That same evening he went round to Eaton Place, about seven o'clock. He reckoned that he would catch Spencer before he went up to dress for dinner. "Poor devil," thought Bryant, "he won't have much appetite for dinner after he has read through that diary!" Spencer was in the library, and the detective, whom he had met before in connection with the mystery of Cathcart Square, was shown in. Spencer welcomed him with his usual cordiality. "Good-evening, Mr Bryant. Any fresh light upon this terrible thing?" The footman had left the library door slightly open, after showing Bryant in, and had retired swiftly to his quarters. He was hardly out of the hall when Stella opened the front-door with her key, and glided noiselessly in. All her movements were noiseless, suggesting, as somebody had once remarked of her, the silent motions of a snake. She always carried a key, declaring that she could not be kept waiting for servants to answer the door. The library door was open, through the aperture she heard voices, and one of them she recognised. It was that of the Scotland Yard detective, who had cross-examined her very closely as to her various meetings with the dead man. She had been afraid of Bryant. He had looked at her so searchingly, and his manner always conveyed that he knew so much more than he was prepared to disclose. Bryant was speaking in a low, but very clear voice. Her hearing was singularly acute, and she could catch every word. "I am come on a very painful errand, Mr Spencer. There is a small volume here which throws a very clear light on what happened at Cathcart Square on that fatal evening of July the fourth." Guy's cheerful accents rang out. "You mean you have got a clue, Mr Bryant. But why painful to me? If you are on the track of the murderer of my poor old friend, nobody will be more rejoiced than I." Again the low, grave tones of Bryant: "Mr Spencer, you will be a very stricken man when you have read through it. Your poor friend left behind him a very copious diary, made up to the morning of the day on which he was murdered. The original is at my office, you can inspect it at any time you like. This is a copy of the entries relating to Cathcart Square. It touches your domestic life very closely, in addition to proving why and by whom he was murdered." Stella waited to hear no more. Her face had gone livid, she felt shaking in every limb. That her old enemy, Murchison, had left a diary! They had never thought of that possibility. The game was up. She had staked something on her marriage as Norah Burton with Jack Pomfret, and had lost. This time she had staked everything and lost again, but now she had lost liberty and life in addition. There was but one end. She must seek at once the man who had, in a way, been a good and faithful friend, but also her evil genius.