“We know only of two women who acted as companions to Mrs. Erskine. First a Scotswoman, Janet Fraser by name, whom she mentions once in a letter about a year after her husband's death. She is dead. Then in a mortgage executed by Mrs. Erskine some four years later as a witness to her signature we have an entry of ‘Mabel Baker. Companion to Mrs. Erskine.’ Am posting document to you.” Mabel Baker! Mabel—— Pointer's eyes snapped. The passport of Mrs. Clark found in the safe at the villa did not give her maiden name, but he had written to the passport office for the particulars furnished by her when applying for it. On her application form she had entered her name as Mabel Baker, daughter of Arthur Baker, of Norwich. He had tried unsuccessfully to find out anything about Arthur Baker, the father, and all that he knew of herself and her husband was that their forms had been signed by their London bank-manager, who was unable after so many years to furnish any particulars Their address was a house in Kensington which had long ago been converted into flats, so that all efforts to trace the couple further back or further forward had failed, but here at last was a new fact that fitted a theory of Robert Erskine's murder, which since the night when Foch's key had opened the safe had been steadily accumulating weight in his mind. Christine felt more and more disappointed as the weeks passed and no sign came from Pointer. Nothing seemed to be being done. He had spoken of spade work, but she feared that the police had dug themselves in, and that valuable time was being lost. She even began to doubt their keenness. After all it was they who had actually blundered so far as to imprison her John. Might they not be off on some other equally wild-goose chase? Carter preached patience at their weekly meetings, but he could not hide his surprise at the slowness of the official tempo. Pointer would have been grimly amused could he have heard them. The two young people talked in odd _confiseries_ or took excursions together, meeting “by chance” in the tram, and having lunch “by chance” in the same inns, with a tea also by the same coincidence in the same cake-shop, or on the same hotel verandah. Luck, however, never favoured them to such an extent that they were quite alone. Some man, now old, now young, now middle-aged, was sure to be already there, or come in with them, or enter before they were more than seated. It never occurred to Christine that the faithful Watts was on duty, and that a great deal more than she would have cared for was absorbed by his attentive ears.