The next day he was seen prospecting the house from the park side.

    Ordinarily, it would have been a very simple matter to have pulled him in and investigated his credentials; but quite recently there had been what the Press had called a succession of police scandals. Two perfectly innocent men had been arrested in mistake for somebody else, and Scotland Yard was chary of taking any further risks.

    Tennett was traced to his flat, and he was apparently a most elusive man, with a habit of taking taxicabs in crowded thoroughfares. What Scotland Yard might not do officially, it could do, and did do, unofficially. Wally the Nose listened with apparent growing discomfort.

    "If it's him, he's mustard," he said huskily. "I don't like messing about with no Ringers. Besides, he hasn't got a red beard."

    "Oh, shut up!" snarled Bliss. "He could grow one, couldn't he? See what you can find out about him. If you happen to get into his flat and see any papers lying about, they might help you. I'm not suggesting you should do so, but if you did..."

    Wally nodded wisely.

    In three days he furnished a curious report to the detective who was detailed to meet him. The man with the red beard had paid a visit to Croydon aerodrome and had made inquiries about a single-seater taxi to carry him to the Continent. He had spent a lot of his time at an electrical supply company in the East End of London, and had made a number of mysterious purchases which he had carried home with him in a taxicab.

    Bliss consulted his superior.

    "Pull him in," he suggested. "You can get a warrant to search his flat."

    "His flat's been searched. There's nothing there of the slightest importance," reported Bliss.

    He called that night at Carlton House Terrace and found Mr. Miska Guild a very changed man. These three months had reduced him to a nervous wreck.

    "No news?" he asked apprehensively when the detective came in. "Has that wretched little creature discovered anything? By gad, he's as clever as any of you fellows! I was talking with him last night. He was outside on the Terrace with one of your men. Now, Bliss, I'd better tell you the truth about this girl in Paris—"

    "I'd rather you didn't," said Bliss, almost sternly.

    He wanted to preserve, at any rate, a simulation of interest in Mr. Guild's fate.

    He had hardly left Carlton House Terrace when a taxicab drove in and Wally the Nose almost fell into the arms of the detective.

    "Where's Bliss?" he squeaked. "That red-whiskered feller's disappeared...left his house, and he's shaved on his beard, Mr. Connor. I didn't recognise him when he come out. When I made inquiries I found he'd gorn for good."

    "The chief's just gone," said Connor, worried.

    He went into the vestibule and was taken up to the floor on which Mr. Guild had his suite. The butler led him to the dining-room, where there was a phone connection, and left Wally the Nose in the hall. He was standing there disconsolately when Mr. Guild came out.

    "Hullo! What's the news?" he asked quickly.

    Wally the Nose looked left and right.

    "He's telephonin' to the boss," he whispered hoarsely, "But I ain't told him about the letter."

    He followed Miska into the library and gave that young man a piece of news that Mr. Guild never repeated.

    He was waiting in the hall below when Connor came down.

    "It's all right—they arrested old red whiskers at Liverpool Street Station. We had a man watching him as well."

    Wally the Nose was pardonably annoyed, "What's the use of having me and then puttin' a busy on to trail him?" he demanded truculently. "That's what I call double-crossing."

    "You hop off to Scotland Yard and see the chief," said Connor, and Wally, grumbling audibly, vanished in the darkness.

    The once red-bearded man sat in Inspector Bliss's private room, and he was both indignant and frightened.