It appeared that about a quarter past eleven on the night in question, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a widow living on the third floor was returning home from some small jollification when she saw, just as she approached the door, three persons come out. Two were men, one tall, well built and clean-shaven, the other short and stout, with a fair toothbrush mustache. The third person was Miss Merrill. A street lamp had shone directly on their faces as they emerged, and the girl had noticed that the men wore serious expressions and that Miss Merrill looked pale and anxious, as if all three were sharers in some bad news. They crossed the sidewalk to a waiting motor. Miss Merrill and the taller man got inside, the second man driving. During the time the girl saw them, none of them spoke. She remembered the car. It was a yellow one with a coach body, and looked a private vehicle. Yes, she recognized the photograph the Inspector showed her—Blessington’s. It was that of the driver of the car. It did not seem worth while to French to try to trace the car, as he fancied he knew where it had gone. From Horne Terrace to Sime’s house in Colton Street was about a ten minute run. Therefore if it left the former about 11:15, it should reach the latter a minute or two before the half-hour. This worked in with the time at which the invalid lady, Mrs. Sproule, had heard the motor stop in the street, and to French it seemed clear that Miss Merrill had been taken direct to Sime’s, and kept there until 1:45 P.M. on the following day. What arguments or threats the pair had used to get her to accompany them French could not tell, but he shrewdly suspected that they had played the same trick on her as on Cheyne. In all probability they had told her that Cheyne had met with an accident and was conscious and asking for her. Once in the cab it would have been child’s play for a powerful man like Sime to have chloroformed her, and having got her to the house, they could easily have kept her helpless and semi-conscious by means of drugs. French returned on foot to the Yard, thinking over the affair as he walked. It certainly had a sinister look. These men were very much in earnest. They had not hesitated to resort to murder in the case of Cheyne—it was through, to them, an absolutely unforeseen accident that he escaped—and French felt he would not give much for Joan Merrill’s chances.