Leonard and Gloria were married a month before Jasper Stormont and his wife left England for China. That last month they spent in London. It was a very quiet wedding; a cousin of the bridegroom officiated as one of the bridesmaids, the two others were girl friends of the bride, and had been her bosom friends at Effington, where the memory of Howard Stormont was still held in kindly remembrance by those who would have been horrified if they had known the truth about him. Mr. Grewgus was present at the ceremony, and presented dainty gifts to both bride and bridegroom. Leonard had bought a charming house in the neighbourhood of Godalming with some four acres of pretty grounds. It could not compare with the magnificence of Effington Hall, where Howard Stormont had played the rôle of country gentleman what time he was hatching his evil schemes in conjunction with his taciturn fellow-criminal, John Whitehouse. But to Gloria it was a haven of peace and delight, with her flowers and dogs and the sweet sounds and scents of country life. She and her young husband are devoted to each other, and although they have the most friendly relations with their neighbours, are full of happiness when they are alone. Twelve months had passed, and the villainy of Stormont and his associates had become almost a faint memory to the young wedded couple. Grewgus was always engaged in fresh investigations, and the case to which he had given so much time and attention had almost been jostled out of his mind by fresh problems. Then one morning in the newspaper he read something that greatly startled him and sent his thoughts travelling back to the strenuous time when he had made that journey to Paris in pursuit of the woman suspected to be Elise Makris. His eye caught sight of the headline. “Murder and suicide in a small Devonshire village.” Two very clear portraits of the victim, a woman, and the murderer who had shot himself after killing her, stared at him from the pages of the newspapers. The woman was Elise Makris, to call her by the first name under which he had known of her in these pages; the man was Bertram Edwards. The report stated that a Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter Mrs. Baradine had come to this village about a year ago, where they had purchased a house of moderate size. They led a quiet and secluded life, only mixing infrequently with the few neighbours of a respectable class around them. Both women gave themselves out as widows. They attended church regularly and visited at the Vicar’s house. Although little was known about them, they had made a very favourable impression on everybody with whom they had come in contact. The daughter was quite a young woman and of remarkable beauty.