The butler being out that afternoon it was Harris who let her mistress in, and as the latter asked no questions, the girl did not volunteer the information that her master had a visitor. She went back to the servants’ hall, but five minutes later the smoking-room bell rang, and she had to run up again. The foreign lady was then in the hall alone, and obviously waiting to be shown out. This Harris did, after which Mr. Culledon came out of his room, and, in the girl’s own graphic words, “he went on dreadful.” “I didn’t know I ’ad done anything so very wrong,” she explained, “but the master seemed quite furious, and said I wasn’t a proper parlour-maid, or I’d have known that visitors must not be shown in straight away like that. I ought to have said that I didn’t know if Mr. Culledon was in; that I would go and see. Oh, he did go on at me!” continued Katherine Harris, volubly. “And I suppose he complained to the mistress, for she give me notice the next day.” “And you have never seen the foreign lady since?” concluded Lady Molly. “No; she never come while I was there.” “By the way, how did you know she was foreign. Did she speak like a foreigner?” “Oh, no,” replied the girl. “She did not say much--only asked for Mr. Culledon--but she looked French like.” This unanswerable bit of logic concluded Katherine’s statement. She was very anxious to know whether, if the foreign lady was hanged for murder, she herself would get the £250. On Lady Molly’s assurance that she certainly would, she departed in apparent content. 3 “Well! we are no nearer than we were before,” said the chief, with an impatient sigh, when the door had closed behind Katherine Harris. “Don’t you think so?” rejoined Lady Molly, blandly. “Do you consider that what we have heard just now has helped us to discover who was the woman in the big hat?” retorted the chief, somewhat testily. “Perhaps not,” replied my dear lady, with her sweet smile; “but it may help us to discover who murdered Mr. Culledon.” With which enigmatical statement she effectually silenced the chief, and finally walked out of his office, followed by her faithful Mary. Following Katherine Harris’s indications, a description of the lady who was wanted in connection with the murder of Mr. Culledon was very widely circulated, and within two days of the interview with the ex-parlour-maid another very momentous one took place in the same office. Lady Molly was at work with the chief over some reports, whilst I was taking shorthand notes at a side desk, when a card was brought in by one of the men, and the next moment, without waiting either for permission to enter or to be more formally announced, a magnificent apparition literally sailed into the dust-covered little back office, filling it with an atmosphere of Parma violets and russia leather.