"Do you forget the slur you would cast on Mrs. Grey?" "As to that, Salter may be some relative of hers. Even her husband--even her brother. I remember it was said, at the time his case fell, that he had one sister. In either case, of course Mrs. Grey--the name she goes under--would not allow the fact of his concealment there to transpire to you." How could Karl meet this? Sitting there, in his perplexity and pain, he could not see a step before him. "You have forgotten that Tatton has searched the Maze from roof to basement, Mr. Superintendent." "Not at all. It tells nothing. There are no doubt other hidden places that he did not penetrate to in that first search. At best, it was but a superficial one." That "first" search. Was all security slipping from Karl's feet, inch by inch? "Believe me, you are wrong," he said; "your notion is an utterly mistaken one. I assure you on my word of honour, as truly and solemnly as I shall ever testify to any fact in this world, that Salter is not within the Maze, that he never has been. Mind you, sir, I _know_ this. I go over occasionally to see poor Mrs. Grey in her loneliness, and am in a position to speak positively." An unmistakable smile sat on the officer's face now. "Ay," he said, "I have heard of your occasional nocturnal visits to her, Sir Karl. The young lady is said to be very attractive." At the first moment, Sir Karl did not detect the covert meaning. It came to him with a rush of indignation. The superintendent had rarely seen so haughty a face. "No offence, Sir Karl. 'Twas but a joke." "A joke I do not like, sir. I am a married man." "Est-ce que cela empêche"--the other was beginning: for the conclusion he had drawn, on the score of Sir Karl's evening visits, was a very decided one; but Karl put a peremptory stop to the subject. He deemed the superintendent most offensively familiar and unwarrantably foolish; and he resented in his angry heart the implied aspersion on his brother's wife, the true Lady Andinnian, than whom a more modest and innocent-natured woman did not exist. And it never entered into the brain of Karl Andinnian to suspect that the same objectionable joke might have been taken up by people nearer home, even by his own wife.