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the buffet room; he seemed quite willing to be refreshed at the expense of the house.
    “A cup of tea, thank you, and a little seed cake.”
    Ena was puzzled. Had the whole breed of busies undergone this shattering deterioration?
    “I prefer seed to fruit cake,” he was saying. “Curiously enough, chickens are the same. I had a hen once – we called her Curly Toes – who could eat fruit and preferred it…”
    She listened – she was a good listener. He offered to see her home.
    “No – if you could drop me at the corner of Bruton Street and Berkeley Square – I don’t live far from there,” she said modestly.
    “Dear me!” said Mr Reeder, as he signalled to a cab. “Do you live in a mews too? So many people do.”
    This was disconcerting.
    “Perhaps you will come and see me one day – I am Mrs Coleforth–Ebling, and my ’phone number – do write this down–”
    “My memory is very excellent,” murmured Mr Reeder.
    The cab drove up at that moment and he opened the door.
    “Ena Burslem – I will remember that – 907, Gower Mansions.”
    He waved his hand in farewell as he got into the cab.
    “I’ll be seeing you again, my dear – toodle-oo!”
    Mr Reeder could on occasions be outrageously frivolous. “Toodle-oo!” was the high-water mark of his frivolity. It was not remarkable that Ena was both alarmed and puzzled. Brighter intellects than hers had been shaken in a vain effort to reconcile Mr Reeder’s appearance and manner with Mr Reeder’s reputation.
    She went back into the house and told Mr Machfield what had happened.
    “That man’s clever,” said Machfield admiringly. “If I were the man who had killed Wentworth or whatever his name is, I’d be shaking in my shoes. I’ll walk round to the Leffingham and see if I can pick up a young game-fish. And you’d better dine with me, Ena – I’ll give you the rest of the dope on that business I was discussing.”
    The Leffingham Club was quite useful to Mr Machfield. It was a kind of potting shed where likely young shoots could be nurtured before being bedded out in the gardens of chance. Even Kenneth McKay had had his uses.
    When Mr Reeder reached Scotland Yard, where they had arranged to meet, he found Inspector Gaylor charged with news.
    “We’ve had a bit of luck!” he said. “Do you remember those banknotes? You took their numbers…you remember? They were paid out on Wentford’s account!”
    “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” said Mr Reeder. “To the veiled lady–”
    “Veiled grandmother!” said Gaylor. “We have traced two hundred pounds’ worth to a moneylender. They were paid by Kenneth McKay, the bank clerk who cashed the cheque – and here is the cheque!”
    He took it from a folder on his desk.
    “The signature is a bad forgery; the cheque itself was not torn from Wentford’s cheque-book but from a book kept at the bank under McKay’s charge!”
    “Astounding!” said Mr Reeder.
    “Isn’t it?” Mr Gaylor was smiling. “So simple! I had the whole theory of the murders given to me tonight. McKay forged and uttered the note, and to cover up his crime killed Wentford.”
    “And you instantly arrested him?”
    “Am I a child in arms?” asked Gaylor reproachfully. “No, I questioned the lad. He doesn’t deny that he paid the moneylender, but says that the money came to him from some anonymous source. It arrived at his house by registered post. Poor young devil, he’s rattled to blazes! What are we waiting for now?”
    “A Gentleman Who Wants to Open a Box,” said Mr Reeder mysteriously.
    (“Reeder releases his mysteries as a miser pays his dentist,” said Gaylor to the superintendent. “He knows I know all about the case – I admit he is very good and passes on most of the information he gets, but the old devil will keep back the connecting links!”
    “Humour him,” said the superintendent.)
     
9
     
    Margot Lynn had spent a wretched and a weary day. The little city office which she occupied, and where she