"Did you see an answer come back?"

"Yes, some hour or so later. Van Sneck seemed to be greatly pleased with it. He said he was going to make an evening call late that night that would cook Henson's goose. And he was what you call ga.s.sy about it: said he had told Henson plump and plain what he was going to do, and that he was not afraid of Henson or any man breathing."

Chris asked no further questions for the moment. The track was getting clearer. She had, of course, heard by this time of the letter presumedly written by David Steel to the injured man Van Sneck, which had been found in his pocket by Dr. Cross. The latter had been written most a.s.suredly in reply to the note Merritt had just alluded to, but certainly not written by David Steel. Who, then, seeing that it was Steel's private note-paper?

The more Chris thought over this the more she was puzzled. Henson could have told her, of course, but n.o.body else.

Doubtless, Henson had started on his present campaign with a dozen different schemes. Probably one of them called for a supply of Steel's note-paper. Somebody unknown had procured the paper, as David Steel had testimony in the form of his last quarter's account. The lad engaged by Van Sneck to carry the letter from the Continental to 15, Downend Terrace, must have been intercepted by Henson or somebody in Henson's pay and given the forged reply, a reply that actually brought Van Sneck to Steel's house on the night of the great adventure. Henson had been warned by the somewhat intoxicated Van Sneck what he was going to do, and he had prepared accordingly.

A sudden light came to Chris. Henson had found out part of their scheme.

He knew that David Steel would be probably away from home on the night in question. In that case, having made certain of this, and having gained a pretty good knowledge of Steel's household habits, what easier than to enter Steel's house in his absence, wait for Van Sneck, and murder him then and there?

It was not a pretty thought, and Chris recoiled from it.

"How could Van Sneck have got into Steel's house?" she asked. "I know for a fact that Mr. Steel was not at home, and that he closed the door carefully behind him when he left the house that night."

Merritt grinned at the simplicity of the question. It was not worthy of the brilliant lady who had so far got the better of him.

"Latch-keys are very much alike," he said. "Give me three latch-keys, and I'll open ninety doors out of a hundred. Give me six latch-keys of various patterns, and I'll guarantee to open the other ten."

"I had not thought of that," Chris admitted. "Did Van Sneck happen by any chance to tell you what he and Mr. Henson had been quarrelling about?"

"He was too excited to tell anything properly. He was jabbering something about a ring all the time."

"What sort of a ring?"

"That I can't tell you, miss. I fancy it was a ring that Van Sneck had made."

"Made! Is Van Sneck a working jeweller or anything of that kind?"

"He's one of the cleverest fellows with his fingers that you ever saw.

Give him a bit of old gold and a few stones and he'll make you a bracelet that will pa.s.s for antique. Half the so-called antiques picked up on the Continent have been faked by Van Sneck. There was that ring, for instance, that Henson had, supposed to be the property of some swell he called Prince Rupert. Why, Van Sneck copied it for him in a couple of days, till you couldn't tell t'other from which."

Chris choked the cry that rose to her lips. She glanced at Littimer, who had dropped his gla.s.s, and was regarding Merritt with a kind of frozen, pallid curiosity. Chris signalled Littimer to speak. She had no words of her own for the present.

"How long ago was that?" Littimer asked, hoa.r.s.ely.

"About seven years, speaking from memory. There were two copies made--one from description. The other was much more faithful. Perhaps there were three copies, but I forget now. Van Sneck raved over the ring; it might have been a mine of gold for the fuss he made over it."

Littimer asked no further questions. But from the glance he gave first to Chris and then to his son the girl could see that he was satisfied. He knew at last that he had done his son a grave injustice--he knew the truth. It seemed to Chris that years had slipped suddenly from his shoulders. His face was still grave and set; his eyes were hard; but the gleam in them was for the man who had done him this terrible injury.

"I fancy we are wandering from the subject," Chris said, with commendable steadiness. "We will leave the matter of the ring out of the question. Mr. Merritt, I don't propose to tell you too much, but you can help me a little farther on the way. That cigar-case you saw in Van Sneck's possession pa.s.sed to Mr. Henson. By him, or by somebody in his employ, it was subst.i.tuted for a precisely similar case intended for a present to Mr. Steel. The subst.i.tution has caused Mr. Steel a great deal of trouble."

