"Then as soon as he has got rid of Buckley, our friend the Captain quits the personality of a snuffy, middle-aged man-servant, and becomes himself once more. He goes back to the neighbourhood of Mayfair, hails a taxi and drives to Mexfield House. But in the meanwhile the female confederate--we'll call her Miss Shillington for convenience' sake--in male attire and evening dress, wearing a light overcoat, a light-coloured scarf and a white carnation in her button-hole, lounges under a doorway in Somerset Street, waiting to play her part. Now do you see how simple it all is?" "Perfectly," I admitted. "As you said before, they had provided themselves with a blood-stained hat, which presently they threw into the river, together with the scarf; and what happened after that?" "They walked home quietly and went to bed." "What? Both of them? ... But the mother?" "I don't believe in the mother," he retorted blandly. "Do you?" "I thought----" "She takes to her bed--she never sees a doctor--she and her daughter never see any one--they have no friends--no servants save the man Rose; put two and two together, my dear," the funny old man concluded as he slipped the piece of string in his pocket. "Captain Shillington was the only one in that house who ever went outside the doors. The mother never did--no one ever saw her--the daughter had a perpetual cold in the head--the man Rose had no one to speak for him, no one to relate his past history, except Miss Shillington. Where is he now? What has become of him? There's nobody to enquire after him, so the police don't trouble. The two Shillingtons--supposed to be mother and daughter--went back to Australia last year, but not the man Rose. Then where is he? But I say that the two passengers on board that P. and O. boat were not mother and daughter, but male and female confederates in as fine a bit of rascality as I've ever seen. And the man Rose never existed. He was just a disguise assumed from time to time by Captain Shillington. It is not difficult, you know, to assume a personality of that sort. The police inspectors who questioned him had never seen Captain Shillington, and dirt and shabby clothes are very perfect disguises. Now the pair of them are knocking about the world somewhere, they will dispose of the pearls to Continental dealers not over scrupulous where a good bargain can be struck. If you will just think of Captain Shillington impersonating James Rose and a decrepit old woman alternately, and of Miss Shillington impersonating Henry Buckley on that one occasion, you will see how conclusive are my deductions. I have a snapshot here of the two Australian 'ladies,' taken on board the boat. This muffled-up bundle of bonnet and shawl is supposed to be Mrs. Shillington; it might as well be M. Poincaré or the Kaiser, don't you think? And here is a snapshot of James Rose giving evidence in the magistrate's court. Unfortunately, I have no photo of Captain