In a few minutes the stranger had put several startling facts into my possession. Of these the most important were that on at least four occasions Connie Stapleton had deliberately exercised a hypnotic control over Dulcie, and thus obtained even greater influence over her than she already possessed; that Jack Osborne, whom I had always believed to be wholly unsusceptible to female influence, was fast falling in love, or, if not falling in love, becoming infatuated with Jasmine Gastrell—the stranger declared that Mrs. Gastrell had fallen in love with him, but that I could not believe; that an important member of this notorious gang of criminals which mixed so freely in Society was Sir Roland's wastrel brother, Robert, of whom neither Sir Roland nor any member of his family had heard for years; and that Mrs. Stapleton intended to cause Dulcie to become seriously ill while abroad, then to induce Sir Roland to come to France to see her, and finally to marry him on the other side of the Channel in the small town where she intended that Dulcie should be taken ill. There were reasons, he said, though he would not reveal them then, why she wished to marry Sir Roland on the Continent instead of in England, and she knew of no other way of inducing him to cross the Channel but the means she intended to employ. The man hardly stopped speaking when I sprang to my feet. "How much do you want for the information you have given me?" I exclaimed, hardly able to conceal the intense excitement I felt. He named a high figure, and so reckless did I feel at that instant that I told him I would pay the amount to him in gold—he had stipulated for gold—if he would call at my flat in South Molton Street at five o'clock on the following afternoon. His expressions of gratitude appeared, I must say, to be most genuine. "And may I ask," he said, "what you propose to do now?" "Propose to do!" I cried. "Why, go direct to Willow Road, of course, force an entrance, and take Miss Challoner away—by force, if need be." "You propose to go there alone?" "Yes. For the past fortnight I have somehow suspected there might be some secret understanding between Mr. Osborne and Mrs. Gastrell—they have been so constantly together, though he has more than once assured me that his intimacy was only with a view to obtaining her confidence. I don't know why I should believe your word, the word of a stranger, in preference to his, but now you tell me what you have told me I remember many little things which all point to the likelihood of your statement that he is in love with Mrs. Gastrell being true."