"A rather strange thing happened the other day," went on her visitor, after a somewhat lengthy pause. "I had a visit from a Scotland Yard official, of the name of Smeaton. He told me he was very much interested in a Mr Stent, whose acquaintance I happened to make abroad a couple of years ago. I wonder if this Mr Stent happens to be a friend of yours, or your father's?" This time Sheila felt she could make a direct answer without committing herself. "I certainly do not know the man myself. For my father I cannot, of course, speak positively. In his position he must have known heaps of people, more or less intimately. But, as I have never seen him in this house, he could not have been a friend." Mrs Saxton spoke again in her well-bred, but somewhat artificial voice: "I hope you will excuse me for having put the question. But it struck me after he had left that his visit might have been connected with the sad events that have happened here, and that he believed Mr Stent to have been mixed up with them." "Were you able to give him any information?" asked Sheila quickly. She thought it was her turn to question now. "Nothing, I am afraid, of any value. I had simply met him abroad at an hotel, in the first place, and came across him about a dozen times afterwards. You know what a lot of people one picks up in that casual sort of way, people you know absolutely nothing about." Sheila agreed that this was a common experience, and after the interchange of a few commonplaces, Mrs Saxton took leave. She renewed her expressions of sympathy, and begged Miss Monkton to make use of her in any way, if she thought she could render assistance. What had been the motive of her visit? To reiterate the slenderness of her knowledge of the man Stent, so that the fact would be communicated to Smeaton? Or had she hoped to find an artless and impressionable girl, who would confide to her all that had been done, up to the present, to unravel the mystery of Monkton's disappearance? If so, she had signally failed. She had gone away, having learned nothing. And Sheila had put no questions herself, although she was burning to ask her: "Who is that man at Brighton to whom you sent the telegram of warning?" It had been a day of surprises, and events proceeded very rapidly, mostly in the direction of disappointments. In the first place, Smeaton was rung up from Brighton by Wingate, who reported the failure of his attempt to get hold of the telegram, and asked for further instructions. The detective mused a few moments before replying. He placed little or no reliance on the efforts of amateurs, however full of zeal. Still, the young man was there, and he might as well make use of him. "Would it be inconveniencing you to spend a few more hours down there?" he asked at length over the wire from his room at Scotland Yard. The reply was what might be expected. Wingate would be only too happy to place himself entirely at Smeaton's disposal.