Miss Jimpson's eyes glinted. "Is that your last word?" she said. "As to calling at Plymouth? Yes, it's my very last word; and now you can start abusing me. I rather like it," came down the captain's shrill treble. And he added maliciously, "We passed the opening of Plymouth Sound an hour ago if it's any use to you to know it." The girl turned on her heel without further waste of breath. She had never in her heart relied on the miscreant's promise, but she had clung to it as the last chance. And now their last chance had failed. CHAPTER XXVI ENID IS "MIXED UP" Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Mallory were too accustomed to their daughter's erratic habits to be perturbed by her non-appearance at the dinner-table. It came natural to them to account for her absence by an invitation, given and accepted on the spur of the moment, to spend an informal evening at the house of some friend, and they would be quite satisfied if she turned up any time before midnight. It was Mr. Mallory's practice on three evenings of the week to go down to the club after dinner to enjoy a little bridge or whist with some of his cronies, and this being one of the appointed nights he sallied forth about nine o'clock without giving Enid a second thought. If he had known that she was shut up in Travers Nugent's grotto, his opponents at the card-table would have had reason to rejoice; for, always a sound player, he was more than usually deadly that evening. On going downstairs at the conclusion of the play, he came upon the lantern-jawed Mr. Lazarus Lowch, the foreman of the adjourned inquest. Mr. Lowch was seldom to be found at the club so late, and he was mooning about the ante-room with an abstracted air which promptly changed to purposeful alertness at sight of Mr. Mallory. A less shrewd observer than the old servant of the Foreign Office would have seen that he was the object of this unwonted visitation. "I should be glad if you could spare me a few minutes, Mallory," said Lowch, in his funereal tones. "It is rather important and in a way personal to yourself. We are on the eve of some striking developments in this murder case, I think." In common with most of his fellow-members, Mr. Mallory had no great liking for the dismal Lazarus, but, like the old war-horse he was, he pricked up his ears at the reason for the desired interview. Glancing into the reading-room, he saw that it was unoccupied. "Come in here," he said shortly. "There is no one to overhear us." "Your mention of overhearing brings me at once to what I want to say," Mr. Lowch proceeded ponderously. "The other day, in this very club, I overheard the most astonishing confirmation----"