“I venture to write to you and point these things out, and to ask you that you should immediately communicate with Lord Penshurst by telephone, as, although I am practically in ignorance of all that is going on about me, I realise that some very important matter is involved which Lord Penshurst desires to keep to himself.—I am, yours faithfully, “JAMES ROBINSON.” Westerham fastened the note down, sealed it, and handed it to Rookley, who instructed Moore to take it immediately to Downing Street. There, Moore told Rookley afterwards, he had the unusual experience of seeing Mr. Hilden go pale as death, and of hearing him mutter excitedly to himself. Then the private telephone was busy for some ten minutes, and presently Mr. Hilden came back still greatly agitated, and told Moore to instruct Rookley that Mr. Robinson was on no account to be detained. Both the men were, moreover, enjoined to complete silence, and told that not a word of the matter must be breathed to anyone except the Commissioner himself. When Moore came back with these various messages, Rookley sat for some moments as though entirely overcome. When at last he spoke his voice was husky. “I don't know what it's all about, sir,” he said to Westerham, “or who you may be. Apparently it is none of my business to inquire; but I tell you frankly that this beats everything that I have ever known in the course of my long experience. “You will naturally have to take another room, as the body must not be touched till the police-surgeon has seen it, when it can be removed to the mortuary. You will get your summons for the inquest in the morning.” He went into the bedroom where the dead man lay and shut the door with a bang. Westerham, without even troubling to gather together his different effects, rang the bell and ordered another room. But, as may be imagined, he did not sleep much; indeed, he sat and smoked throughout the entire night, trying to account for the real motive which underlay the murder. Slowly, too, he began to see that he had underrated Melun's resources and fiendish cleverness; for this was evidently Melun's work. Yet it was difficult to account for Melun's presence in his club at the moment of the perpetration of the crime. Melun must have acted with almost superhuman swiftness and ingenuity. Piecing the affair together as best he could, Westerham came to the conclusion that after the men had left Limehouse Melun must have purchased Crow's adherence out and out; and this more than ever puzzled Westerham to understand what the amazing mystery in which he was entangled meant. He could well believe now that the stake was even greater than the quarter of a million the captain himself had mentioned.