will apply in person to Messrs. Kipling & Beecher, Solicitors, of Bedford Row, London, W. C., she will learn something to her advantage."
This appeal was repeated for several days before Messrs. Kipling & Beecher heard from Miss Maunsell. At last they received a letter from Harrogate, signed "S. Maunsell," stating that, as the writer was in the position of cook-housekeeper to an invalid, she could not leave her place to visit London. She had just happened to see the advertisement, not being in the habit of looking at the papers every day, and she would be glad to hear from Messrs. Kipling & Beecher.
Scotland Yard was, of course, responsible for the advertisement, but it had not been considered wise to risk alarming the woman, who might have a horror of the police. When the letter arrived, however, a detective from the Criminal Investigation Department was detailed to travel to Harrogate and interview Miss Maunsell. He was an ambitious fellow whose name—Richard Gaylor—was already favourably marked at headquarters, and he was the "nice grown-up" who had beguiled Poppet Barnard. He was about thirty, but did not look more than twenty-one, at most, in face or figure. "Cupid" was his nick name, and it was not inappropriate to the blue-eyed, curly-haired young man, who had deep dimples in pink cheeks, like a girl's.
The address given in Miss Maunsell's cramped and