"Seeing as Van Sneck was found half dead in Mr. Steel's house, and seeing as he claimed the cigar-case, what could be proved to be Van Sneck's, I'm not surprised," Merritt grinned.

"Then you know all about it?"

"Don't know anything about it," Merritt growled, doggedly. "I guessed that. When you said as the one case had been subst.i.tuted for the other, it don't want a regiment of schoolmasters to see where the pea lies. What you've got to do now is to find Mr. Steel's case."

"I have already found it, as I hinted to you. It is at Rutter's, in Moreton Wells. It was sold to them by the gentleman who had given up smoking. I want you to go into Moreton Wells with me to-day and see if you can get at the gentleman's ident.i.ty."

Mr. Merritt demurred. It was all very well for Chris, he pointed out in his picturesque language. She had her little lot of fish to fry, but at the same time he had to draw his money and be away before the police were down upon him. If Miss Lee liked to start at once--

"I am ready at any moment," Chris said. "In any case you will have to go to Moreton Wells, and I can give you a little more information on the way."

"You had better go along, Frank," Littimer suggested, under his breath.

"I fervently hope now that the day is not far distant when you can return altogether, but for the present your presence is dangerous. We must give that rascal Henson no cause for suspicion."

"You are quite right," Frank replied. "And I'd like to--to shake hands now, dad."

Littimer put out his hand, without a word. The cool, cynical man of the world would have found it difficult to utter a syllable just then. When he looked up again he was smiling.

"Go along," he said. "You're a lucky fellow, Frank. That girl's one in a million."

A dog-cart driven by Chris brought herself and her companion into Moreton Wells in an hour, Frank had struck off across country in the direction of the nearest station. The appearance of himself in More ton Wells on the front of a dog-cart from the Castle would have caused a nine days' wonder.

"Now, what I want to impress upon you is this," said Chris. "Mr. Steel's cigar-case was stolen and one belonging to Van Sneck subst.i.tuted for it.

The stolen one was returned to the shop from which it was purchased almost immediately, so soon, indeed, that the transaction was never entered on the books. We are pretty certain that Reginald Henson did that, and we know that he is at the bottom of the mystery. But to prevent anything happening, and to prevent our getting the case back again, Henson had to go farther. The case must be beyond our reach. Therefore, I decline to believe that it was a mere coincidence that took a stranger into Lockhart's directly after Henson had been there to look at some gun-metal cigar-cases set in diamonds. The stranger purchased the case, and asked for it to be sent to the Metropole to 'John Smith.' With the hundreds of letters and visitors there it would be almost impossible to trace the case or the man."

"Lockhart's might help you?"

"They have as far as they can. The cigar-case was sold to a tall American. Beyond that it is impossible to go."

A meaning smile dawned on Merritt's face.

"They might have taken more notice of the gentleman at Rutter's," he said, "being a smaller shop. I'm going to admire that case and pretend it belonged to a friend of mine."

"I want you to try and buy it for me," Chris said, quietly.

Rutter's was reached at length, and after some preliminaries the cigar-case was approached. Merritt took it up, with a well-feigned air of astonishment.

"Why, this must have belonged to my old friend, B--," he exclaimed.

"It's not new?"

"No, sir," the a.s.sistant explained. "We purchased it from a gentleman who stayed for a day or two here at the Lion, a friend of Mr.

Reginald Henson."

"A tall man?" said Merritt, tentatively. "Long, thin beard and slightly marked with small-pox? Gave the name of Rawlins?"

"That's the gentleman, sir. Perhaps you may like to purchase the case?"

The purchase was made in due course, and together Chris and her queer companion left the shop.

"Rawlins is an American swindler of the smartest type," said Merritt. "If you get him in a corner ask him what he and Henson were doing in America some two years ago. Rawlins is in this little game for certain. But you ought to trace him by means of the Lion people. Oh, lor'!"

Merritt slipped back into an entry as a little, cleanshaven man pa.s.sed along the street. His eyes had a dark look of fear in them.

"They're after me," he said, huskily. "That was one of them. Excuse me, miss."