each other have, at our request, been thoroughly searched by the local police and the platelayers, but nothing else has been found. My first fear was,' added the inspector, 'that there might have been a tragedy in the tunnel. Happily, however, there is no ground for any such suspicion.'
'But there may have been a struggle in the train!' I suggested.
'Possibly,' answered the inspector. 'It's fortunate that the cards were in the case, for when the chatelaine was handed to the sergeant of constabulary at Welwyn, he at once recognized Lethmere as the name of the lady whose description had been circulated by us. Therefore the constabulary sent it up here at once.'
I took it and found that in the purse were the four Treasury-notes, as the maid Mulliner had described, together with some silver. Three of my own particular brand of Russian cigarettes remained in the case, while among the cards which I opened upon the table was one of my own upon which I had, only a few days previously, written down the address of the makers of a new enamel which I had advised her to try upon her machine.
The tiny powder-puff and the small bevelled mirror were there, though the latter had been cracked across in its fall in the tunnel.
'Seven years bad luck!' I remarked to the inspector, whose name I had learned to be Barton.
I was turning over with curiosity that bunch of jingling feminine impedimenta which I knew so well, when the door suddenly opened, and a red-tabbed captain in khaki entered.
