As for Elsie, the smile in her eyes died out as she descended the stairs. If she had been herself a lawyer, she could not have worn a graver face as she walked across the courts of the venerable Inn. She had established the connection between Mr. Dering and Edmund Gray. It was he, and nobody else, who laid those letters on the table--placed those things in the safe. This being so, it must be he himself, and nobody else, who wrote all the letters, signed the cheques, and did all the mischief. He himself! But how? Elsie had read of hypnotism. Wonderful things are done daily by mesmerists and magnetisms under their new name. Mr. Dering was hypnotised by this man Edmund Gray--as he called himself--for his own base ends. Well--she would find out this Edmund Gray. She would beard this villain in his own den. She walked resolutely to Gray's Inn. She found No. 22--she mounted the stairs. The outer door was closed. She knocked, but there was no answer. She remembered how George had found his laundress, and visited her at her lodgings--she thought she would do the same. But on the stairs she went down she met an old woman so dirty, so ancient, so feeble, that she seemed to correspond with George's account of her. 'You are Mr. Gray's laundress?' she asked. 'Yes, Miss; I am.' The woman looked astonished to see such a visitor. 'I want to see him. I want to see him on very important business. Most important to himself. When can I see him?' 'I don't know, Miss. He is uncertain. He was here yesterday evening. He said he should not be here this evening. But I don't know.' 'Look here.' Elsie drew out her purse. 'Tell me when you think he will be here, and if I find him I will give you two pounds--two golden sovereigns. If you tell me right I will give you two sovereigns.' She showed them. The old woman looked hungrily at the coins. 'Well, Miss, he's been here every Saturday afternoon for the last six months. I know it by the litter of papers that he makes. Every Saturday afternoon.' 'Very good. You shall have your money if I find him.' In the evening, Elsie said nothing about Mr. Dering and her strange discovery. The two young men talked about trying this way and that way, always with the view of implicating Checkley. But she said nothing. CHAPTER XXI I AM EDMUND GRAY