“Well? Who has relieved you?”

“Nobody, sir. I was simply ordered to cease keeping observation and report to you.”

“What?” cried Mallett, leaping from his chair.

“I understand there was a special instruction to that effect from the Home Secretary,” the man continued.

“ ‘I always treated him very decently when he was my fag at school,’ ” murmured Frant with a wry smile, but the inspector did not heed him. With a roar he dashed from the room and sped along the corridor, leaving Frant and the bewildered newcomer to follow as best they could.

They came up with him in the entrance. He had stopped there abruptly, his great shoulders heaving as he recovered his breath. When the sergeant approached, he caught his arm and held it tightly.

“I’m a fool, Frant,” he muttered. “My nerve must be going. We said to-morrow, didn’t we? There’s no real hurry, now, just because of this piece of imbecility. It’s only—only damnably upsetting.”

“Quite, quite,” said Frant soothingly.

“When you’ve got a rat in a trap, it’s a bit of a jar to find that some fool has opened the trap while your back’s turned,” he went on, “even though the rat doesn’t know it is in a trap. I’m not going to risk it, Frant. We’re going to Daylesford Court Mansions now.”

Within a few moments a police car swung out into Whitehall, carrying the three officers. They were silent as they drove. It had begun to rain, and the pavements were bright with the reflections of the street-lamps. On such a night, Mallett reflected, Ballantine had walked with another to his death in the little house in the quiet Kensington square. They passed the entrance to Daylesford Gardens, and, craning his neck, he could just distinguish the house itself, now dark and tenantless. It was only a matter of a few hundred yards, and they were at the Mansions. Strange, that the tale should end so near to where it had begun.