Her fingers had strayed over one of the blossoms, and he noticed that while
they talked she was convulsively crushing it into pulp.

"Were these detectives from Liverpool," she asked, "able to keep any watch
upon Doctor Gant and Mr. Jocelyn Thew after--Chester?"

"To some extent. There is no doubt that Jocelyn Thew spent the first night
in Liverpool. After that he travelled to London and took up his residence
at the Savoy. Here Doctor Gant, who had travelled up from Chester, called
upon him, late in the afternoon of the day of his arrival. They spent some
time together, and subsequently the doctor took a room at the Regent Palace
Hotel. The two men dined together at the Savoy grill, and took a box at the
Alhambra music-hall, where they spent the evening. They appear to have
returned to Jocelyn Thew's rooms, had a whisky and soda each and separated.
There is no record of their having spoken to any other person or visited
any other place."

"And their rooms have been searched?"

"By the most skilled men we have."

She pulled another of the roses to pieces.

"So it comes to this," she said. "All these documents, of whose existence
both you and the American police knew, have been brought from America to
England, and even now you cannot locate them."

"At present we cannot," he confessed drily, "but I am not prepared to admit
for a single moment that they are ever likely to reach their destination."