"O, this is dreadful! Shall I wire an apology to the man I'm dining
with?"

"No need for that, Mr. Theydon," said Winter, sympathetically. "I'm
sorry now we blurted out our unpleasant news. But you had to be told,
and it was essential that we should get your story some time tonight.
Can you be home by eleven?"

"Yes, yes. I'll be there without fail."

"Thank you. We have a good many inquiries to make in the meantime.
Goodby, for the present."

The two made off. Winter had done all the talking, but Theydon was far
too disturbed to pay heed to the trivial fact that Furneaux, after one
swift glance, seemed to regard him as a negligible quantity. It was
borne in on him that the detective evidently believed he had something
of importance to say, and meant to render it almost impossible that he
should escape questioning while his memory was still active with
reference to events of the previous night.

And he had so little, yet so much, to tell. On his testimony alone it
would be a comparatively easy matter to establish beyond doubt the
identity of Mrs. Lester's last known visitor. And what would be the
outcome? He dared hardly trust his own too lively imagination. Whether
or not his testimony gave a clew to the police, the one irrevocable
issue was that somewhere in London there was a girl named Evelyn who
would regard a certain young man, Francis Berrold Theydon to wit, as a
loathsome and despicable Paul Pry.