e window was open. You say it
is barred--that is true, but a very thin person could slip between those
bars. A woman----"

"Impossible," said Tarling shortly. "The bars have been very carefully
measured, and nothing bigger than a rabbit could get through. And you
have no idea who carried the body away?"

"None whatever," replied Milburgh firmly.

Tarling had opened his mouth to say something, when a telephone bell
shrilled, and he picked up the instrument from the table on which it
stood.

It was a strange voice that greeted him, a voice husky and loud, as
though it were unused to telephoning.

"Tarling the name?" shouted the voice quickly.

"That is my name," said Tarling.

"She's a friend of yours, ain't she?" asked the voice.

There was a chuckle. A cold shiver ran down Tarling's spine; for, though
he had never met the man, instinct told him that he was speaking to Sam
Stay.

"You'll find her to-morrow," screamed the voice, "what's left of her. The
woman who lured him on ... what's left of her...."

There was a click, and the receiver was hung up.

Tarling was working the telephone hook like a madman.

"What exchange was that?" he asked, and the operator after a moment
supplied the information that it was Hampstead.

CHAPTER XXXVI

AT HIGHGATE CEMETERY

Odette Rider sat back in a corner of the smooth-running taxicab. Her eyes
were closed, for the inevitable reaction had come. Excitement and anxiety
had combined to give her the strength to walk to the cab with a firm step
which had surprised the matron; but now, in the darkness and solitude,
she was conscious of a depression, both physical and mental, which left
her without the will or power for further effort.

The car sped through interminably long streets--in what direction she
neither knew nor cared. Remember that she did not even know where the
nursing home was situated. It might have been on the edge of London for
all she was aware. Once, that was as the car was crossing Bond Street
from Cavendish Square, she saw people turn and look at the cab and a
policeman pointed and shouted something. She was too preoccupied to worry
her head as to the cause.

She appreciated in a dim, vague way the skill of the taxi-driver, who
seemed to be able to grope his way through and around any obstruction of
traffic; and it was not until she found the cab traversing a country road
that she had any suspicion that all was not well. Even then her doubts