“I’m not interested in the painting,” he said, “but only in the subject.”

“The subject? Ah! You recognize her then?”

“I do. And it occurs to me that your interest in Ballantine was perhaps rather closer than you suggested in our talk at Brighton the other evening.”

Lord Bernard laughed.

“I’m afraid you’re exploring a mare’s nest,” he said. “Yes, that’s Mary Ballantine’s portrait all right. But you can see for yourself that it was done some years ago. In point of fact, I have not seen her since her marriage—or, indeed, for some time before that. No, if you’re looking for a jealous lover to fix the murder on, I fear you will have to look elsewhere. The picture is here as a work of art, merely.”

“And the inscription?” Mallett asked.

“Ah, the inscription! But that just proves my point! When I tell you, Inspector, that it was her own choice! I had commissioned the portrait from Royon because I was—not to put too fine a point on it—in love with her, or as nearly in love as makes no matter. She had it framed and sent to me, with those lines underneath. I never had anything to do with her again.” He crossed the room in long strides, and standing in front of the painting, read the lines over softly to himself. “They are beautiful, are they not?” he went on. “Yes, and very proper to be addressed by a despairing lover to his mistress. But when a woman writes them of herself—when she sets herself up on that sort of pedestal—no thank you! ‘Unless he offer more than she demands’, indeed! What right has any woman to demand that sort of approach from a man? It’s the fault of the poets, I suppose, who put such absurd ideas into women’s heads, so that they trade on their femininity, but how any woman of sense——”

He stopped abruptly in the heat of his tirade, and his expression changed all at once.

“A woman!” he exclaimed. “There was a woman at Brighton, wasn’t there? A girl who looked happy? Inspector, you never told me—what was it exactly that interrupted me in what I was telling you that evening? Can’t you remember?”

“I remember perfectly well,” answered Mallett. “You were interrupted by your brother, who noticed a pretty girl on the dancing floor below where we were sitting.”

“Why on earth didn’t you mention it before? Why, it’s the crux of the whole case,” said Lord Bernard in growing excitement. “I can see it all now. We were in the gallery, watching a terrible lot of old dowagers and their gigolos, when suddenly she appeared. It’s as clear as crystal now!”

“Then you do remember?” the inspector asked eagerly.

Lord Bernard was back at the breakfast table, arranging chairs.