om and he saw that it led to a small bathroom. He had made a cursory
examination of this well-appointed apartment, and now he proceeded to
make a close investigation and was well rewarded.

The bathroom was the only apartment which possess anything resembling a
door--a two-fold screen and--as he pressed this back, he felt some
thing which prevented its wider extension. He slipped into the room and
flashed his lamp in the space behind the screen. There stiff in death
with glazed eyes and lolling tongue lay a great gaunt dog, his yellow
fangs exposed in a last grimace.

About the neck was a collar and attached to that, a few links of broken
chain. T. X. mounted the steps thoughtfully and passed out to the
kitchen.

Did Belinda Mary stab Kara or kill the dog? That she killed one hound or
the other was certain. That she killed both was possible.

CHAPTER XV

After a busy and sleepless night he came down to report to the Chief
Commissioner the next morning. The evening newspaper bills were filled
with the "Chelsea Sensation" but the information given was of a meagre
character.

Since Fisher had disappeared, many of the details which could have
been secured by the enterprising pressmen were missing. There was no
reference to the visit of Mr. Gathercole and in self-defence the press
had fallen back upon a statement, which at an earlier period had crept
into the newspapers in one of those chatty paragraphs which begin "I saw
my friend Kara at Giros" and end with a brief but inaccurate summary of
his hobbies. The paragraph had been to the effect that Mr. Kara had been
in fear of his life for some time, as a result of a blood feud which
existed between himself and another Albanian family. Small wonder,
therefore, the murder was everywhere referred to as "the political crime
of the century."

"So far," reported T. X. to his superior, "I have been unable to trace
either Gathercole or the valet. The only thing we know about Gathercole
is that he sent his article to The Times with his card. The servants of
his Club are very vague as to his whereabouts. He is a very eccentric
man, who only comes in occasionally, and the steward whom I interviewed
says that it frequently happened that Gathercole arrived and departed
without anybody being aware of the fact. We have been to his old
lodgings in Lincoln's Inn, but apparently he sold up there before he
went away to the wilds of Patagonia and relinquished his tenancy.

"T