“One moment, please.” The physician detained the woman by a gesture. “Can you tell me if this costume has been where you just found it during the whole of last week? Would it have been possible for anyone to take it without your knowledge, send it away, and put it back again afterwards?” It was a fatal question, the one question I ought to have anticipated and prepared for. Violet’s face must have betrayed her to a duller eye than my shrewd chief’s. As for Henderson, she gazed stupidly at her mistress in the evident need of prompting. The irascible father could see this as plainly as ourselves. “The truth, woman!” he thundered. “Tell the truth this instant.” Henderson turned very red. “I had no wish to tell anything else, my lord. The drawer wasn’t locked, that’s all I can say. I can’t tell whether anyone might have taken the costume out and put it back again, I’m sure.” “Thank you. That is all I have to ask of you at present.” Nothing in Tarleton’s tone or look showed what amount of importance he attached to the answer he had received; and the woman, after gazing uneasily round at us all in turn, went out of the room with a subdued mien. What the effect was on me, I need scarcely say. The whole question of Violet’s connection with the case had been reopened. If the astute investigator chose to follow up the clue he would not find it difficult to obtain evidence through the post office that a parcel large enough to contain the incriminating costume had been received by Lady Violet since the discovery of the crime. It might not be possible to trace it to me as the sender, but she might be placed in such a position that only a full confession on my part could clear her. That confession, of course, I had been ready to make all along, the moment it could do her the least service. My difficulty had been to make it without involving her as what the law calls an accessory before the fact. How could my chief, how could Inspector Charles, fail to draw the inference that we had acted in collusion, and that she had lent me her disguise knowing the use I meant to make of it? The torturing problem racked my brain the whole time that Sir Frank was explaining the situation to Lord Ledbury. The explanation was a painful one. He did his best to soften the ugliest features, but it could not be concealed that Lady Violet had consulted a doctor without the knowledge of her father or her chaperon, that the doctor had died in suspicious circumstances, and that some suspicion had attached to the wearer of a fancy dress similar to the one spread out before us.