"Lord Cranmere is of opinion that the man you found in hiding at Holt must, from the descriptions which have been given of him, at some time or other have been a gentleman. I say, 'No; that no gentleman could sink so low as to become a common criminal of that kind.' One can understand a gentleman, by which I mean a man of education and careful upbringing, being driven, through force of circumstances, to rob a bank, or even to forge a signature to a cheque; but for such a man to sink to the level of a common housebreaker is unthinkable—don't you agree with me?" Her eyes shone strangely as they rested upon mine. Not until now had the wonderful intelligence in their purple-green depths struck me so forcibly. From the orange-tinted lamps before her on the table the light which shone up in her face seemed to increase their brilliance, accentuate their expression and their power. It imparted, too, to her extraordinary complexion a peculiar, livid tint, while the masses of her burnished, red-brown hair, coiled about her head in great ropes and dressed low in her neck, was shot with a chestnut shade which greatly enhanced its beauty. I paused before answering. For fully ten minutes she had not addressed me, so deeply engaged had she been in conversation with Lord Cranmere. Why should she all at once interrupt her talk and put this question to me? None but Sir Roland Challoner and I were aware of the dead man's identity; even we had no actual proof that he had been Lord Logan's son, though our discovery of the locket, considered in relation to certain facts known to Sir Roland, left no room for doubt. That locket Sir Roland had appropriated in order that the dead man's identity might not be traced and the family name tarnished. Jasmine Gastrell must of course be aware of his identity? Did she suspect that I knew his name, and could this be an attempt to entrap me into revealing that I knew it? "That is a question difficult to answer," I said guardedly. "I believe there are instances on record of men of education, of men even of good birth, sinking to the lowest depth of degradation when once they had begun to tread the downward path. It would be interesting to know who that man really was. He wouldn't tell his name, wouldn't even hint at it." "So that of course you don't know it." "Naturally." Again that keen, searching expression in the large, luminous eyes. They seemed to look right through me. They seemed to read my thoughts and wrest my secrets from me. "And you found nothing upon him that might have given you a clue, I suppose; nothing in his pockets, no marks upon the body, there was nothing he was wearing that might have put you on the track?" "Absolutely nothing," I answered, thinking of the locket as I looked straight into her eyes. Never before had I realized how cleverly I could lie.