"The person who was to have met Léonie Lemarque at Charing Cross Station on the morning of July 5th last is earnestly requested to communicate immediately with Messrs. Distin & Son, Solicitors, Furnival's Inn."
He translated this advertisement to Monsieur Drubarde.
"Yes, that is a wise test," said the police-officer. "I see you have the true flair. If the man is innocent, he will answer that advertisement—always supposing that it come to his knowledge."
"I will repeat it so often in the Times that it will not be easy for the appeal to escape him," answered Heathcote.
"Then if there is no sign, we shall say guilty," said Drubarde.
"And in that case we have to find the villain."
"You may add a postscript to your letter to Monsieur Distin, advising him to inquire at the cloak-room of Charing Cross Station for an unclaimed handbag left there on July 5th. Something must have been done with that handbag, and, in our civilised condition, it is not easy to get rid of even a handbag."
After having made this suggestion, Monsieur Drubarde devoted himself entirely to the pleasures of the table. Heathcote ate very little, and was too troubled in mind to know what he ate. He saw himself no nearer a solution of the problem which he had pledged himself to solve. Yet this he felt, that the sky was growing clearer round Bothwell Grahame. The secret of the girl's death seemed to lie between the man whom she was to have met at Charing Cross and the phenomenal villain of Drubarde's imagination, who had lured her into the Cornish train with darkest intent.
He left Félix Drubarde directly after luncheon, and walked back to the Hôtel de Bade, where he devoted the afternoon to his correspondence. He wrote at fullest length to Joseph Distin, enclosing the advertisement for the Times, with a cheque, and an order for its daily appearance until further notice. He wrote a cheery letter to Hilda, telling her to be hopeful; and he wrote to Mrs. Wyllard, telling her that the result of his investigations up to the present hour had gone far to dispel his suspicion of her cousin's guilt.
"I am still groping in the dark," he concluded, "and am very far from having achieved any tangible result; but I am working with all my mind and all my strength, and I hope that Providence will not compel me to abandon my task until I have fathomed the mystery of Léonie Lemarque's death."
He wrote thus, unconsciously forgetting that Dora Wyllard did not know even the name of the victim. The discovery of the girl's identity, made three days ago, at Dinan, seemed, to him an old history, so exclusively had his mind dwelt upon this one subject since his interview with the nuns. The fact that the name must be a new thing to Dora never struck him.
