The cook, a fat, comfortable woman, turned on him from a clear fire. "The mistress has not come in yet, sir," she said. "She went out very early this morning on her bicycle, and we haven't seen her since. I expect she'll be back for lunch." Brent glanced at the open window of the room in which he had first encountered Mrs. Saumarez and to which he had brought her the casket and its contents. "Can I go in there and sit down?" he asked. "I want to see Mrs. Saumarez." "Certainly, sir," answered cook and parlour-maid in chorus. "She can't be long, surely." Brent went further along and stepped into the room. Not long? He knew very well that that room would never see its late occupant again! She was gone of course. The room looked much the same as when he had last seen it, except that now there were great masses of summer flowers on all sides. He glanced round and his observant eye was quick to notice a fact--beneath the writing-table a big waste-paper-basket was filled to its edges with torn-up papers. He moved nearer, speculating on what it was that had been destroyed--and suddenly, behind the basket, he noticed, flung away, crumpled, on the floor, the buff envelope of a telegram. Brent, picking this up, expected to find it empty, but the message was inside. He drew out and smoothed the flimsy sheet and read its contents. They were comprised in five words: _Lingmore Cross Roads six-thirty_. Of course that was from Mallett. He glanced at the post-marks. The telegram had been sent from Clothford at seven o'clock the previous evening, and received at Hathelsborough before eight. It was an appointment without doubt. Brent knew Lingmore Cross Roads. He had been there on a pleasure jaunt with Queenie. It was a point on a main road whence you could go north or south, east or west with great facility. And doubtless Mrs. Saumarez, arriving there early in the morning, would find Mallett and a swift motor awaiting her. Well.... A sudden ringing at the front-door bell, a sudden loud knocking on the same door, made Brent crush envelope and telegram in his hand and thrust the crumpled ball of paper into his pocket. A second later he heard voices at the door, heavy steps in the hall, Hawthwaite's voice. "No," said the parlour-maid, evidently answering some question, "but Mr. Brent's in the study. The mistress----" Hawthwaite, with one of his plain-clothes men, came striding in, saw Brent and closed the door, shutting out the parlour-maid. "Gone?" he asked sharply. "They say--out for a bicycle ride," answered Brent, purposely affecting unconcern. "Went out very early this morning." "What did you come here for?" demanded Hawthwaite. "To ask her personally if what Krevin Crood said is true!" replied Brent. Hawthwaite laughed. "Do you think she'd have admitted it, Mr. Brent?" he said. "I don't!" "I think she would," answered Brent. "But----" "Well?" inquired Hawthwaite.