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Nearly opposite the residence of Mr. Stavanger there was an untenanted house. The front area was well planted with trees and shrubs, which afforded capital shelter to two men who had loitered there for some time. The men were known to us, being none other than Mr. Cory and Hilton Riddell. They were getting somewhat fidgety lest a mistake had been made somewhere. For it was long past the time appointed for Hugh Stavanger’s departure with Captain Cochrane, and yet they had seen neither the one nor the other, although the house had been strictly watched for two hours.

“He can’t have eluded us by going away earlier than the time named?” said Hilton, anxiously.

“Oh no,” was the confident reply. “Annie would have been sure to let us know somehow or other.”

“Unless she is suspected, and is prevented from doing anything further just now.”

“That is possible. But I doubt it, for she would have no need or opportunity to watch Mr. Stavanger in any suspicious way during the day. And even if she had found it desirable to do so, and had been detected, what could these people do to her? They could not say: You shall not go out, because we have been stealing, and don’t want to be caught. As for locking her up in her room, that would be hardly practicable. No, since she has not come out to us I fancy that events are still multiplying indoors, and that we shall hear all about it soon. Ah—there is somebody coming out! It is Annie, I expect.”

“No; it is a woman, but it is not Miss Cory.”

“It is a servant, and on an urgent message, for she is actually running.”

“Hush! she might hear us. Now she has passed us. Shall I follow her, do you think?”

“No, no, stay here. Look how the lights are flashing about those upper rooms. The whole house seems to be in an uproar—and now I can hear a woman screaming. Good God! they are murdering Annie.”

As he almost shouted this, in his sudden alarm, Mr. Cory, followed by Hilton, rushed across the road and up the steps leading to Mr. Stavanger’s house. Someone was evidently expected, for the door was opened as soon as they reached it, and a young girl, the housemaid probably, stood before them with clasped hands and streaming eyes.

“Oh, sir, are you the doctor?” she exclaimed. “It’s just awful! Wear has been taken ill all of a sudden, and she is rolling on the floor and screaming dreadful, with the agony she’s in. The missis is too frightened to be beside her. But the governess is with her, and oh dear, doctor, do be quick!”

“I’m not the doctor,” answered Mr. Cory quickly, “but I’ll fetch one directly. I was passing and heard the screams. Come along.”

A moment later both men were hastening for a certain Doctor Mayne, whom they knew. He lived not far away, and from him they hoped to be able to hear a few after-details of the case. Fortunately he was at home, and set off at once. The doctor whom the servant had gone to seek had not been in when she arrived at his house, so Doctor Mayne was admitted to the patient at once. But the moment he looked at her he judged her case to be hopeless.

Nor was he mistaken. Poor Wear was, as the housemaid had said, in mortal agony. An hour later she was dead. Annie, though she was tired and heartsick, was with her to the last, rendering what help she could, and wondering all the while if this terrible event could be the accident it was supposed to be. For the woman’s death at this juncture, with Hugh Stavanger’s secret still unbetrayed by her, was so strangely opportune an occurrence that less suspicious natures than Annie’s might easily suspect some of the Stavangers to have had a hand in it.

Wear was known to be rather fond of an occasional drink of Hollands. On her box in her room was found a gin bottle, from which she had evidently been drinking. But the bottle contained no gin, but a deadly poison sometimes used for disinfecting purposes. How this happened to be in an unlabelled bottle, and how Wear happened to mistake it for gin, are mysteries which have never been elucidated, and never will be now. The dead woman can reveal neither of these secrets, nor that other one which was so important to the people in whose house she died.

It was about eleven o’clock when this event occurred.

Meanwhile our two watchers were in a great state of anxiety and suspense, which was not lessened when Doctor Mayne, surprised to see them there still when he left the house, told them that all was over.

“Some time, Doctor Mayne, I will explain everything to you. At present my great anxiety is about my daughter.”

“Why, is she ill?”

“No, she is in that house. The woman who had just died an awful death knew a secret likely to cost young Stavanger his liberty and to liberate young Riddell, and the Stavangers were aware that she had them in her power. My daughter is there. She also knows their secret. Her life is no safer than Wear’s was. She shall stay no longer, lest she also be poisoned.”

