"Normansgrave!" he repeated over and over to himself. "Why, that's the Vanstons' place! His brother's place! Well, of all the fools, that detective of mine, Burnett, was the worst! And yet, of all the places that I should have thought he would not have taken her to, his brother's place was certainly the one." He was so thoroughly disconcerted that he actually grinned. "I thought they had slipped through his fingers somewhere," he reflected. "He said he was certain that he sent her across from Plymouth--such stuff! I told him. I said, 'He left her somewhere between London and Basingstoke, or my name's not Rankin Leigh.' But they always think they know best, these blooming detectives! Well, it's a queer thing! Young Vanston must have brought her here, yet I'll swear that he never went near the place himself, and, what's more, I can swear that his brother didn't know where he was, unless Denzil Vanston, Esq., is the most finished liar on the face of the earth. Why, at that very time, he was paying the police a pretty penny to find the ticket-of-leaver--or his corpse! Humph! Well, I thought I had only a woman to deal with, but if the two Vanstons are in it the difficulties will be greater than I had foreseen. What did become of the other one, after all? Well, there may be some information to be got up at the hotel yonder, that's one thing." He hurried back to the second-rate inn where he had put up, and, in the course of an hour or two, had found out something of some importance. The Squire had just gone abroad--very unexpectedly. It was even known at the post-office that he had had a cable from Siberia. This was good news. Leigh determined upon his plan of action. He would ask humbly, but with firmness, so as to imply that he could enforce obedience if he chose--he would ask that his niece be allowed to come and stay with him in his flat in London, to show that all was right between them. He would speculate; he would hire a furnished flat in a good position for a month, no matter at what cost. And he would take the girl about--give her clothes and a few jewels; take her to the theater and to race-meetings--he believed that the men to whom he could introduce her would do the rest. For all the latter part of his life, the man had been a hanger-on at stage doors, a theatrical agent, a go-between of the profession. He believed all women to be like those with whom he was in daily contact--greedy, grasping, pleasure-loving, non-moral. To him, the life he found Rona living--going to church with a maiden lady--was a life from which any handsome young girl would escape, if she could.