"I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises
or fancies. It was with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan
that I searched for Mrs. Beaumont in the dark waters of the
life of London, but such has been the issue."

"You must have been in strange places, Villiers."

"Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would
have been useless, you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask
Mrs. Beaumont to give me a short sketch of her previous
history. No; assuming, as I had to assume, that her record was
not of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain that at some
previous time she must have moved in circles not quite so
refined as her present ones. If you see mud at the top of a
stream, you may be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went
to the bottom. I have always been fond of diving into Queer
Street for my amusement, and I found my knowledge of that
locality and its inhabitants very useful. It is, perhaps,
needless to say that my friends had never heard the name of
Beaumont, and as I had never seen the lady, and was quite
unable to describe her, I had to set to work in an indirect
way. The people there know me; I have been able to do some of
them a service now and again, so they made no difficulty about
giving their information; they were aware I had no
communication direct or indirect with Scotland Yard. I had to
cast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I wanted,
and when I landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it
was my fish. But I listened to what I was told out of a
constitutional liking for useless information, and I found
myself in possession of a very curious story, though, as I