The other shrugged his shoulders. “He has many business connections abroad, and probably is engaged in a deal. He owns about a third of the vineyards in the Champagne. I suppose you know that?” The inspector nodded. Then, for some reason or other, a silence fell upon them. Each man was busy with his own thoughts, and Mr. Parr particularly was thinking of Froyant, and wondering why he had gone to Toulouse. “How did you know he had gone to Toulouse?” asked Derrick Yale. The question was so unexpected, such a startling continuation of his own thoughts, that Parr jumped. “Good heavens!” he said, “can you read a man’s mind?” “Sometimes,” said Yale, unsmilingly. “I thought he had gone to Paris.” “He went to Toulouse,” said the inspector shortly, and did not explain how he came to know. Possibly nothing Derrick Yale had ever done, no demonstration he had given of his gifts, had so disconcerted this placid inspector of police as that experiment in thought transference. It alarmed, indeed, frightened him, and he was still shaken in his mind when Harvey Froyant’s telephone call came through. “Is that you, Parr? I want you to come to my house. Bring Yale with you. I have a very important communication to make.” Inspector Parr hung up the receiver deliberately. “Now, what the devil does he know?” he said, speaking to himself, and Derrick Yale’s keen eyes, which had not left the inspector’s face all the time he was speaking, shone for a moment with a strange light. * * * * Thalia Drummond had finished her simple dinner and was engaged in the domestic task of darning a stocking. Her undomestic task, which was of greater urgency, was to prevent herself thinking of Jack Beardmore. There were times when the thought of him was an acute agony, and since such moments of quietness and solitude as these were favourable for such meditation, she had just put down her work and turned to something new for distraction, when the door bell rang. It was a district messenger, and he carried in his hand a square parcel that looked like a boot box. It was addressed to her in pen-printed characters, and she had a little flutter at her heart as she realised from whom it had come. Back in her room she cut the string and opened the box. On the top lay a letter which she read. It was from the Crimson Circle, and ran: “_You know the way into Froyant’s house. There is an entrance from the garden into the bomb-proof shelter beneath his study. Gain admission, taking with you the contents of this box. Wait in the underground room until I give you further instructions._”