As merry as usual, we drank together at the _Bodega_ beneath the railway arch in Ludgate Hill, but in reply to my eager questions he told me that absolutely nothing fresh had transpired regarding the curious affair at Kensington. I explained that I was still a frequent visitor at Riverdene, but up to the present had discovered nothing. I, of course, did not tell him all my suspicions, preferring to keep my own counsel and allow him to prosecute his inquiries after his own method. From his conversation, however, I saw that he had many other matters in hand, and from his attitude it seemed as though he had given up hope of obtaining a clue to the mystery. On finishing our wine we rose from the barrel on which we had been sitting, and he having announced his intention to walk along to the bookstall in Ludgate Hill Station to buy a magazine for his wife--for he was just off home by motor-bus to Hammersmith--we strolled together through that short arcade leading to the station, at that hour crowded by hungry City men eager to get back to their suburban homes. Into every door they surged, springing up the two staircases to the platform above as though they had not a further moment to live, while every few seconds the deep voices of the ticket-collectors cried the names of the stations from the City to Blackheath or Victoria, or from Herne Hill down to Dover. Amid this black-coated, silk-hatted, perspiring crowd a man suddenly brushed past me, rushing up the stairs two steps at a time, slipping through the barrier just as the door was slammed, and disappearing on to the platform. "Hulloa!" cried Boyd, pressing my arm quickly. "See! Look at that man--the one with the bag, running up the steps. Do you see him?" "Yes," I answered, myself confounded. "Well, that's the fellow I saw in St. James's Park, and who got away so neatly from Ebury Street--you remember?" "That man!" I gasped, utterly amazed. "Yes. We mustn't lose sight of him this time. He can tell us something if he likes," and without further word he dashed away after the man who had hurried to catch his train, leaving me standing alone in amazement. That man who had brushed past I had instantly recognised as none other than Henry Blain, who for so many weeks was supposed to have been in Paris. This fresh development was certainly both startling and mysterious. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A VISIT FROM BOYD. Without a second's hesitation I rushed up the steps after Boyd, but on gaining the platform found that a train had just gone out, and was at that moment disappearing across the bridge over the Thames. The detective, known to the ticket-collector as a police-officer, had been allowed to pass the barrier, and had evidently caught the same train as Blain.