At Nice there is some society function every night during the season. This night it was a big ball in honour of a Spanish prince at Baron Boron's castle on its beautiful hill. All the Riviera world would be there. He and Watts, taken off duty temporarily, watched the departure of the motor containing Mrs. Erskine, the Clarks, and Major Vaughan. Leaving the other man near the gate to give an alarm, if need should arise, Pointer, after allowing the servants time to be gathered comfortably around the supper table, mounted a ladder as once before; but this time it was a silk one, which he lifted over the sill once he had entered by Mrs. Erskine's window, which stood open, for the night was warm. The door safely bolted, the Chief Inspector approached the safe and disconnected the alarums. Even his heart beat faster as he inserted the Foch key. It turned easily, the door swung open, and with a deep breath the police-officer took off his hat mentally to Foch as he looked inside. Three hours later he touched Watts on the shoulder, and leaving him to taxi back to the Negresco, where Mr. Crane was among the “not-invited,” Pointer sent off a pile of telegrams to all the air-stations near London. The replies drifted in next day. Among them was an answer to an earlier request for information concerning Major Vaughan. That officer had distinguished himself on several occasions during the Great War, and it was a matter of comment that he had not received either the Military or the Victoria Cross which had been as good as promised him. His means were believed to be small. He had not returned to London for many years now, and was reported to suffer from weak lungs, which needed Riviera sunshine. M. Guillaume of the Préfecture knew nothing against the major, any more than he did against the Clarks. All three seemed to the French police to be model Riviera guests, wealthy, well-born, and entertaining a good deal. Only the major's health was not up to the rest of his report. It sometimes necessitated seclusions for a week at a time in his charming bachelor flat, but Pointer agreed that this could hardly be considered a moral blemish. He walked along the Promenade des Anglais to think it all out. But in vain did the azure arms of land bend around one of the loveliest bays in the world, a sea of cobalt and violet and silver. In vain did sunshine, African in its splendour, beat on him. The Chief Inspector's thoughts were brooding on too black a crime to take their hue from Nature. Though he strolled under the palm trees beside beds of nodding cyclamen, in reality he walked only along a twisted, tortuous murder trail, which still baffled him. Now and again he faced the casino, rising from the sea with gilded cupolas and airy pinnacles like a fairy palace, but he saw ever instead a young man's dead face—and a wardrobe—and a poison draught—and motives obscure and dark.