Page:The Eyes of Max Carrados.pdf/241

Rh the next tenant. The lodger's "few things" she had bundled together into a cupboard, whence they had been retrieved by the police, in spite of her indignant protest. But the lodger's "papers and such-like rubbish" she confessed to burning, to get them out of the way. Mr Carlyle spent a profitless half-hour and then returned, calling at Scotland Yard on his way back. His friend the inspector shook his head; there was nothing among the seized property that afforded any clue.

It was at this point that Mr Carlyle's ingenuous mind suggested looking up Carrados, whom he had not seen since the visit to the theatre.

"Max was interested in this case from the first; I am sure he will be expecting to hear from me about it," was the form in which the proposal conveyed itself to him. The same evening he ran down to Richmond for an hour, after ascertaining that his friend was at home and disengaged.

"You might have brought Enniscorthy with you," remarked Carrados when the subject had been started. "Nice, genuine young fellow. Evidently deeply in love with the girl, but he is young enough to take the attack safely. What have you told him?"

"He is back in Ireland just now—got an idea that he might learn something from some people there, and rushed off. What I have told him—well"—experience endowed Mr Carlyle with sudden caution—"what would you have told him, Max?"

Carrados smiled at the innocent guile of the invitation.

"To answer that I should have to know just what you know," he replied. "I suppose you have gone into this Embankment development?"

"Yes." He had come intending to make some show