“Thank you, sir, I don’t mind if I do.” He slowly filled and lighted his pipe, ramming down the tobacco with an enormous thumb. “It was this way, sir. I had that there circular of yours with the woman’s photo in my pocket when I went off duty early this afternoon. On my way home I happened to meet a friend, a young lady, and I turned and walked with her. For want of something to say, so to speak, I showed her the photo, not expecting anything to come of it, you understand. Well, the moment she looked at it, ‘I know that there woman,’ she said. ‘You what?’ I said. ‘You know her? Who is she, then?’ I said. ‘She’s a woman that comes into the shop sometimes,’ she said, ‘but I don’t just remember her name, though I have heard it,’ she said. ‘I should say the young lady, her I was speaking to, worked in a drapery shop until a couple of weeks ago, though she’s out of a job at the moment. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’d like to know her name. Can’t you remember it?’ ‘No,’ she said, she couldn’t remember it. She’d only heard it once, and hadn’t paid much attention to it.” “Yes?” French murmured encouragingly as the constable showed signs of coming to an end. “I said that if she couldn’t remember, that maybe some of the other young ladies might know it. She wasn’t having any at first, for I had promised to take her to tea and on to the pictures, and she was set on going. But when she saw I was in earnest, she gave in, and we went round to the shop she used to work in. After asking three or four of the girls, we found one that remembered the woman all right. ‘That’s Mrs. Vane,’ she said. ‘She lives up there in St. John’s Wood; Crewe Lodge is the name. I’ve made up her parcels often enough to know.’” “Good,” French approved once more in his hearty voice. “I thought I had maybe better make sure about it,” went on the constable in his slow, heavy way, “so I asked Miss Swann—that was the young lady that I was with—to walk round that way with me. I found the house near the Baker Street end, a small place and very shut in. I didn’t want to go up and make inquiries, so I asked Miss Swann if she’d go next door and ask if Mrs. Vane was in. She went and asked, and they told her to go next door; that was to Crewe Lodge. So when I saw it was all right, I put off going to the pictures for this evening and came straight here to tell you.” French beamed on him. “You’ve done well, Constable,” he declared. “In fact, I couldn’t have done it better myself. I shall see that you don’t lose by it. Take another fill of tobacco while I get ready, and then call a taxi and we’ll go right out now.”