"No," said Madame Alpenny, in her turn, and disconcerted again as she was quite sharp enough to see the flaw in her story. "I cannot bring any one to prove I was at Hampstead. But I was----I was----I was." "Show me the letter." "I have not got it. I tore it up and so made a mistake." "You did," said Hench coolly, and not believing a word of her tale. "All the worse for you, Madame. Well"--he rose and took up his hat--"it only remains for me to go to the police and tell them everything." If Hench thought that this statement would frighten the woman, he was never more mistaken in his life. She snapped her fingers right under his nose. "Go! Go! Go!" she cried. "You have robbed me of my daughter by giving money to that fool to marry her; now you would rob me of my liberty. I defy you. I care not for the police, nor for you, nor for anything." "Very good." Hench walked towards the door. "If you had behaved in a different spirit I would have tried to arrange matters differently for your daughter's sake. As it is you must take the consequence. To clear my own character, you can understand----" "Oh, yes, I well understand, Monsieur. You murdered your uncle; you wrote that letter asking me to leave this house, so that I could be unable to explain where I was, and now you accuse me at the bidding of Mistare Spruce. I see it all, and I defy you; I spit upon you; I----" Here Hench, unable to stand any more of her savage anger, left the room, while she still raged. The young man descended the stairs with the determination to go as soon as possible to the police-office and tell his tale. If he did not, the chances were that Madame Alpenny would run away, although he admitted to himself that her speech was not that of a frightened person. But when he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Mrs. Tesk at the door of her sanctum, he remembered that Simon Jedd had still to be examined, and walked up to the landlady. "Where is Bottles?" he asked abruptly. "Dismissed from my employment!" was the unexpected reply. "Dismissed! His brother, who is a page at Mrs. Perage's, did not tell me so." "Simon did not wish his brother to know," said Mrs. Tesk quietly, "as he was ashamed, very naturally." "Ashamed of what?" "Of being dismissed for theft." "Come, come, Mrs. Tesk, I can't believe that Bottles is a thief." "He is!" insisted the ex-school-mistress, colouring. "Sorry as I am to say so, Mr. Hench. Several small articles have been missing lately, and amongst them a valuable carving-knife with a horn handle, which I inherited from my grandmother. So you see----" "A horn-handled carving-knife!" echoed Hench with a start, and remembered clearly that such a weapon had been used to stab Madoc Evans. "Can you swear that the boy took it?"