"None whatever," I replied. Then confidentially I told him of Ella's mysterious absences, her walk in Kensington Gardens, and her letters from the unknown individual who had met her so frequently, omitting, however, all mention either of the theft or recovery of the secret convention, for it was Lord Warnham's wish that I should keep the existence of that instrument a profound secret. "Have you no idea who this strange fellow is?" he inquired, sympathetically. "Not the slightest," I said. "Ella was not addicted to flirtation," he observed reflectively, a few moments later. "As you are aware, I have been acquainted with the family for some years, and have known your wife ever since she could toddle." "Tell me of them," I urged impatiently. "I know scarcely anything beyond what Ella and her mother have told me. What do you know of Ella's past?" "You speak as if you suspected her to be an adventuress," he said, and as the lamplight fell upon his face I saw that his lips relaxed into a good-humoured smile. "As far as I'm aware there is no incident of her life prior to marriage that will not bear the fullest investigation; and as for her mother, no more straightforward nor upright woman ever lived. Before poor Robert Laing died I was a frequent visitor at their country house, so I had ample opportunity of noticing what an affectionate family they were; and after his death it was I who succeeded in turning his great business into a limited liability concern." To outsiders Beck was a swaggering parvenu, who delighted in exhibiting his wealth to others by giving expensive dinners and indulging in extravagances of speech and beverage; but towards me he had always been honestly outspoken and unassuming--in fact, a typical successful business man, with whose unruffled good humour I had, even when madly jealous of his attentions to Ella, found it impossible to quarrel. I had long ago grown to ridicule the suggestion that any secret had existed between them, and now felt instinctively that he was my friend. "Do you think--" I asked him, after a long pause. "Candidly speaking, have you any suspicion that Dudley Ogle was her lover?" He knit his brows. For an instant a hard expression played about his mouth, and he drew a long breath. "I didn't, of course, know so much of Dudley as you did," he answered, slowly contemplating the end of his cigar. "But to tell you the honest truth, I always suspected that he loved her. In fact her own evidence at the inquest was sufficient proof of that." "His death was an enigma," I observed. "Entirely so," he acquiesced, sighing. "She alleged that he had been murdered, and there is no room for doubt that she entertained certain very grave suspicions." "Of what?" "Of the identity of the murderer," I said. "She declared to me, times without number, that she would never rest until she had unravelled the mystery."