r visitor very narrowly for a
couple of days I came to the conclusion that the gentleman was
hiding--that perhaps the police were after him."

"Why?" I inquired in a casual tone. "What made you think that?"

"I hardly know. Perhaps from the scraps of conversation I overheard,
perhaps from his cunning, secret manner--not but what he was always nice
to me, and gave me something when he left."

"You didn't hear any other names of persons mentioned?" I asked. "Try and
think, as all that you tell me is of the greatest importance to me."

The girl stood silent, while I paced up and down that room in which, not
many hours before, I had endured that awful mental torture. She drew her
hand across her brow, trying to recall.

"Yes, there was another name," she admitted at last, "but I can't at the
moment recall it."

"Ah, do!" I implored her. "Try and recall it. I am in no hurry to leave."

Again the dark-eyed maid in the dainty apron was silent--both hands upon
her brow, as she had turned from me and was striving to remember.

"It was some foreign name--a woman's name," she said.

I recollected the dead girl was believed to have been a foreigner!

Suddenly she cried--

"Ah, I remember! The name was Mary Brack."

"Mary Brack!" I repeated.

"Yes. Of course I don't know how it's spelt."

"Well, if it were a foreign name it would probably be Marie B-r-a-c-q--if
you are sure you've pronounced it right."

"Oh, yes. I'm quite sure. Mistress called her 'poor girl!' so I can only
suppose that something must have happened to her."

I held my breath at her words.

Yes, without a doubt I had secured a clue to the identity of the girl who
lost her life at Harrington Gardens.

Her name, in all probability, was Marie Bracq!

CHAPTER XXII.

"MARIE BRACQ!"

Marie Bracq! The name rang in my ears in the express all the way from
Colchester to Liverpool Street.

Just before six o'clock I alighted from a taxi in Scotland Yard, and,
ascending in the lift, soon found myself sitting with Inspector Edwards.

At that moment I deemed it judicious to tell him nothing regarding my
night adventure in the country, except to say:

"Well, I've had a strange experience--the strangest any man could have,
because I have dared to investigate on my own account the mystery of
Harrington Gardens."

"Oh! tell me about it, Mr. Royle," he urged, leaning back in his chair
before the littered writing-table.

"There's nothing much to