“The police have made full inquiries about Lady Violet Bredwardine. She was a patient of Dr. Weathered’s and a member of the Domino Club, apparently. But they have ascertained that she wasn’t in London on the night when he met his death. She was down at her father’s place in Herefordshire.” “I don’t believe it,” was the angry reply. “I don’t mean that you are trying to deceive me, but the police haven’t told you the truth. I am as certain that she was there that night as I am that I am in this room. She was with him in the very alcove where he was found dead.” In her wrath she had given herself away. Her statement almost amounted to saying that she had seen them together. I looked at my chief in the hope that he would pounce on the admission, but he contented himself with nodding to me to go on. “You speak very positively, Miss Neobard. May I ask you how you know that?” The question plainly disconcerted her. It must have opened her eyes to the fact that she was saying too much. “I don’t see what that has to do with it,” she answered stubbornly. “You can ask anyone who was there. Ask them if they saw someone wearing a Roman helmet and breastplate with a skirt underneath. That was her disguise.” I was staggered. The girl’s persistence irritated me, and I spoke sharply. “You can’t possibly know that, when she was more than a hundred miles away at the time. Did you speak to her--to whoever it was that was wearing that costume?” It appeared that I had let myself go too far this time. I saw Tarleton frown disapprovingly. Sarah Neobard gazed at me in alarm. “I speak to her?” she echoed. “What do you mean? I wasn’t--I’m not a member of the Club.” A warning glance from my chief stopped the retort that was on my lips. I was longing to tell the accuser that she had been under suspicion herself, but I saw that in Tarleton’s opinion I was taking the wrong line. My indignation on Violet Bredwardine’s behalf had betrayed me into showing our cards too soon. The girl herself seemed to feel that some explanation was needed for her confident assertions. “If you want to know who was wearing that disguise, ask Madame Bonnell. She is the manager of the Club, and she can tell you everything that went on there.” A swift movement of the physician’s eyebrows told me that this was the sort of admission he had been watching for. He intervened, I had little doubt, to prevent my drawing attention to it. “I think Miss Neobard ought to be told that the wearer of the Zenobia costume was not the only one whose movements attracted attention on that night.” I was eager to take the cue. It was time to give Lady Violet’s enemy a taste of her own medicine. “Yes,” I said sternly, “the dancer who was seen oftenest in company with Dr. Weathered that night wore the costume of Salome. Can you tell us anything about her?”