He was determined to pluck at the heart of the mystery. Two hours after it had been given to him by Mrs. Barnard, he stood in his rooms in Ryder Street, and the letter from Howard Stormont to Zillah Mayhew was lying open in his hand. This is what he read: “My very clever Zillah.--I have seen Edwards and arranged everything. You will leave for Paris to-morrow and wait at the _Hôtel Terminus_ for further instructions. Edwards will bring or write them. Show this to Whitehouse and then destroy.--Uncle.” He read it through a dozen times, and then he carefully resealed the flap, for the gum was still wet from the steam he had applied. When it had dried under the weight of some heavy body, he went out and posted it in the nearest pillar-box. In all probability, Miss Mayhew would not glance at the postmark. What did it all mean? Zillah Mayhew was intimately connected with Stormont’s business, whatever it might be. Of what nature was this peculiar business that required a female partner? On the face of it, that brief epistle might refer to a perfectly legitimate transaction. A woman’s subtle influence might be necessary to secure some special concession, some particular contract. But the more he thought it over, the more he rejected this explanation. The predominant thought in his mind about Howard Stormont, the country gentleman who played his rôle with such absolute enjoyment of it, was that he was a very different person from what he appeared to his neighbours at Effington. And this suspicion would become a certainty if he could prove that Elise Makris, the decoy of swindlers and blackmailers, was none other than Zillah Mayhew, the niece, or pretended niece, of the taciturn Whitehouse. But would it become a certainty without further corroborative evidence? Going into the question a little more deeply, he was bound to admit it would not. After all, he had nothing but undefined suspicions with regard to Stormont. He would be bound to give him the benefit of the doubt. If the girl were found to be Elise Makris, it did not follow that Stormont was aware of her criminal activities. It was not an absolute certainty that even Whitehouse, if he were her uncle, knew of them. She was obviously a very clever, resourceful young woman; she would not go about proclaiming her nefarious profession from the housetops. Stormont might have originally made her acquaintance in a quite simple and ordinary way, and found her talents useful to him in a peculiar line of business that entailed the exercise of a considerable amount of diplomacy. In fair-mindedness he felt bound to reason on these lines. But, all the same, his instincts loudly confuted his reasoning. And those instincts told him that the rubicund financier was very different from what he appeared to be. CHAPTER EIGHT