But one night in the smoking-room the two got into a conversation on the subject of criminals and criminology, and Lane found that this seemingly idle, pleasure-loving young man, with apparently no thoughts beyond the race-course and the bridge-table, displayed a keen knowledge and a swift power of deduction that astonished him. Lane had a considerable _clientèle_ amongst persons high up in the social scale, he frequently wanted to obtain special information about people belonging to or moving in fashionable circles. Into such quarters he was unable to penetrate himself for obvious reasons. Here was a man just fitted for the job, keen, quiet, quick in resource; a man, in short, disguising a considerable mentality under a most deceptive exterior. Lane suggested that there was certain work in which his previous knowledge and facilities of approach could be of material assistance to him. Mr. Reginald Sellars, the good-looking young man-about-town, jumped at the proposal, and Lane had to confess that, in his own line, he had never possessed a more competent lieutenant. He was just the man for the Morrice job, or at any rate one particular portion of it, and that was why the busy and brainy detective had rung him up to-day. “Not been very long, eh, Lane?” was the young man’s greeting as he entered the private room. “Always ready for business, you know, for anything that brings grist to the mill. I hope you’ve got something good for me.” At his fashionable clubs, in the society of his aristocratic friends, he cultivated a rather languid manner. When he talked to practical people like Lane his tone was brisk, his whole manner alert. The detective went to the point at once. “Of course, you know of Rupert Morrice, the big financier, most probably you are personally acquainted with him?” “Known him for years, he was rather a pal of my father’s, used to give him a good tip now and then for his investments,” was the answer. “Can’t say I’m one of the intimates of the house, but always get a card for their big things, have been asked twice, I think, to fill up a dinner-party. What’s up?” But without answering his question, Lane asked one himself. “We all know the man’s story, that is public property. But what about Mrs. Morrice; do you know anything about her antecedents, her family, her history, before she met her husband?” Sellars shook his head. “I’ve never heard, I don’t think anybody has. A very charming woman, well-bred and all that, does the honours perfectly, but never seems to talk about herself as most of her sex do. The only thing I can remember is that some few years ago a nephew was introduced, a young chap named Archie Brookes, who was also a nephew of Sir George Clayton-Brookes who is as well-known in London as the Monument. Her sister married his younger brother, we were told.” “You don’t know her maiden name?”