"What had Dibbin done?" asked David. "He hadn't done anything; but still I gave him a piece of my mind, for I was wild." "Poor Dibbin! he is still shaky from it. He has mentioned to me that you went off with a noise like a catherine-wheel. But you never found any papers at all in the flat?" "No--except one, or rather two, and those Strauss never got." "How was that?" "Because I didn't find them till the day after we had had the row, when my trunks were ready packed to go, and I wasn't going to give them to him then, for his cheek. Besides, they didn't concern him; they were only a marriage certificate, and the certificate of a birth which fell out of a picture." David sat up, saying: "How do you mean, 'fell out of a picture'?" "As we were carrying out the trunks, there was a bump, and one of the pictures in the corridor came down. The boards at the back of it must have been loose, for they fell out, and among them was an envelope with the two certificates in it." "Now, I bless my stars that ever I came to you," said David. "This may be the very thing I want." "How many of you are after papers in that flat, I should like to know. First there was Strauss, then that young lady, and now you--" "Which young lady?" asked David. "Why, I hadn't been in the flat three days when a young lady, a tall, dark girl came, and practically insulted me. She wanted to know what was my motive for coming into the flat, and if I was the agent of any one, and if I meant to purloin any papers which I might find. Well, I'm not one for taking much sauce from another woman; for I've got red hair, as you can see for yourself, but somehow I couldn't be hard on her, she had had some big trouble, I could tell--a bit touched somewhere, too, I thought, suspicious as a bird, sick at the very name of Strauss! She had dropped to it all right that I was there to serve Strauss's ends, and she went on her bended knees to me, asking me not to do it. I couldn't quite make out what it was all about, or what there was between her and Strauss, for she wouldn't tell me. It was something pretty strong, for when I told Strauss about her visit, I thought the man was going to drop dead. Her name was Violet Mordaunt. I remember it; for Mordaunt was also the family name of the woman in the marriage certificate--" "Why did you not send this marriage certificate to Violet Mordaunt?" asked David, "since you did not give it to Strauss?" "I would have sent it to her, I'm sure, but I didn't have her address. She did leave me an address that day she came; but, to tell the truth, I didn't take the whole to-do about papers, papers, papers, seriously, and Lord knows what became of the address--" "Oh, good heavens, how selfish and careless!" groaned David.