"Hang superstition!" I cried. Adding: "Of course, I'll report it if you like, but it would be far better for you to do so and risk this mysterious bad luck that you fear." He was silent for a moment, thinking deeply, then answered in a strange, hard voice,-- "Perhaps you're right, Urwin. I--I'm a confounded fool to be afraid," and with an effort quite apparent he braced himself up and we entered the police-station. Ascending the stairs we were soon closeted with Octavius Boyd, inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to that Division, a middle-aged, dark-bearded, pleasant-faced man in plain-clothes, who, as soon as he heard our story, was immediately ready to accompany us, while five minutes later the clicking of the telegraph told that news of our discovery was being transmitted to headquarters at New Scotland Yard. Patterson took down the _London Directory_, and turning it up at Upper Phillimore Place, found that the occupier of the house in question was Andrew Callender. He made inquiries in the section-house of the men off duty as to what was known of that house, but only one constable made a statement, and it was to the effect that he had, when on duty in Kensington Road, seen a youngish lady with fair hair, whose description tallied with that of the dead woman, come out and go across to the shops on the opposite side of the road. "Do you know anything of the servants?" inquired Patterson. "Well, sir," the man answered, "one was a man, and the other a woman." "How do you know?" "Because the servant of the house next door told me so. The woman was the cook, and the man did the housework. She said that the house was a most mysterious one." "Is she there now?" my friend asked. "No, sir. She was discharged a fortnight ago. Dishonest, I think." "And you don't know where she is?" Boyd had by this time called one of his plain-clothes men, who had obtained lamps, turning the dark slides over the flame, the station-sergeant had carefully ruled a line and written something in that remarkable register kept in every London police-station, wherein is recorded every event which transpires in the district, from a tragedy to the return of the sub-divisional inspector from his rounds, or the grooming of the horses. Then, after a short conversation with one of the second-class inspectors, we all four, accompanied by a sergeant, started for Upper Phillimore Place. In order not to attract attention we separated. Patterson walking with me to the opposite side of the road, while the detectives walked together, and the sergeant alone. Little did the passers-by suspect when they saw Patterson and me strolling leisurely along that we were on our way to investigate what afterwards proved to be one of the strangest and most remarkable mysteries that had ever puzzled the Metropolitan Police. CHAPTER FOUR. THE THREE CARDS.