fire,
sat Vera Vallance, in a big black hat, with her muff and coat thrown
aside. Her disappearance at North Queensferry had been of only brief
duration, for we had discovered her hiding at the bottom of the long
garden, close to the water's edge, watching the landing of two small
boxes from a boat. It appeared that the two men, Scholtz and Klauber, on
receipt of the note purporting to come from their director, Hermann
Hartmann, in London, had asked her to wait in an adjoining room while
they wrote a reply. But from there she had slipped out, and concealed
herself in the garden to wait and watch.

Half an hour ago she had come to my gloomy chambers with her fiance, in
order, as he explained, to consult with us. She was at present on a
visit to her married sister who lived in Argyll Road, near Kensington
High Street, hence they were daily in each other's company.

"You see, Jack, very little has been allowed to leak out to the papers,"
Ray exclaimed as he lit his cigarette and took up a position with his
back to the fire. "As soon as I read of the discovery I ran down to
Scotland Yard, saw Evans, and explained my theory. He was inclined to
agree with me, and at once gave orders that no facts were to be given to
the Press. Upon complete secrecy, our success now depends."

"I only know what I've read in the papers," I remarked.

"Tell us the whole facts, Ray," urged the pretty fair-haired girl, who
sat with her veil raised and her long white gloves laid across her
knees.

"Well, dear, they are briefly as follows," he replied, with an
affectionate glance at her. "Last Thursday afternoon, on the arrival at
4.51 of a train from Guildford at Vauxhall, the ticket-collector
discovered lying on the floor of a third-class compartment a
middle-aged, respectably dressed man in an apparently dying condition.
The police were called, and he was conveyed to St. Thomas's Hospital,
where it was found that he was suffering from a severe fracture of the
skull, the wound