volume I was required to search. And if I pretended to look for it

I should land myself in a series of traps. My chief would want some explanation of its absence; and what explanation could I give? If I said that I had been present under a false name he would naturally expect me to tell him that name. And he would expect me to tell him at once, before I opened the book and began the mock search. I had barely a second in which to make up my mind. If only my own reputation, or even my own life, had been at stake, I think I should have thrown myself on his mercy, and come out with the whole truth. But I was held as in an iron vice. The knowledge that the police were actively engaged in tracing the purchasers of the costumes which had been described to us by Gerard haunted my consciousness. I was driven in despair to tell my first direct falsehood to my chief.

I opened the volume hurriedly as I spoke.

“I don’t think I shall find my own name here.”

“Why not?” The question came instantly, though it came in a quiet, friendly tone.

“My recollection is that I gave some other name. I am trying to remember what. I was rather doubtful about the character of the place, and didn’t want to run the risk of it being known that I had been there. I considered the name didn’t matter; I thought it was merely a form.” I was glancing feverishly through the pages as I talked, trying to pick out some name too common to be easily identified. “Ah, yes, I remember now--Carter.”

I placed my finger on an entry nine months old. A Mr. Robert Carter had been introduced on that date by a Captain Smethwick.

Much to my relief Tarleton accepted the explanation readily.

“I dare say a good many of the names in that book are equally fictitious,” he said with good humour. “Look and see what name the Crown Prince took last night.”

It was easily found. A Count Donau had been introduced by the Chancellor of the Slavonian Embassy.

“Any other visitors?” the consultant asked lightly.

I read aloud one or two masculine names, but he pulled me up.

“Any ladies?”

There were two lady visitors. I read out both their names without misgiving. One was a Lady Greatorex, the other a Mrs. Antrobus, both of them assumed names for aught I knew.

The specialist paid little attention for the moment. He was busy with his duplicate list. I watched him with increasing anxiety as he ticked off name after name. At the end of half an hour he had completed his task for the time being.

“I have here thirty-eight names of people who were both patients of Weathered and members of the Domino Club. And all of them, without exception, were patients first. It is clear that he started the club for their benefit, at once to keep them under his influence, and to confirm them in the very inclinations he pretended to relieve them from. The man was a moral monster. If ever Satan had an active instrument on earth this Weathered was the man. And I doubt if the law could have touched him.”

His words almost invited me to say, “In that case the law can very well afford to shut its eyes to his fate.”

The adviser of the Home Office shook his head. “That depends. The law must first know what was his fate. It looks to me as though we were as far off from knowing that as ever. We know neither how he died, nor at whose hands, nor the motive of the assassin at present.”

“Doesn’t everything point to his death being more or less an accident?” I ventured to plead.

“On the contrary, I should say that everything points to its being a deliberate and deeply-planned murder.”

I gave a horrified gasp. Before I could collect myself sufficiently to take in this formidable judgment I was saved from exposing myself by the familiar sound of the telephone bell.

In our hasty departure from the house that morning I had neglected to disconnect the receiver in my bedroom, and connect the one downstairs. I sprang out of the room and upstairs, thankful for the interruption. I was destined to receive a second shock, though a less unnerving one. The call again came from Inspector Charles, who had just received a report from one of his subordinates engaged on the case.

The costumier who had supplied the dress of Salome had just been found. The costume had been delivered two days before to Miss Sarah Neobard, Warwick Street, Cavendish Square.