"Of course. It's all in people's imagination. I suppose they'll say next that a murder's been committed in the place!" he laughed. "I suppose so," I said, and then, putting a shilling in his hand, wished him good-night, and passed along. Jack and the idiot had gone, but, knowing the direction they had taken--for the youth was, no doubt, on his way home--I was not long before I caught up my friend, and then together we retraced our steps towards the Bayswater Road, in search of a taxi. I could not forget that curious statement that a girl's face had been seen at the drawing-room window--a fair-headed girl with a band of black velvet in her hair. Could it have been Sylvia Pennington? It was past three o'clock in the morning before I retraced my steps to Wilton Street. We were unable to find a cab, therefore we walked down Park Lane together. On the way Jack had pressed me to tell him the reason of my visit to that weird house and the circumstances in which my life had been attempted. For the present, however, I refused to satisfy his curiosity. I promised him I would tell him the whole facts of the case some day. "But why are you at home now?" he asked. "I can't really make you out lately, Owen. You told me you hated London, and preferred life on the Continent, yet here you are, back again, and quite settled down in town!" "Well, a fellow must come here for the London season sometimes," I said. "I feel that I've been away far too long, and am a bit out of touch with things. Why, my tailor hardly knew me, and the hall-porter at White's had to look twice before he realized who I was." "But there's some attraction which has brought you to London," he declared. "I'm sure there is!" It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him how cleverly the two scoundrels had used his name wherewith to entrap me on the previous night. But I refrained. Instead, I asked-- "Have you ever met two men named Reckitt and Forbes, Jack?" "Not to my knowledge," was his prompt reply. "Who are they? What are they like?" I gave him a minute description of both, but he apparently did not recognize them. "I suppose you've never met a fellow called Pennington--eh? A stoutish, dark-haired man with a baldish head and a reddish face?" "Well," he replied thoughtfully, "I've met a good many men who might answer to that description. What is he?" "I don't exactly know. I've met him on the Continent." "And I suppose some people one meets at Continental hotels are undesirables, aren't they?" he said. I nodded in the affirmative. Then I asked-- "You've never known a person named Shuttleworth--Edmund Shuttleworth? Lives at a little village close to Andover." "Shuttleworth!" he echoed, looking straight into my face. "What do you know of Edmund Shuttleworth?" he asked quickly. "Very little. Do you know him?"