“You are saying terrible things, Mr. Cory,” said the doctor, “but your excitement must prove your excuse. The unfortunate woman certainly died from poison. But there is nothing in the event to lead to the supposition that anyone but herself was to blame for the accident. In any case, it is of a kind to which your daughter could hardly fall a victim. Even if Wear had been deliberately poisoned—and I do not for a moment think that is so—a repetition of the same kind of tragedy would not be ventured upon by even the most reckless criminals. The young lady whom I take to be your daughter looked so ill and upset that I advised her to go to bed at once, and I know that she agreed to follow my advice.”

“Where is Mr. Stavanger?”

“I do not know. There are no men in the house, I think, at present, and the women are all considerably cut up by to-night’s scene. And now, as I have had several broken nights lately, and am very tired, I will say good-bye. To-morrow I will talk things over.”

“Now, what do you think it behoves us to do?” asked Hilton, who was as greatly perplexed and alarmed as Mr. Cory was. “I cannot understand how it happens that the Stavangers, senior and junior, and this Captain Cochrane, of whom Annie spoke, have not turned up.”

“I have it,” said Mr. Cory, after some deliberation. “There has been some alteration of plans. We left home perhaps earlier than Annie expected, and there may even now be a message waiting for us. But here comes a woman. See how she loiters. One would think she was as much interested in this house as we are.”

“Why, so she is! It is Miss Cory, I am sure.”

And so it proved. It was Miss Cory indeed, looking for her brother and friend.

“Whatever brings you here, Margaret?” asked Mr. Cory, in considerable surprise.

“Come here and you shall know,” she answered. “You can do nothing more here, and I have much to tell you. Annie is not coming out to-night. She is all right. Now listen.”

And as the trio walked homewards, Miss Cory gave them the following particulars:

“You had not been gone many minutes,” she said, “when a letter from Annie arrived, saying that she would come home to-morrow, as her work would then, she thought, be quite done. She also said that Mrs. Stavanger had received a telegraphic message during the morning. It was addressed to her husband, but she had opened it, as was her usual custom with messages which came to the house. It simply said ‘Can’t come. Bring H. S. at 8.30 to Millwall Dock. Sail to-morrow.’ Annie understood the message, which Mrs. Stavanger indiscreetly read aloud. To the mistress of the house it was not so intelligible. But she comprehended that it might be important, and sent the boy who does odd jobs about the house during the day to the shop with it. It seems to me that it would take a very clever individual to throw dust into Annie’s eyes. ‘I am not sure,’ she writes, ‘that it is safe to neglect watching the house, and yet Hilton at least should try to keep Hugh Stavanger in sight. What we want to prove is that he has the diamonds. It is no use, as we know, to attempt to have him arrested until we have proof in our possession that will convict him. Of course we know that he is guilty, and certain other people know it also. But we may not be able to induce them to give evidence on our side. Mr. Lyon has the honour of the firm to support. Mr. Stavanger’s family credit and prosperity would be entirely ruined by the proof of his son’s guilt. Wear will stick to the Stavangers if they make a sufficiently high bid for her silence. We must therefore place our reliance on the diamonds, which Hugh Stavanger must have hidden somewhere or other. They will be our salvation if we can show that they have been seen in the scoundrel’s possession. I am afraid it is a dangerous thing to do, but there seems to be nothing for it but to follow the man to sea. If he does not come home before eight o’clock, it is hardly likely that the stolen property is here. If he does come home it might almost be safe to arrest him on the chance of finding the things on him. But I dread ruining all by premature action, so implore you to be cautious. Let father watch here with a detective if he likes, but let Hilton go at once to Millwall Dock and keep a sharp look out there. He might perhaps discover the name of the ship Captain Cochrane is commanding, and get a passage in her. If he cannot go as a passenger, he can try, after changing his disguise, to go as cook or steward. Of course he does not know the work, but that is a detail that cannot be taken into consideration when such great issues are at stake.’

“Now what do you think of that?” said Miss Cory, folding up the letter, which she had stopped to read by the light of a street lamp.

“I think Annie is a wonderful girl. She seems to think of everything,” was Hilton’s reply, given in a tone of great disappointment. “But her excellent advice comes too late. Our bird has flown, and it will be almost impossible to discover him to-morrow, since he is sure to keep dark, and we do not even know the name of the ship to which he has been taken.”

“Yes, men generally have an idea that women are of no use,” Miss Cory said, and her voice had such a triumphant inflection in it that her hearers at once found themselves heartened again. “But in this case they may thank their stars that they have got women to help them.”

