I tried to get from him all that he knew concerning Elma, but he seemed, for some curious reason, disinclined to tell. All I could gather was that Leithcourt was in league with Chater and Woodroffe, and that Muriel had acted as an entirely innocent agent. What the conspiracy was, or what was its motive, I could not discern. I was as far off the solution of the problem as ever. "We must first find Muriel," he declared, when I pressed him to tell me everything he knew. "There are facts you have told me which negative my own theories, and only from her can we obtain the real truth." "But surely you know where she is? She writes to you," I said. "The last letter, which I received at Gib. ten days ago, was from the Hotel Bristol, at Botzen, in the Tyrol, yet Bartlett says she has been seen down at Eastbourne." "But you have an address where you always write to her, I suppose?" "Yes, a secret one. I have written and made an appointment, but she has not kept it. She has been prevented, of course. She may be with her parents, and unable to come to London." "You did not know that they had fled, and were in hiding?" "Of course not. What I've heard to-night is news to me--amazing news." "And does it not convey to you the truth?" "It does--a ghastly truth concerning Elma Heath," he answered in a low voice, as though speaking to himself. "Tell me. What? I'm dying, Jack, to know everything concerning her. Who is that fellow Oberg?" "Her enemy. She, by mere accident, learned his secret and Woodroffe's, and they now both live in deadly fear of her." "And for that reason she was taken to Siena, where some villainous Italian doctor was bribed to render her deaf and dumb." He nodded in the affirmative. "But Chater?" "I know very little concerning him. He may have conspired with them, or he may be innocent. It seems as though he were antagonistic to their schemes, if Leithcourt and his family really fled from him." "And yet he was on board the _Lola_. Indeed, he may have helped to commit the burglary at the Consulate," I said. "Quite likely," he answered. "But our first object must be to rediscover Muriel. Paget says she is in Eastbourne. If she is there, we shall easily find her. They publish visitors' lists in the papers, don't they, like they do at Hastings?" Then he added: "Visitors' lists are most annoying when you find your name printed in them when you are supposed officially to be somewhere else. I was had once like that by the Bournemouth papers, when I was supposed to be on duty over at Queenstown. I narrowly escaped a terrible wigging." "Shall we go to Eastbourne?" I suggested eagerly. "I'll go there with you in the morning." "Or would it not be best to send an urgent wire to the address where I always write? She would then reply here, no doubt. If she's in Eastbourne, there may be reasons why she cannot come up to town. If her people are in hiding, of course she won't come. But she'll make an appointment with me, no doubt."