pany; in all likelihood he had a big financial stake in these transactions; possibly he had discovered that John Wraypoole's discoveries about Avice Mortover were likely to jeopardize his position. Anyway, Levigne was the man to go for next. And though it was half-past eight in the evening when Wedgwood got back to London, he parted from his still dissatisfied companion, and hurrying straight from Waterloo to Bayswater, knocked at the door of 581 Cleveland Square, soon after nine o'clock.
For some time nobody answered the detective's summons. While he waited he examined the exterior of the house. It was typical of the houses of that neighbourhood; a stuccoed or painted front, high, narrow, with a portico over the steps of the front door and a railing that shut off the area in front of the basement. He noticed at once that all the front windows were dark; there was not a gleam of light in either upper or lower windows, nor behind the glass panels of the door at which he waited. But looking more closely he saw that there was certainly a light in the basement, and at that he knocked more loudly, and discovering a bell at the side of the door gave it a good pull. A moment later he heard a key turn and a bolt withdrawn; a light was turned up in the hall, and the door opening he found himself in the
