rson?" I asked,
remembering the victim who had been found dead at Harrington Gardens.

"Probably so. All women, when they hate a man, are vengeful."

"Why did she hate him so?"

"Because she believed a story told of him--an entirely false story--of
how he had treated the man she loved. I taxed him with it, and he denied
it, and brought me conclusive proof that the allegation was a pure
invention."

"Is she young or middle-aged?"

"Young, and distinctly pretty," was her reply.

Was it possible that this woman was speaking of that girl whom I had seen
lying dead in my friend's flat? Had he killed her because he feared what
she might reveal? How dearly I wished that I had with me at that moment a
copy of the police photographs of the unidentified body.

But even then she would probably declare it not to be the same person,
so deeply had Sir Digby impressed upon her the necessity of regarding the
affair as strictly secret.

Indeed, as I walked slowly at her side, I saw that, whatever the note
contained, it certainly had the effect upon her of preserving her
silence.

In that case, could the crime have been premeditated by my friend? Had he
written her that secret message well knowing that he intended to kill the
mysterious woman who was his deadliest enemy.

That theory flashed across my brain as I walked with her, and I believed
it to be the correct one. I accepted it the more readily because it
removed from my mind those dark suspicions concerning Phrida, and, also,
in face of facts which this unknown lady had dropped, it seemed to be
entirely feasible.

Either the unsuspecting woman fell by the hand of Digby Kemsley or--how
can I pen the words--by the hand of Phrida, the woman I loved. There was
the evidence that a knife with a triangular blade had been used, and such
a knife had been, and was still, in the possession of my well-beloved;
but from what I had learned that night it seemed that, little as I had
dreamed the truth, my friend Digby had been held in bondage by a woman,
whose tongue he feared.

Ah! How very many men in London are the slaves of women whom they fear.
All of us are human, and the woman with evil heart is, alas! only too
ready to seize the opportunity of the frailty of the opposite sex, and
whatever may be the secret she learns, of business or of private life,
she will most certainly turn it to her advantage.

It was similar circumstances I feared in the case of dear old Digby.

I w