A light glowed in the hall, the door was opened and the doctor, in slippers and velvet coat, stood in the entrance. He showed no resentment nor did he have time to show it.

"I want a word with you," said Beale.

"Twenty if you wish," said the doctor cheerfully. "Won't you come in?"

Beale was half-way in before the invitation was issued and followed the doctor to his study.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

"Quite alone. I have very few visitors. In fact, my last visitor was that unhappy man Jackson."

"When did you see Miss Cresswell last?"

The doctor raised his eyebrows.

"By what right----?" he began.

"Cut all that out," said Beale roughly. "When did you see Miss Cresswell last?"

"I have not seen her to-day," said the doctor. "I have not been out of my flat since I came back from the inquest."

"I should like to search your flat," said Beale.

"Policeman, eh?" smiled the doctor. "Certainly you can search the flat if you have a warrant."

"I have no warrant, but I shall search your flat."

The doctor's face went dull red.

"I suppose you know you are liable to an action for trespass?"

"I know all about that," said Beale, "but if you have nothing to conceal, Dr. van Heerden, I don't see why you should object."

"I don't object," shrugged the doctor, "search by all means. Where would you like to start? Here?"

He pointed to three upright cases which stood at the end of the room nearest the door.

"You will see nothing very pleasant here, they are anatomical models which have just arrived from Berlin. In fact, I have been trading with the enemy," he smiled. "They are screwed up, but I have a screwdriver here."

Beale hesitated.

"There is only another room," the doctor went on, "my bedroom, but you will not find her there."

Beale twisted round like lightning.

"Her?" he asked. "Who said Her?"

"I gather you are looking for Miss Cresswell," said the doctor coolly. "You are searching for something, and you ask me when I saw her last. Who else could you be looking for?"

"Quite right," he said quietly.

"Let me show you the way." The doctor walked ahead and turned on the light in the inner bedroom.

It was a large apartment, simply furnished with a small steel bed, a hanging wardrobe and a dressing-chest. Beyond that was his bath-room.

Beale was making a casual survey of this when he heard the door of the bedroom click behind him. He turned round, jumped for the door, turned the handle and pulled, but it did not yield. As he did so he thought he heard a mutter of voices.

"Open the door!" he cried, hammering on the panel.

There was no answer. Then:

"Mr. Beale!"

His blood froze at the wild appeal in the tone, for it was the voice of Oliva Cresswell, and it came from the room he had quitted.

He smashed at the panel but it was made of tough oak. His revolver was in his hand and the muzzle was against the lock when the handle turned and the door opened.

"Did you lock yourself in?" smiled the doctor, looking blandly at the other's pale face.

"Where is the girl, where is Miss Cresswell?" he demanded. "I heard her voice."

"You are mad, my friend."

"Where is Miss Cresswell?"

His hand dropped on the other's shoulder and gripped it with a force that made the other shrink. With an oath the doctor flung him off.

"Hang you, you madman! How should I know?"

"I heard her voice."

"It was imagination," said the doctor. "I would have opened the door to you before but I had walked out into the passage and had rung Miss Cresswell's bell. I found the door open. I suppose you had been in. I just shut the door and came back here."

Without a word Beale thrust him aside. He had taken one step to the door when he stopped: At the end of the room had been the three long anatomical cases. Now there were only two. One had gone. He did not stop to question the man. He bounded through the door and raced down the stairs. There was no vehicle in sight and only a few pedestrians. At the corner of the street he found a policeman who had witnessed nothing unusual and had not seen any conveyance carrying a box.

As he returned slowly to the entrance of Krooman Mansions something made him look up. The doctor was leaning out of the window smoking a cigar.

"Found her?" he asked mockingly.

Beale made no reply. He came up the stairs, walked straight through the open door of the doctor's flat and confronted that calm man as he leant against the table, his hands gripping the edge, a cigar in the corner of his mouth and a smile of quiet amusement on his bearded lips.

"Well?" he asked, "did you find her?"

"I did not find her, but I am satisfied that _you_ will."

Van Heerden's eyes did not falter.

"I am beginning to think, Mr. Beale, that over-indulgence in alcoholic stimulants has turned your brain," he said mockingly. "You come into my apartment and demand, with an heroic gesture, where I am concealing a beautiful young lady, in whose welfare I am at least as much interested as you, since that lady is my fiancee and is going to be my wife."

There was a pause.

"She is going to be your wife, is she?" said Beale softly. "I congratulate you if I cannot congratulate her. And when is this interesting engagement to be announced?"

"It is announced at this moment," said the doctor. "The lady is on her way to Liverpool, where she will stay with an aunt of mine. You need not trouble to ask me for her address, because I shall not give it to you."

"I see," said Beale.

"You come in here, I repeat, demanding with all the gesture and voice of melodrama, the hiding-place of my fiancee,"--he enunciated the two last words with great relish--"you ask to search my rooms and I give you permission. You lock yourself in through your own carelessness and when I release you you have a revolver in your hand, and are even more melodramatic than ever. I know what you are going to say----"

"You are a clever man," interrupted Beale, "for I don't know myself."

"You were going to say, or you think, that I have some sinister purpose in concealing this lady. Well, to resume my narrative, and to show you your conduct from my point of view, I no sooner release you than you stare like a lunatic at my anatomical cases and dash wildly out, to return full of menace in your tone and attitude. Why?"

"Doctor van Heerden, when I came into your flat there were three anatomical cases at the end of that room. When I came out there were two. What happened to the third whilst I was locked in the room?"

Doctor van Heerden shook his head pityingly.

"I am afraid, I am very much afraid, that you are not right in your head," he said, and nodded toward the place where the cases stood.

Beale followed the direction of his head and gasped, for there were three cases.

"I admit that I deceived you when I said they contained specimens. As a matter of fact, they are empty," said the doctor. "If you like to inspect them, you can. You may find some--clue!"

Beale wanted no invitation. He walked to the cases one by one and sounded them. Their lids were screwed on but the screws were dummies. He found in the side of each a minute hole under the cover of the lid and, taking out his knife, he pressed in the bodkin with which the knife was ............