The agent had made some inquiries of the police, and had also found out the man employed by Craig in his researches into the past of the girl whom he had so passionately loved and found so unworthy. He gathered that she and her mother were members of a big organization belonging to the exclusive circles of what might be called aristocratic crookdom. Many of the subordinates were known to the guardians of the law under different aliases, Madame Makris, a very old offender, and her daughter being amongst them. But the chiefs of the gang, the daring spirits who engineered the great coups, remained in seclusion, men not only of great ability, but possibly of considerable wealth. They never came out into the open, and nobody could lay hands on them. So Elise Makris, after that lucky escape from her enraged lover’s bullet, had disappeared where, in all human probability, no friend of Hugh would ever be able to find her. She and her mother had no doubt gone to another country, and would conceal their identity under other names. That of Makris had been made too public by recent events. The only description Lydon had of her was a somewhat indefinite one, taken from the _Phare du Littoral_, the Nice daily newspaper. There were, however, two clues still remaining, if ever he should chance to be thrown into contact with her. She would carry to her grave the mark of her dead lover’s bullet; no surgery could obliterate that. And she would wear that remarkable carved sapphire pendant which her mother declared she always carried about with her as a mascot. By those signs he would recognize Elise Makris under whatever alias she chose to masquerade. “That seems to close the chapter,” remarked Mr. Shelford, when he had imparted all that he had learned from his agent. “A terrible blow to the Clandon family. I saw his brother yesterday; he tells me the old people are prostrated with grief. That a man of the promise of Hugh Craig, with a brilliant future stretching in front of him, should have sought to imbrue his hands in the blood of such a shameless creature! It passes comprehension.” On the Saturday morning Lydon met Stormont at Waterloo Station, and they travelled down to Guildford together by an early train. At Guildford they were met by a splendid Rolls-Royce car driven by one of the smartest of chauffeurs. Profiteer or not, as the case might be, Howard Stormont knew how to do things properly. They went through a few miles of the beautiful Surrey country, till they came to some big open lodge gates. Passing through these, they drove up a broad avenue, shadowed by some splendid trees which would look magnificent later on in their summer raiment, and drew up before the low picturesque house.