the locket was the clue which Heathcote decided to follow in the first instance. He made his arrangements for leaving England without an hour's delay; but before turning his back upon The Spaniards, he exacted Hilda's promise that she would not see Bothwell Grahame during his absence.
"Mr. Grahame's entanglement with another woman is an all-sufficient reason for your holding yourself aloof from him," said her brother. "When he is free to ask you to be his wife, let him come to me and submit his pretensions to me, as your natural guardian. Perhaps, by that time, I may have succeeded in setting him right with those who now look askance upon him!"
Mr. Heathcote determined to call upon Joseph Distin before he crossed the Channel. He had thought the question out thoroughly during a sleepless night; and it seemed to him that it would be folly to enter upon his difficult task of investigation without having first armed himself with such advice as the criminal lawyer was able to give. Before acting upon his own opinion it would be well to know the opinion of a disinterested expert.
He called at Distin's offices the morning after his arrival in London. The offices were in Furnival's Inn, a quiet and convenient spot, not too far from the Old Bailey, and within a ten minutes' walk of the stuffy old law-courts, still extant in Chancery Lane. Mr. Heathcote sent in his card; and although at least half a dozen clients were waiting for Mr. Distin, he was admitted immediately, and received with marked cordiality.
"My dear Mr. Heathcote, charmed to see you. How good of you to look me up!" exclaimed Distin, as he pushed forward a morocco-covered armchair.
There was nothing æsthetic, picturesque, or newfangled in Mr. Distin's office, where the prevailing tone was a sober, substantial comfort. Most of the furniture looked at least fifty years old; but the Turkey carpet was the richest that the looms of Orient can produce; the spacious armchairs invited to repose, and to that ease of body which favours expansion of mind and friendly candour.
"Are you in town on business or pleasure?" inquired the lawyer, in his airy manner. "Going through to the north, perhaps; grouse-moor, eh?"
"Nothing is further from my thoughts than shooting grouse," replied Heathcote. "I am in London on my way to the Continent. I am going to hunt up the antecedents of that poor girl who was killed on our line; I want to find out who she was and how she came to be in the way of meeting her death in our locality."
The lawyer's airy manner was dropped in a moment, and he became intensely grave.
