"Well, sir, as I say, I didn't know it! I've no objection to telling you what I do know if it can be of any use in your efforts to trace this young lady. Our family, Patellos, hails from the North—the Peak district in Derbyshire, but such of us as are left—now only a brother of mine and myself—if Louisa is dead—left that region long ago to try our fortunes elsewhere. Louisa went out to Canada. A year or two after she'd gone she wrote to me to the effect that she'd met a young Derbyshire man, Matthew Mortover, there and had married him. From that day to this I've never heard a word of her or him. We know something of that Mortover family, for my wife's sister Mrs. Clagne, has been housekeeper at Mortover Grange for many years—ever since her husband died, in fact, and of course we hear news occasionally—Mrs. Clagne was here not long ago, and she took one of my daughters back there with her, for a holiday. I'm given to understand that when old Mr. Gilson Mortover died, everything that was possible was done to find Matthew who'd married my sister, but it was all no use. Nobody has ever heard of him, nor of his wife, my sister, till now! And now—you say he left a daughter, and she's missing. Very strange, sir!"
"There are some very strange features in
