"Oh, really. And you will pardon my asking, was Lady Thorold also aware that you and her daughter sat alone together late at night, smoking cigarettes and addressing each other by your Christian names?" Now I am fairly even-tempered, but this local solicitor's objectionable insinuations ended by stirring me up. This, very likely, was what he desired that they should do. "My dear sir," I exclaimed, "will you tell me if these questions of yours have any bearing at all upon the matter you are inquiring into, and if your very offensive innuendoes are intended as veiled, or rather as unveiled, insults to Miss Thorold or to myself?" I heard some one near me murmur, "Hear, hear," at the back of the room. The comment encouraged me. "You will not address me in that fashion again, please," my interlocutor answered hotly, reddening. "In what fashion?" "You will not call me `your dear sir.' I object. I strongly object." A titter of amusement trickled through the room. My adversary's fingers-- for he had become an adversary--twitched. "I was under the impression," he remarked pompously, "that I was addressing a gentleman." I am not good at smart retorts, but I got one in when I answered him. "A gentleman--I?" I exclaimed blandly. "I assure you, my dear sir, that I don't pose as a gentleman. I am quite a common man--just like yourself." Considerable laughter greeted this remark, but it was at once suppressed. Still, I knew that this single quick rejoinder had biased "the gallery" in my favour. Common people enjoy witnessing the discomfiture of any individual in authority. Two days later, I left Oakham and returned to London, feeling like a schoolboy going home for Christmas. The days went by. On the following week I again went to Oakham to attend the adjourned inquest. In the case of the butler, an open verdict was returned, but in the case of the driver, one of murder by some person unknown. Of Vera I had had no news. "Twenty-six Upper..." That might be in London, or in Brighton. It might even be in some other town. I thought it probable, however, that the address she had been about to give was a London address, so I had spent the day before the inquest in trying the various London "Uppers" contained in "Kelly's Directory."