"Will you show me the purse?" she asked, holding out her hand for it and
addressing Osborne.

On the instant he produced his own and gave it to her. She glanced at
it, then handed it back.

"It is not his," she said quietly. Her gaze rested steadily upon
Osborne's face for some moments, then she said:

"How exceedingly kind of you to come all this way, and in the middle of
the night, just to find out if a purse picked up at your club happens to
belong to the guest of a friend of yours."

In her low, soft voice there was a touch of irony, almost of mockery.
Looking at her now, I felt puzzled. Was she what she appeared to be, or
was this amazing beauty of hers a cloak, a weapon if you will, perhaps
the most dangerous weapon of a clever, scheming woman? Easterton had
told us that Gastrell was a bachelor. Gastrell had declared that he had
never before met either Jack Osborne or myself. Yet here at the address
that Gastrell had given to the taxi-driver was the very woman the man
calling himself Gastrell, with whom Osborne had returned from Africa,
had passed off as his wife.

"My husband isn't in at present," she said calmly, a moment later, "but
I expect him back at any minute. Won't you come in and wait for him?"

Before either of us could answer she had walked across the hall,
unlocked and opened a door, and switched on the light in the room.

Mechanically we followed her. As we entered, a strange, heavy perfume of