reach Jamaica before seven o'clock.  "Spilt milk," I said to myself, and took the watchman's advice. But outside the forbidden door, I picked up a tiny rosetted slipper. 

 In my own rooms, I searched again for traces of a hostile presence. The collapsible box was a strange thing to find under a bed, but I couldn't prove that Little Red Riding Hood had been in it. Neither could I prove that a small pile of silver that I had poured out of my pockets on to the dressing-table had diminished, or that two letters which I had received—one from my brother Haslemere, one from Grace Odell—had been stolen. Nevertheless, while putting off my principal researches, I did telephone down to inquire who occupied rooms 212, 214. The man who answered from the office had "come on" since the people arrived, but, the name in the hotel register was "Mrs. W. Smith, nurse and child, Sayville, Long Island."  Nothing could sound less offensive; but next morning when I descended at an unearthly hour it seemed that "the party" had already gone, by motor; and the man at the door "hadn't noticed no child."  All I could do then was to reserve those rooms for myself, for two days, with orders that they should not be touched until investigated by me. 

 It lacked twenty minutes of train time when my chauffeur got me to Jamaica. This made me feel almost cheerful, but my heart sank as I reached the arrival platform. There were not many passengers, and even if there had been a crowd one figure would have stood out conspicuously—that of a tall woman in a grey dress, a long grey cloak, and a close-fitting grey bonnet with a thick grey veil falling over the face and breast. There was not a doubt in my mind but this was the formidable directress of the Grey Sisterhood, come in person to meet—I had almost said "her victim."  If the woman had known of my plan she could hardly have found a better way of thwarting it. 

 As I glowered at the figure stalking up and down, I hated it. And I wondered if there were more than a coincidence in the fact that this was the third grey-veiled woman I had seen since last night. In the car at the theatre there had been too brief a glimpse to be sure of a resemblance, and the woman in 212 had left on my mind an impression of comparative shortness. But then, it is easy to stoop and disguise one's height, I told myself viciously, eager to find a connection between this woman and the others. 

 I could see nothing of her face, as we passed and repassed on the platform; but she was hovering not far off when I learned that the train from New York would be late. It was 

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