"Certificate stolen!" I cried. "A most ingenious excuse. I quite anticipated it, although it, unfortunately, exhibits no originality. Thieves don't usually steal marriage certificates. They can't pawn them, you know." The woman before me glanced around the room with an air of bewilderment, and I then knew that I had cornered her. "And where did this extraordinary marriage between us take place, pray?" I inquired, not without some bitter irony. "At St Andrew's, Wells Street." "Wells Street, in London?" "Yes. You surely remember it, don't you? The church is close by Oxford Circus." "I know the church quite well," I answered. "But I most firmly and distinctly deny ever having been inside it in my life." "If you examine the marriage register there you'll find your signature, together with that of your wife," Gedge observed, with a confidence that rather surprised me. "I shall certainly take no trouble in such a matter," I declared. "It is alleged that I am the husband of this lady, therefore it is for her to bring proof--not for me to seek it." "Very well, then," cried the woman who called herself Mrs Heaton. "Within three days a copy of the certificate shall be placed in your hands." "I'm not very partial to copies of documents," I observed very dubiously. "I always prefer originals." "The original is, unfortunately, lost." "Stolen, or strayed away of its own accord--eh?" I added with a doubtful laugh. "Are you content to wait until the certificate can be obtained from Somerset House?" she inquired. "No," I responded. "If you are actually my wife as you allege, madam, perhaps you will kindly explain the mystery of my presence here, in a house that until an hour ago I had never seen in all my life." The woman and the secretary again exchanged glances. I saw they considered me an utterly irresponsible agent. They believed me to be demented. "None of us can explain it," Gedge answered. "There is some mystery, but what it is we can't yet fathom." "Mystery!" I echoed. "I should think there was some mystery--and devilishly complicated it must be too, when I find myself in this amazing position. Why, it's sufficient to turn the brain of any man to be told of one's marriage to a--to a woman one has never set eyes upon before, and--well, old enough to be his own mother!" "Hush, hush!" said the secretary, who apparently wished to avoid a scene. He evidently knew that this angular woman, notwithstanding her affected juvenility, possessed a fiendish temper. I had detected it by the keen look in her eyes and the twitchings of her thin, hard lips. "If I'm in my own house," I cried wrathfully, "I am surely permitted to say what I like. Am I master here, or not?" "Certainly you are, sir," he responded, instantly humbled. "Then listen," I said. "Until the arrival of the certificate from London I have no wish to meet this lady who alleges that she is my wife."