Mr. Doyle noted these developments and smiled; he had already obtained enough money, upon completely false pretences, to furnish two houses instead of one; and he was quite able to write other kinds of fiction. Besides the editorial offices of _The Courier_ there was another room in London in which uneasy thought had become the order of the day, and this was whatever room happened to be occupied by Miss Laura Howard. As a general rule this room was Mr. Priestley’s study. Laura had noticed a subtle change in Mr. Priestley. It had seemed to date from Monday morning. He had not talked to her very much at lunch and had looked at her several times in a curious way. Finally she asked laughingly if he was suffering from indigestion. Mr. Priestley had repudiated the indigestion, but mumbled something about this wretched business being more serious than he had realised. Hiding a stab of conscience under a smile, Laura remarked that he’d cheer up all right when he saw all the gorgeous things she’d bought. Mr. Priestley’s only reply had been to look as if he would burst into tears at the sight of them. After lunch, too, he had been queer. Setting her down almost peremptorily to the Juvenal again, he had announced that he had to go out for a short time. He did not return till past five o’clock; and though he was then no longer quite so mournful as at lunch, his seriousness had, if anything, increased. He also contrived (a considerable feat) to impart that seriousness to Laura herself. “You know,” said Mr. Priestley, looking at her very intently over his second cup of tea, “I have no wish to frighten you unduly, but this matter is very much more alarming than we thought, Laura.” “Oh?” said Laura, impressed in spite of herself by his weightiness. What on earth had happened now? Mr. Priestley selected a piece of currant cake with some care. “I’m afraid there is a great deal of which you know nothing at all. For instance, we were quite wrong when we assumed the title ‘Crown Prince’ to be a species of nickname for the dead man. It was nothing of the sort. Nor, indeed, was he the man you imagined.” “Oh?” said the surprised Laura, who had heard from Cynthia only a few hours ago exactly how the Crown Prince had come into it at all, together with all the rest of the events following her own departure from the scene. “What was he, then?” she asked. “A real Crown Prince,” replied Mr. Priestley solemnly. Laura struggled with a wild desire to laugh. “Was he really?” she managed to say with equal solemnity, trying to remember the precise points of the story she had invented the previous morning. “Indeed he was,” nodded Mr. Priestley. “So now you can see the pickle we’re in. I have a friend in the Foreign Office whom I went to see this afternoon, and I must admit that I did go with an ulterior motive. I went, in fact, to pump him.” Mr. Priestley spoke in a deprecating way and looked a little ashamed of himself.