“I should think, sir,” he said, “that an interview with the old man’s daughter would be the best thing.”

“Capital idea,” Shelley announced. “It’s now—let me see—seven o’clock. Wonder if they’re on the ’phone.” He picked up a directory, ran his fingers rapidly down the columns, and found the number.

“Better ring her up,” he added, “and more or less prepare her for the shock. After all, she’s an only daughter, according to the reference books, and this will be a bit of a blow for her, I should think.”

He asked for the number, and was soon in communication with Miss Violet Arnell.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Miss Arnell,” Cunningham heard him say, when the preliminaries of identification had been got over.

“Yes,” he went on. “Your father. He has met with a serious accident, and I shall have to come around and get some particulars about his work, and so forth. Will you be in for the evening? You will? Good. I will be around in three-quarters of an hour or less.”

It was actually only about half an hour before they were driving along the main street of Pinner—a forlorn relic of the past, the village street of old-world charm, now surrounded by a wilderness of typically suburban red-brick and stucco, hideous in its unutilitarian sham-Gothic.

Professor Arnell had lived in a delightful old cottage, however, tucked away in a little side street off this main thoroughfare. It boasted a pleasant little flower garden and a fresh green lawn, and Shelley and Cunningham breathed in the fragrant scent of the stocks before they went to the front door.

Miss Violet Arnell was a kindly looking woman in the early thirties, her face and figure a modified and feminised version of her father’s aggressiveness. What in him had become flaming red hair was in her a delightful shade of auburn. She was tall, lithe, and upright, and she greeted her visitors with a quiet smile, not unmingled with the sadness appropriate to the occasion.

There was no heart-broken grief or zealous anxiety in her voice, however, as she asked Shelley and Cunningham if they would each like to have a glass of sherry.

“Thank you, Miss Arnell,” said Shelley; “I think I will. And I know that the Sergeant here never refuses a kindly offer of that sort.”

Cunningham grinned somewhat sheepishly, and accepted the glass of excellent sherry which was placed in his hand.

“Now,” she said, when these preliminaries were over, “what is all this about, Mr. Shelley? What has my father been up to? He’s caused me plenty of worry with his absent-mindedness and his funny ways.”

“You are quite prepared for a shock, then, Miss Arnell?” Shelley asked.

She nodded calmly. “Quite prepared for anything where my father is concerned,” she replied.