The motive was a mystery, yet the facts seemed to me plain enough.
As the young Italian had refused to give any satisfactory explanation, I resolved within myself to wait until the unfortunate woman's body was recovered before revealing to him the ghastly truth.

Without doubt he had some reason in withholding from me the true facts, either because he feared that I might become unduly alarmed, or else he himself had been deeply implicated in the plot.

Of the two suggestions, I was inclined to believe in the latter.
He walked with me as far as the end of Bishop's Road, endeavoring with all the Italian's exquisite diplomacy to obtain from me what I knew concerning the Leithcourts.

But I told him nothing, nor did I reveal that I had only that morning returned from Scotland.

Then at last we parted, and he retraced his steps to the little restaurant in Westbourne Grove, while I entered a hansom and drove to the well-known photographer's in New Bond Street, whose name had been upon the torn photograph of the young girl in the white pique blouse and her hair fastened with a bow of black ribbon, the picture that I had found on board the _Lola_ on that memorable night in the Mediterranean, and a duplicate of which I had seen in Muriel's cosy little room up at Rannoch.
I recollected that she had told me the name of the original was Elma Heath, and that she had been a schoolfellow of hers at Chichester.
Therefore I inquired of the photographer's lady-clerk whether she could supply me with a print of the negative.
For a considerable time she searched in her books for the name, and at last discovered it.