Everyone now talked freely of murder. London is a big town, and this would not have been the first instance of a stranger--for Mr. Leonard Marvell was practically a stranger in London--being enticed to a lonely part of the city on a foggy night, and there done away with and robbed, and the body hidden in an out-of-the-way cellar, where it might not be discovered for months to come. But the newspaper-reading public is notably fickle, and Mr. Leonard Marvell was soon forgotten by everyone save the chief and the batch of our fellows who had charge of the case. Thus I heard through Danvers one day that Rosie Campbell had left Miss Marvell’s employ, and was living in rooms in Findlater Terrace, near Walham Green. I was alone in our Maida Vale flat at the time, my dear lady having gone to spend the week-end with the Dowager Lady Loam, who was an old friend of hers; nor, when she returned, did she seem any more interested in Rosie Campbell’s movements than she had been hitherto. Yet another month went by, and I for one had absolutely ceased to think of the man in the Inverness cape, who had so mysteriously and so completely vanished in the very midst of busy London, when, one morning early in January, Lady Molly made her appearance in my room, looking more like the landlady of a disreputable gambling-house than anything else I could imagine. “What in the world----?” I began. “Yes! I think I look the part,” she replied, surveying with obvious complacency the extraordinary figure which confronted her in the glass. My dear lady had on a purple cloth coat and skirt of a peculiarly vivid hue, and of a singular cut, which made her matchless figure look like a sack of potatoes. Her soft brown hair was quite hidden beneath a “transformation,” of that yellow-reddish tint only to be met with in very cheap dyes. As for her hat! I won’t attempt to describe it. It towered above and around her face, which was plentifully covered with brick-red and with that kind of powder which causes the cheeks to look a deep mauve. My dear lady looked, indeed, a perfect picture of appalling vulgarity. “Where are you going in this elegant attire?” I asked in amazement. “I have taken rooms in Findlater Terrace,” she replied lightly. “I feel that the air of Walham Green will do us both good. Our amiable, if somewhat slatternly, landlady expects us in time for luncheon. You will have to keep rigidly in the background, Mary, all the while we are there. I said that I was bringing an invalid niece with me, and, as a preliminary, you may as well tie two or three thick veils over your face. I think I may safely promise that you won’t be dull.” And we certainly were not dull during our brief stay at 34, Findlater Terrace, Walham Green. Fully equipped, and arrayed in our extraordinary garments, we duly arrived there, in a rickety four-wheeler, on the top of which were perched two seedy-looking boxes.