paused for some moments, thinking.
"Berrington," he said suddenly.
"Yes? What?" I asked, taken aback at his change of tone.
He took a step forward and laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"Berrington," he repeated—and in his eyes there was a singular expression—"I have an idea."
He turned to a page who was standing near.
"Boy," he said sharply, "what address did that gentleman who has just gone tell you to give to his driver?"
"He told the driver himself, sir," the boy answered, "but I heard the address he gave, sir."
"What was it?"
"Three forty, Maresfield Gardens, sir. It's near Swiss Cottage—up Fitzjohn's Avenue on the right."
Osborne turned to me quickly.
"Come into this room," he said. "There is something I want to ask you. The place is empty, and we shall not be disturbed."
When he had closed the door, and glanced about him to make sure that we were alone, he said in a low voice:
"Look here, Mike, I tell you again, I have an idea: I wonder if you will fall in with it. I have watched that fellow Gastrell pretty closely all the evening; I am rather a good judge of men, you know, and I believe him to be an impostor of some kind—I can't say just yet of what kind. Anyway, he is the man I met on the Masonic; he can deny it as much as he likes—he is. Either he is impersonating some other man, or some other man is impersonating him. Now listen. I am going to that address in Maresfield Gardens that he gave to his taxi-driver. I am going to find out if he lives there, or what he is doing there. What I want to know is—Will you come with me?"
"Good heavens, Jack!" I exclaimed, "what an extraordinary thing to do. But what will you say when you get there? Supposing he does live there—or, for that matter, supposing he doesn't—what reason will you give for calling at the house?"
"Oh, I'll invent some reason quick enough, but I want someone to be with me. Will you come? Will you or won't you?"
I glanced up at the clock. It wanted twenty minutes to eleven.
"Do you mean now? Do you intend to go at this time of the night?"
"I intend to go at once—as fast as a taxi will take me there," he answered.
I paused, undecided. It seemed such a strange thing to do, under the circumstances; but then, as I knew, Jack Osborne had always been fond of doing strange things. Though a member of Brooks's, he was unconventional in the extreme.
"Yes, I will," I said, the originality of the idea suddenly appealing to me. In point of fact I, too, mistrusted this man Gastrell. Though he had looked me so straight in the eyes when, two hours before, he had calmly assured me that I was mistaken in believing him to be "his namesake in Geneva," as he put it; still, as I say, I felt convinced he was the same man.
"Good," Osborne answered in a tone of satisfaction. "Come, we will start at once."
A strange feeling of repressed excitement obsessed me as our taxi passed up Bond Street, turned into Oxford Street, then to the right into Orchard Street, and sped thence by way of Baker Street past Lord's cricket ground and up the Finchley Road. What would happen when we reached Maresfield Gardens? Would the door be opened by a stolid footman or by some frigid maidservant who would coldly inform us that "Mr. Gastrell was not at home"; or should we be shown in, and, if we were shown in, what excuse would Jack Osborne make for calling so late at night? I cannot say that I felt in the least anxious, however, for Osborne is a man who has knocked about the world and seen many queer sides of life, and who never, under any circumstances, is at a loss how to act.
I glanced at my watch as our taxi turned into Maresfield Gardens. It was ten minutes past eleven. At the house indicated half-way up the hill the taxi suddenly pulled up.
Osborne got out and pressed the electric bell-push. As I looked up at the windows, I noticed that nowhere was any light visible. Nor was there a light in the ground-floor windows.
"I believe everybody is in bed," I said to him, when the bell remained unanswered. Without replying, he pressed the push again, and kept his finger on it.
Still no one came.
"We'd better call to-morrow," I suggested, when he had rung a third time with the same result.
The words had hardly left my lips, when we heard the door-chain rattle. Then the bolts were pulled back, and a moment later the door was carefully drawn open to the length of its chain.
Inside all was darkness, nor was anybody visible.
"What do you want?" a woman's voice inquired.
The voice had a most pleasant timbre; also the speaker was obviously a lady. She did not sound in the least alarmed, but there was a note of surprise in the tone.
"Has Mr. Gastrell come home yet?" Osborne asked.
"Not yet. Do you want to see him?"
"Yes. He dined at Brooks's Club this evening with Lord Easterton. Soon after he had left, a purse was found, and, as nobody in the club claimed it, I concluded that it must be his, so I have brought it back."
"That is really very good of you, Mr. Osborne," the hidden speaker answered. "If you will wait a moment I will let you in. Are you alone?"
"No, I have a friend with me. But who are you? How do you know my name?"
There was no answer. The door was shut quietly. Then we heard the sound of the chain being removed.
By the time Jack Osborne had paid our driver, and dismissed the taxi, the door had been opened sufficiently wide to admit us. We entered, and at once the door was shut.
We were now in inky blackness.
"Won't you switch on the light?" Osborne asked, when a minute or so had elapsed, and we remained in total darkness.
Nobody answered, and we waited, wondering. Fully another minute passed, and still we stood there.
I felt Osborne touch me. Then, coming close to me, he whispered in my ear:
"Strike a match, Mike; I haven't one."
I felt in my pockets. I had not one either. I was about to tell him so when something clicked behind us, and the hall was flooded with light.
Never before had I beheld, and I doubt if I shall ever behold again, a woman as lovely as the tall, graceful being upon whom our eyes rested at that instant. In height quite five foot nine, as she stood there beneath the glow of the electrolier in the luxurious hall, in her dinner dress, the snowy slope of the shoulders and the deep, curved breast, strong, yet all so softly, delicately rounded, gleamed like rosy alabaster in the reflection from the red-shaded light above her.
Our eyes wandered from exquisite figure to exquisite face—and there was no sense of disappointment. For the face was as nearly perfect as a woman's may be upon this earth of imperfections. The uplift of the brow, the curve of the cheek to the rounded chin, the noble sweep of delicate, dark eyebrows were extraordinarily beautiful. Her hair was "a net for the sunlight," its colour that of a new chestnut in the spring when
