ngement, in which Steel had
sardonically concurred. Yet, little as there was to say, and for all his
practice with the pen, it took Langholm the best part of an hour to
write that he believed he had already obtained a most important clew,
which the police had missed in the most incredible manner, though it had
been under their noses all the time. So incredible did it appear,
however, even to himself, when written down, that Langholm decided not
to post this letter until after his interview with the Chelsea landlady.

To kill the interval, he went for his dinner to the single club to which
he still belonged. It was a Bohemian establishment off the Strand, and
its time-honored name was the best thing about it in this member's eyes.
He was soon cursing himself for coming near the place while engaged
upon his great and sacred quest. Not a "clubable" person himself, as
that epithet was understood in this its home, Langholm was not a little
surprised when half-a-dozen men (most of whom he barely knew) rose to
greet him on his appearance in the smoking-room. But even with their
greetings came the explanation, to fill the newcomer with a horror too
sudden for concealment.

It appeared that Mrs. Steel's identity with the whilom Mrs. Minchin had
not only leaked out in Delverton. Langholm gathered that it was actually
in one of that morning's half-penny papers, at which he had not found
time to glance in his hot-foot ardor for the chase. For the moment he
was shocked beyond words, and not a little disgusted, to discover the
cause of his own temporary importance.

"Talk of the devil!" cried a comparative crony. "I was just telling them
that you must be the 'well-known novelist' in the case, as your cottage
was somewhere down there. Have you really seen anything of the lady?"

"Seen anything of her?" echoed a journalist to whom Langholm had never
spoken in his life. "Why, can't you see that he bowled her out himself
and came up straight to sell the news?"

Langholm took his comparative crony by the arm.

"Come in and dine with me," he said; "I can't stand this! Yes, yes, I
know her well," he whispered, as they went round the screen which was
the only partition between pipes and plates; "but let me see what that
scurrilous rag has to say while you order. I'll do the rest, and you had
better make it a bottle of champagne."

The "scurrilous rag" had less to say than Langholm had been led to
expect. He breathed again when he had