After the old waiter’s departure, Sellars set himself to weigh the value of the information he had gleaned. Was it worth much? On the death of the father, the son had succeeded to a barren inheritance; he could not cut any dash on the revenue derived from this deeply mortgaged estate. And yet, so long as Sellars had known him, he was making a brave show. Well, of course that fortune left by a distant relative accounted for this, if the tale of that fortune were true. Who and what was this benevolent relation? That might be a subject for further investigation. His club acquaintance might again prove useful. Two days elapsed before he saw the communicative Dobbs again. The good old fellow suffered from some internal trouble which laid him up now and then, and he had one of these attacks late on the Saturday night. By the time he was ready to resume his duties the letter from Lane had arrived. Needless to say, Sellars was much surprised at the information it contained, and also at his friend’s insight in having pounced upon this particular portion of the story as requiring verification. Sellars was pretty cute in his own way, but he had to admit that in the qualities of imagination and intuition he had to give pride of place to the older and more experienced man. It opened out a new region of speculation. There could be assumed a close connection between Mrs. Morrice and the elegant man-about-town, from the fact that they were said to be related pretty closely by marriage. But if this cable spoke the truth, that marriage was a myth and had been invented by a pair of conspirators from some motive which could not at present be defined. Truly, as Lane had remarked in the closing passage of his brief note, there was a mystery in the Morrice household which it was necessary to unravel in the course of their general researches. Mr. Dobbs looked a little pale and shaken by the suffering he had been through, but he was as attentive and genial as usual, and he accepted with alacrity the good dose of whisky which Sellars now always supplied him with. When he removed the last of the dinner-things and it was evident he was quite ready for one of those long chats which had become a feature of their relations, Sellars put his question carelessly as he always did, not to excite the suspicion that he was not what he seemed, a literary man come to this quiet spot just for a short visit. “By the way, Dobbs, I wonder if you ever came across a Miss Larchester, Lettice Larchester. I fancy she came from this part of the country. I don’t know her exact age now, but I suppose she would be getting on for fifty.” Before he finished speaking, he knew by the gleam in the old waiter’s still bright eyes that he was on the right track—his intuition that in looking for Sir George Clayton-Brookes he would come on traces of Lettice Larchester, was correct.