“Ask him if it’s urgent,” he called after the retreating girl, partly from genuine curiosity, and partly to preserve the fiction that he was master of his own movements in his own house. “It’s not so urgent as your supper. Just let him wait,” Mrs. French repeated inexorably. “What difference will a minute or two make anyway?” Her view, it soon appeared, was upheld by the constable himself. “He says it’s not urgent,” Eliza corroborated, reappearing at the door. “He can wait till you’re ready.” “Very well. Let him wait,” French repeated, relieved that the incident had ended so satisfactorily, and for another fifteen minutes he continued steadily fortifying the inner man. Then taking out his pipe, he joined his visitor. “’Evening, Caldwell. What’s wrong now?” Caldwell, a tall, heavy-looking man of middle age, rose clumsily to his feet and saluted. “It’s that there circular of yours, sir,” he explained. “I’ve found the woman.” “The deuce you have!” French cried, pausing in the act of filling his pipe and immediately keenly interested. “Who is she?” Caldwell drew his notebook from his pocket, and slowly turned the well-thumbed pages. His deliberation irritated his quicker-witted superior. “Get along, Caldwell,” French grumbled. “Can’t you remember that much without your blessed book?” “Yes, sir,” the man answered. “Here it is.” He read from the book. “Her name is Mrs. Henry Vane, and she lives in a small detached house in St. John’s Wood Road; Crewe Lodge is the name.” “Good!” French said heartily. “I suppose you’re sure about it?” “I think so, sir. I showed the photograph to three different parties, and they all said it was her.” This sounded promising, particularly as French remembered that Dowds, the ex-doorkeeper at the Comedy, had stated that Miss Winter’s admirer was named Vane. He invited the constable to sit down and let him hear the details, offering him at the same time a fill of tobacco. Constable Caldwell subsided gingerly into a chair as he took the proffered pouch.