"Yes; last night." "Last night!" He was holding the glass in which the waiter had brought his brandy in his hand. As he echoed my words he brought it down upon the marble-topped table with a crash. It was strange that it was not splintered. "Last night, as I came from Brighton." Mr. Townsend must have been in an oddly clumsy mood. As I spoke it seemed to me that he deliberately knocked his glass off the table on to the floor. When he bent over it, it was to find it shivered into fragments. From the waiter, who came to remove the broken remnants, he ordered a fresh supply of brandy. I had my glass replenished too. "Have you a double, Mr. Townsend, moving about the world?" He was raising his glass to his lips when I put the question. He spoke before he drank. "A double? What on earth do you mean?" "Because it was from the lips of your double I heard the name of Louise O'Donnel." "My double?" He put down his glass, untasted. "I came up with him in the same train last night from Brighton." "You came up with him in the same train last night from Brighton? With whom?" "Your double." His face was absolutely ghastly. He had gone white to the lips, and a curiously unnatural, sickly white. I could not make him out at all. I suspected that he could not make me out either. I know that something about him had for me, just then, a dreadful sort of fascination. "I do not know, Mr. Tennant, if you are enjoying a little jest at my expense. I am not conscious of having a double, nor am I conscious of having come up with you last night in the same train from Brighton. By what train did you travel?" "By the 8.40 express." "By the train, that is, which leaves Brighton at 8.40?" "Yes; and which arrives in town at ten." Unless I was mistaken, a look of distinct relief passed over his face. "Oh, then, you certainly never came from Brighton with me. It occurs to me, Mr. Tennant, that you are not looking well. You almost look as if you had had a recent serious shock. I trust that it is only my fancy." He looked at me with eager, searching eyes, which reminded me very acutely of the stranger's. "I am not feeling very well to-day, and that's a fact." "You don't look very well. By the by, how came this double of mine to mention the name?" Mr. Townsend nodded towards the sheet of paper, almost, as it seemed to me, as if he were unwilling to pronounce the name which was upon it. "He merely mentioned that he had been down to Brighton to look for a woman named Louise O'Donnel." Mr. Townsend's glass came down on to the table with the same startled gesture as before. If he was not careful, he would break a second one. And, since he glanced our way, so the waiter seemed to think. "Been looking for her? What had he been doing that for?" "That is more than I can tell you." Mr. Townsend sat and stared at me as if doubting whether I spoke the truth. "May I ask you, in my turn, what you know about this mysterious Louise O'Donnel?"