"I fear we must," said his wife, sitting down. "Don't go, Mr. Calvert. This is no secret. Merely a paragraph in the paper." "Have they found out anything?" asked Arnold quietly. "Well, it seems to be a sort of a clue. This room, you know----" "This room!" Both men looked round the White Room, and then at one another. Finally both pairs of eyes were fixed on Mrs. Fane's face. "Yes," she said calmly. "I need not read the paragraph. The gist of it is that the police have received a letter stating that there is a room like this in a house at Hampstead." "At Hampstead?" said Calvert, advancing a step. "Yes. It belongs to a Mr. Brand." "Brand!" said Fane, looking at Calvert. "Why, that is the name you mentioned just now!" "Yes," said the young man with an effort. "I have a cousin called Flora Brand." "Dear me," said Mrs. Fane in her cold way. "I wonder if she can be the miserable creature who was murdered in this room." "Julia!" Fane started to his feet. "What do you mean?" "Don't grow excited, my dear," she replied in her soothing tones. "But it seems that Mrs. Brand has disappeared. The writer of the letter doesn't describe her to the police; but inquiries are being made. Perhaps she may be the dead woman. How strange that she should have died in this room, when she has one of her own furnished exactly the same. This room was your own idea, Walter?" "Yes," he replied, looking puzzled, "my own idea. And I don't know Mrs. Brand. How came she to have a similar room?" Arnold took up his hat. "I'll find that out," he said. When he left the room, husband and wife looked at one another. CHAPTER VII THE OTHER WHITE ROOM Coleridge Lane, Hampstead, was named after the great poet, who had once resided in the neighbourhood. If he lived in this special locality, he could not have found it congenial to his Muse, for the crooked, winding, sloping passage could hardly be called a lane, much less a road. Also, it was damp by reason of the ancient trees that nearly met overhead. On either side were small cottages standing amidst weedy gardens, the survivals of a far-off age, when a wide view and careful drainage were not considered as necessary to any human habitation. An air of melancholy hung over the place, and only because the rents were low did the cottages contain tenants.