“We shall only be too glad to thank our stars—the women themselves,” quoth Hilton. Whereupon Miss Cory rejoined: “Very prettily said, Mr. Riddell, but you don’t know yet what you have to thank me for. I know where young Stavanger is to be found this minute.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really and truly.”

“But how in the world have you managed it?”

“Well, you see, when Annie’s letter arrived, you had already left home, and for a while I was more than a little puzzled as to what was best to be done. But there was no time to spare, and I soon had to come to a decision. Had I come to fetch either of you to go to Millwall, we should have been too late, and had I thought of intercepting either of the Stavangers on the way, my efforts would have been futile. There was but one course open to me, and I adopted it without delay. You and I, John, are about the same size. It being already nightfall, and it being, moreover, very essential that I should not be noticed much myself, I took a liberty with your wardrobe that you must excuse. I haven’t seen much of dock life, as you know, but I have an idea, which has proved to be correct, that women, at least respectable women, don’t hang about the dock gates at night unless they are on the look out for some particular ship. I am not one to stick at trifles, but I did not want to be mistaken for somebody who wasn’t respectable, and I did want to be as unnoticed as possible. So I just got dressed in one of your suits, put my hair out of the way—there isn’t much of it—donned a long top-coat and took an old hat, and set off for Millwall. I took the Underground, and changed at Mark Lane. At Fenchurch Street I just caught a train starting for the docks. If I had had to wait there I should have had a fruitless errand, for I lost a little time at the other end hunting about the dock gates, and I was afraid to attract attention to myself by asking my way. Perhaps you think that I ought to have known it, as I was down there with you last summer to look over one of the ships in which you are a shareholder. But things look very different in the bright sunshine, when you have a lot of friends with you, all bent upon pleasure, from what they do at night, when you are alone and nervous, and fearful alike of being seen yourself or of failing to see those of whom you are in search.

“I am thankful, however, to say that I overcame all obstacles, and I was luckier in my mission than I could have dreamed of, for I had barely got up to the dock gates, when a cab stopped for a moment to put down two men, whom I had little difficulty in recognising as Mr. David Stavanger and his son Hugh. I almost betrayed myself by trying to get too near them, as they questioned the watchman, but I suppose they thought themselves quite safe in that out-of-the-way region, and did not even trouble themselves to speak low, or to notice who stood near them.

“‘Do you know where the “Merry Maid” is lying?’ asked Mr. Stavanger.

“‘Yes, sir, she’s lying over there, sir, in that basin; but she’s not easy to get at. She’s been shifted into the middle of the dock, sir. She was to have sailed this tide, but the bo’sun was telling my mate, a bit since, that none of her stores have come aboard, through the steward not ordering them, and telling the skipper that he had. There’s been a jolly row, and the steward had to clear in a hurry to-night, although he had signed articles.’

“‘Then I suppose everybody all around is in a tear about it?’ put in Hugh Stavanger.

“‘Not a bit of it, sir,’ was the watchman’s reply. ‘Why should anybody be vexed except the owners? They are the only losers, having to pay a day’s expenses for nothing. The men are nearly all ashore, enjoying themselves a bit longer.’

“‘But how are we to get on board, if the ship is in the middle of the dock?’

“‘Oh, that’s easily managed, sir, when you know how to go about it. Hallo, Jim, just show the gents the way on board the “Merry Maid.”’

“‘Right you are,’ said the individual addressed as Jim. ‘Come along, sirs.’

“The next minute the Stavangers were on their way to the ship, and I was trudging back to the station, quite satisfied with the results of my mission, except for one thing. I had kept a sharp look-out on both father and son, but could see that they had no luggage whatever with them. Hugh Stavanger may have the diamonds concealed about him, or, as he is sure to have some luggage of some sort to follow him on board in the morning, the property we want to trace may be sent to him to-morrow. Anyhow, Hilton here, if he can get on board, will make it his business to seek it. He knows where to go, and he ought to start early, as the ship sails about noon. Just to finish my story—I got home as quickly as I could, and changed my clothes. Then I thought that, as you had missed Annie’s letter, you would perhaps hang about here all night, on the look-out for Captain Cochrane and his passenger. So I took a cab, and got out in the next street to the one I expected to find you in—and here I am, dead-tired, if I may own the truth.”

While Miss Cory had been talking, the trio had been walking homewards. They hoped to have come across a belated cab or hansom by the way, but were not fortunate enough to do so. They were all, therefore, very glad when they reached home, where warmth, food, and rest awaited them.