"I see her," he said; "she's just taking a look round the corner. That's a thing not to be ignored. Of course, the Lakers' house is being watched--we set a man on it at once, yesterday. But I'll put some one on now to watch Miss Shaw's place, too. I'll telephone through to Liddle's--probably they'll be able to say where it is. And the women themselves must be watched, too. As a matter of fact, I had a notion that Laker wasn't alone in it. And it's just possible, you know, that he has sent an accomplice off with his tourist ticket to lead us a dance while he looks after himself in another direction. Have you done anything?" "Well," Hewitt replied, with a faint reproduction of the secretive smile with which Plummer had met an inquiry of his earlier in the morning, "I've been to the station here, and I've found Laker's umbrella in the lost property office." "Oh! Then probably he _has_ gone. I'll bear that in mind, and perhaps have a word with the lost property man." Plummer made for the station and Hewitt for his office. He mounted the stairs and reached his door just as I myself, who had been disappointed in not finding him in, was leaving. I had called with the idea of taking Hewitt to lunch with me at my club, but he declined lunch. "I have an important case in hand," he said. "Look here, Brett. See this scrap of paper. You know the types of the different newspapers--which is this?" He handed me a small piece of paper. It was part of a cutting containing an advertisement, which had been torn in half. [Illustration] "I _think_," I said, "this is from the _Daily Chronicle_, judging by the paper. It is plainly from the 'agony column,' but all the papers use pretty much the same type for these advertisements, except the _Times_. If it were not torn I could tell you at once, because the _Chronicle_ columns are rather narrow." "Never mind--I'll send for them all." He rang, and sent Kerrett for a copy of each morning paper of the previous day. Then he took from a large wardrobe cupboard a decent but well-worn and rather roughened tall hat. Also a coat a little worn and shiny on the collar. He exchanged these for his own hat and coat, and then substituted an old necktie for his own clean white one, and encased his legs in mud-spotted leggings. This done, he produced a very large and thick pocket-book, fastened by a broad elastic band, and said, "Well, what do you think of this? Will it do for Queen's taxes, or sanitary inspection, or the gas, or the water-supply?" "Very well indeed, I should say," I replied. "What's the case?"