taught me my place.

"I have recently met with good fortune in my profession, and am settling down as a man of business in the neighbourhood of Millsborough, with considerable prospect of success.

"In the happy days when it was my privilege to pick up unconsidered scraps of your father's scientific wisdom, I kept, jotted down in a notebook, many items for future use. Until recently I have had no occasion to refer to these notes, which I now find are essential to the success of my most promising scheme. I must have left the memoranda behind me with some other things, when I departed so suddenly last September.

"If you can have this notebook found for me, I will ask that it may be posted to me at The Myrtles, Grove End, near Millsborough, as I shall only be in Paris for three days longer.

"I heard, quite by chance from a friend, that Professor Caldegard was staying with Sir Randal Bellamy in Hertfordshire, so I have ventured to use his address.

"Thanking you gratefully in anticipation,

"I remain,

"My dear Miss Caldegard,

"Yours very sincerely,

"Alban Melchard."

Alban Melchard

"H'm, in Paris, is he? No more in Paris than I am. Wrote this in case he should be suspected, but didn't count on having to cart the girl along. False addresses wouldn't help him. These two are straight goods. Clever move, if it hadn't been for the girl. Your alibi'll hang you, Alban Melchard. That fixes Millsborough."

Savagely he cranked up his engine and jumped into the driving-seat. The car rushed forward.

When St. Albans was behind him the confusion of excitement began to settle, and his thoughts presented themselves clear as those of a dispassionate spectator. For him, in all this tangle, there was one thing, and one thing only, that mattered; to be in time. He did not fear murder; but the very reason of her security from death was the cause of a fear so horrible, that he knew inaction would have been torture past endurance.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SWINE THAT STANK.

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