I inquired if he knew anything of the other servants at Professor Greer's. "No, nothing," was the man's answer. "At least, nothing except that the Professor went abroad suddenly, and that they were all discharged and given wages in lieu of notice." "That Italian fellow discharged them, didn't he?" I asked. "Yes, sir. I never liked him. He's gone abroad with his master, they say, and they've left a caretaker in charge." "Oh, there is someone there, eh?" "Yes, a policeman named Murphy and his wife. They used to take care of this house for her ladyship, and Miss Ethelwynn has now given her father's house over to them. They're a very steady pair, and live on the premises." Surely it was a master-stroke of the girl's to give over to the police that house of tragedy! Why was she concealing the fact of her father's death? I drove back to Chiswick with that one thought uppermost in my mind. That afternoon I sat in my own office trying to attend to the details of a business too long neglected, and listening mechanically to Pelham, to Dick Drake, and to the others in my employment, who were complaining of the unsatisfactory trials of a new car I had recently purchased. Professor Greer was dead, and every trace of the crime removed, save for those grim, indisputable relics which I had recovered from the ashes and now held most sacred. But further, my dear wife, whose knowledge of the impostor was so amazing, was also missing. The one point which, I confess, caused me some qualms, was the reason why, not discovering me, she had not telegraphed to Gwen. That, surely, would be her first thought. If she had missed me, she would surely have let either Gwen or Pelham know. Hence I could only think that she had either fallen into some fatal trap--and there are many in the by-ways of certain Continental cities-- or else she was forcibly held from communicating with the outer world. If so, by whom? Probably by the Professor's false friend, Kershaw Kirk. I could not put away from my mind the curious altitude of Hamilton Flynn. Why had he endeavoured to frighten me from going to Scotland Yard? What motive had he in this? In what manner was he assisting his friend, Leonard Langton? Again, was Langton in ignorance of the Professor's end, or had he knowledge of it, and was it by his persuasion that his beloved was so cleverly feigning ignorance of all the past? I began to suspect that these two men, bosom chums that they were, had some hidden motive for concealing the Professor's death. Yet, after all, the point most amazing was the reason why, in the face of facts now revealed, my mysterious neighbour should have taken such pains to reveal the truth to me.