“On Monday,” she was startled into telling him, but, recollecting that the object of her visit was not to furnish him with information about her movements, she walked to the door. “You don’t deny that you came into my room?” He shook his head. “No, why should I? You saw me. It was the flash of my lamp which woke you. I am very sorry. But for that stupid blunder you would not have known.” She stared at him. “You admit you were there?” she said, with growing wonder, as the nature of his offence began to take shape in her mind. “How could you, Mr. Dorn!” “It is much easier for me to admit my fault than to lie about it,” he said coolly. “Even you must give me some credit for my frankness.” He followed her out on to the landing and rang for the elevator. “You must keep your door locked, Miss Reddle,” he said. “No matter where you are--even in the palatial establishment of the Countess of Moron--you must keep your door locked.” He looked down the lift shaft and saw that the cage at the bottom was not moving. The elevator man was outside the building and had not heard the signal. “I don’t think, if I were you, that I should write to your mother,” he said. “You may raise false hopes. At present she is well balanced. The knowledge that you are alive--and know--may cut the thread that has held her up all these years.” “What do you know?” she gasped, gazing at him in terrified amazement. Then came the whine of the ascending lift. “I don’t think I should write if I were you,” he said, and with a smile handed the dazed girl into the elevator and waited until the clash of the lift-gate told him that she had reached the ground floor. Then he walked slowly back into his flat, closed the door behind him, and resumed his place at the table, but this time he did not read. For half an hour he sat, his chin on his hand, and then, rising, he opened the door that led to the second room. A spare little man, with a dark and melancholy face, sat patiently on the edge of a chair, as he had sat ever since the ring at the door had announced the girl’s arrival. A beckoning jerk of Dorn’s chin brought the man to the study. “Go along and pick up Chesney Praye. Find out what he was doing last night, and where he went. I think he was playing baccarat at the Limbo Club, and, if so, find out what he lost. That is all.” Without a word the little man made for the door. His hand was on the latch when Dorn called him back. “Call in at Scotland Yard and discover the owner of a blue Buick, No. XC2997. I pretty well know, but I should like a little moral support.”