I handed him my card, explaining that I wished to see one of the detective inspectors upon a confidential matter, and was shown upstairs and along a wide corridor to a bare waiting-room. For some ten minutes I remained there, when the door opened, and I found myself face to face with a middle-aged, pleasant-faced man, who was one of the most noted and experienced officers of the department. For a moment I held my breath. I recollected all the threats that had been made of Mabel's peril if I dared to speak the truth. The detective-inspector closed the door behind him, and, wishing me a polite "Good morning," inquired my business. I told him. Yes; I blurted forth the truth, and made a clean breast of the whole matter. But the instant I had done so I bitterly repented it. I realised something which I had not before recognised. I saw that, even though my dear wife were missing and in peril, I was a fool--an utter idiot--for having dared to breathe a word. My injudicious statement had only rendered the enigma still more complicated than hitherto. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS. The shrewd officer seated at the table with me, a pen in his hand, heard my narrative to the end, now and then making brief memoranda. Presently he exclaimed: "Would you kindly excuse me? I'd like another gentleman to hear this story." And he rose and left. A few minutes later he returned with a rather taller, clean-shaven man, slightly younger, who had on a dark overcoat and carried a silk hat in his hand. "This is Mr. Holford," said the first officer, introducing me. "He's just told me a very remarkable story, which I'd like you to hear for a moment." Then, turning to me, he asked me to repeat briefly what I had alleged. The new-comer, seating himself, listened attentively to every word which fell from my lips. I noticed that he exchanged curious glances with his brother officer. "Your main reason, then, for telling us this story is in order to compel those responsible for your wife's absence to reveal her whereabouts, I take it?" asked the younger man. "Exactly." "The false telegram was dispatched from Turin, eh?" "Yes. Cannot you communicate with the Italian police concerning it?" "And pray what good would result?" he queried. "After long delay we might perchance get the original of the telegram, but I don't see that that would assist us very far. When people send bogus messages they generally disguise their handwriting." "Well, I leave it to you to take what steps you like to assist me," I said. "My sole object is to find my lost wife." "Naturally, my dear sir," observed the officer. "We'll first take down your statement in writing." And then the man I had first seen wrote at my dictation a brief summary of the mysterious death of Professor Greer and its attendant complications and my suspicion of Kershaw Kirk.