coffee had stopped to light his pipe and was watching us.

"Have you any idea where your wife is, or what has induced her to go
away from home? Perhaps you had some words!"

"Words, signore!" he echoed. "Why, we were the happiest pair in all
London. No unkind word ever passed between us. There seems absolutely no
reason whatever why she should go away without wishing me a word of
farewell."

"But why haven't you told the police?"

"For reasons that I have already stated. I prefer to make inquiries for
myself."

"And in what have your inquiries resulted?"

"Nothing--absolutely nothing," he said gravely.

"You do not suspect any plot? I recollect that night in Lambeth you
told me that you had enemies?"

"Ah! so I have, signore--and so have you!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Yes,
my poor Armida may have been entrapped by them."

"And if entrapped, what then?"

"Then they would kill her with as little compunction as they would a
fly," he said. "Ah! you do not know the callousness of those people. I
only hope and pray that she may have escaped and is in hiding somewhere,
and will arrive unexpectedly and give me a startling surprise. She
delights in startling me," he added with a laugh.

Poor fellow, I thought, she would never again be able to startle him.
She had actually fallen a victim just as he dreaded.

"Then you think she must have been called away from home by some urgent
message?" I suggested.

"By the manner in which she left things, it seemed as though she went
away hurriedly. There were five sovereigns in a drawer that we had saved
for the rent, and she took them with her."

I paused again, hesitating whether to tell him the terrible truth. I
recollected that the body had disappeared, therefore what proof had I of
my allegation that she had been murdered?

"Tell me, Olinto," I said as we moved forward again in the direction of
Paddington Station, "have you any knowledge of a man named Leithcourt?"

He started suddenly and looked at me.

"I have heard of him," he answered very lamely.

"And of his daughter--Muriel?"

"And also of her. But I am not acquainted with them--nor, to tell the
truth, do I wish to be."

"Why?"

"Because they are enemies of mine--bitter enemies."

His declaration was strange, for it threw some light upon the tragedy in
Rannoch Wood.

"And of your wife also?"

"I do not know that," he responded. "My enemies are my wife's also, I
suppose."

"You have not told me t