“The stranger seems to have gone away at about half-past ten, and subsequently again Mrs. Markham came home accompanied by her brother, Mr. Paulton. The next morning she went out at a quarter past eleven o’clock, and about half an hour later the mysterious stranger called again. “This time he pushed his way straight into the sitting-room; but the very next moment he uttered a cry of intense horror and astonishment, and rushed back into the hall, gesticulating wildly, and shrieking: ‘A robbery!—a murder!—I go for the police!’ And before Mrs. Bowden could stop him, or even could realise what had occurred, he had dashed out of the house. “‘I called to Meggie,’ continued Mrs. Bowden, ‘I was so frightened, I didn’t dare go into the parlour alone. But she was more frightened than I was, and we stood trembling in the hall waiting for the police. At last I began to have my suspicions, and I got Meggie to run out into the street and see if she could bring in a policeman.’ “When the police at last arrived upon the scene, they pushed open the sitting-room door, and there found Captain Markham in a most helpless condition, his hands tied behind his back, and himself half-choked by the scarf over his mouth. As soon as he recovered his breath, he explained that he had no idea who his assailant was; he was standing with his back to the door, when he was suddenly dealt a blow on the head from behind, and he remembered nothing more. “In the meantime Mrs. Markham had come home, and of course was horrified beyond measure at the outrage which had been committed. She declared that her jewel-case was in the sitting-room when she went out in the morning—a fact confirmed by Captain Markham himself. “But here, at once, the police were seriously puzzled. Mrs. Bowden, of course, told her story of the foreigner—a story which was corroborated by her daughter, Meggie. Captain Markham, pressed by the police, and by his wife, admitted that a friend had visited him the evening before. “‘He is an old friend I met years ago abroad, who happened to be in Portsmouth yesterday, and quite accidentally caught sight of me as I drove up to this door, and naturally came in to see me,’ was the Captain’s somewhat lame explanation. “Nothing more was to be got out of him that day; he was still feeling very bewildered he said, and certainly he looked very ill. Mrs. Markham then put the whole matter in the hands of the police.