d at the close of the story, and
his hand covered his eyes.

"What can it mean?" he said at length.

"Who knows, Austin, who knows? It's a black business, but I think we
had better keep it to ourselves, for the present at any rate. I will
see if I cannot learn anything about that house through private
channels of information, and if I do light upon anything I will let you
know."

VII

THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO

Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him to
call either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, and
found Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost in
meditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo
table by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queer
painted scenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged and
docketed as neatly as anything in Mr. Clarke's office.

"Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three weeks?"

"I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me as
singular, and there is a statement to which I shall call your
attention."

"And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw
whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in Ashley
Street?"

"As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither my
inquiries nor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. But
my investigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.
Beaumont is!"

"Who is she? In what way do you mean?"

"I mean that you and I know her better under another name."

"What name is that?"

"Herbert."

"Herbert!" Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment.

"Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventures
unknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;
when you go home look at the face in Meyrick's book of horrors, and you
will know the sources of your recollection."

"And you have proof of this?"

"Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say
Mrs. Herbert?"

"Where did you see her?"

"Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives in
Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of the
meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made an
appointment, though not with her, and she was precise to both time and
place."

"All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. You
mu