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Springs, I may tell you in
case you don't know, is a great
place for horse racing. He
didn't go to San Francisco.
I have found that out, and he
hasn't claimed the insurance
on his wife; I asked about the taxes they pay.
that. She was insured for a
pretty good sum, too, and if
the husband does not put in
a claim, it will go to a niece in
San Francisco. That doesn't
sound very suspicious, does
it ? ""

"Through the Income Tax people," answered Inspector Thesiger dryly. "It is sometimes simpler than consulting the London Directory, for you can place people roughly by This

"No, it does not, I confess," answered Mr Peabody.

"If you hadn't delayed so long down in Wales," growled the inspector with a frown, "we might have got in touch with this fellow, but as it is, I think we shall find it almost impossible to trace him."

"We?" cried Mr Peabody, surprised. "I didn't think you had any interest in him."

"I didn't have," answered the inspector, "until I discovered John Northbrook of Windsor, Ontario."

"What!" ejaculated Mr Peabody in amazement. You have found John Northbrook?”

"Yes," replied Inspector Thesiger. "I find that John Northbrook, late of Windsor, Ontario, is residing in great comfort and respectability at No. 108 Park Crescent. He is married, and has two children, and he has not been out of London since 1st September."

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John Northbrook was the sole heir of his uncle, the late James Northbrook of Park Crescent, and he lives in the same house and has the same servants, and is, as I said, an entirely respectable member of society. I have seen Mrs Northbrook, by the way, and noticed that she was wearing her engagement ring as well as her wedding ring.'

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"Then who the devil is this other fellow?" demanded the exasperated Mr Peabody.

"That is what I should like to find out," answered the inspector. "Curiously enough their ticket numbers at the Army and Navy Stores seem to be the same, for I went to the trouble of confirming your researches with reference to the ring, and I found that the purchaser used the same ticket number as the present John Northbrook inherited from his uncle. By the same token you were amazingly lucky over that bit of business; it was only about one chance in a hundred thousand that you would have been able to trace that common little ring."

"I suppose so," said Mr Peabody humbly, "but I wish you would give me credit for something."

"Why, my dear fellow," cried the detective warmly,

B

you made the most important the matter the next time she discovery of us all-you found came back from a trip. The the ring! I personally should doctor tells me that he put never have picked out that them there and forgot to take mackerel from among the thou- them away. It seems he had sands of his pals." a case of suspected measles or some such thing on board, and he used the empty bathroom to fumigate the clothes and things that he didn't want to put through the ordinary steam disinfector."

"Chuck it!" cried Mr Peabody. "You're spoiling the whole show. Have you got any other of my discoveries that you want to put a spoke in ?"

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CHAPTER X.-DR MICHAEL COSTELLO HAS A THEORY.

During the week following his dinner at the Chough and Crow," Mr Peabody, abandoning all thought of Northbrook and his unfortunate wife, devoted himself assiduously to the brighter side of life. Christmas Day found him a member of a cheerful house party in the New Forest, and the last days of the Old Year saw the waning of another romance which, though transitory, had been none the less enjoyable while it lasted.

Returning to town in the first week of January, he found a letter from Dr Michael Costello awaiting him in his flat. The young surgeon, it appeared, was in London for a few days, and had taken Mr Peabody at his word and called on him, only to find that he

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was away from home.
gave his address as the Great
Western
Western Hotel, Paddington.
Mr Peabody's interest in the
mystery of the finger and the
ring revived. He rang up the
Great Western Hotel, and in-
vited the young doctor to
lunch.

It was a marvellously
changed Dr Michael Costello
who was ushered in to the
flat punctually at the hour
named. The trousers of his
blue serge suit were, perhaps,
a thought too narrow, the
brim of his bowler hat a
trifle too flat, but his lemon-
yellow
yellow gloves and silver-
mounted malacca cane were
not those of the provincial
student of medicine but of the
man of affairs.

He seemed also to have

acquired a pose of slightly when I said that there was contemptuous indifference, but dirty work on that ship." this proved later to be merely a protective coating, which soon melted under the influence of his host's cheerful smile and excellent Burgundy.

He had, he said, come over to London to look for a post as ship's surgeon, and had that very morning received an appointment in the Constellation Line, and was due to sail in ten days on the s.s. Ursa Major, bound for New Zealand and Australia.

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"I'm not at all sure that you're not right about it," said Mr Peabody Peabody gravely, "though it seems impossible to co-ordinate all the facts of the case. It's a long story, but if you aren't busy and can spare an hour or so, I should like to hear your opinion of the whole evidence so far as we have been able to uncover it."

"I've got nothing to do until 5 o'clock, when I have to go and try on some of my uniform,' said Michael, "so I would like very much to hear the whole story."

"Good," said Mr Peabody.

Mr Peabody congratulated the young fellow very cordially, and wished that he was going with him, as he had always wanted to visit the Antipodes. "Why don't you come? "Make yourself comfortable." said Michael. "She's a very comfortable boat, the passage is cheap, and you couldn't have a better place to write a story than on board ship."

"I can't manage it this trip," sighed Mr Peabody, who really would not have gone if he had been paid for it (four months away from London, good God!) "I'm tied up with all sorts of work, and I don't see how I can get away."

"Well, you must manage it next trip," returned Michael, who understood the position perfectly, and tactfully let the matter drop. "And now I want to hear all about your inquiries on the Casabianca. You know I've given that case a lot of thought, and the more I think about it the more certain I am that I was right

Dr Michael Costello proved to be an excellent listener. Several times, indeed, during the course of the narrative he seemed to be on the point of interrupting, but his selfrestraint triumphed, and he heard his host patiently until the end.

"Well, now," finished Mr Peabody, taking up his glass and preparing to relight his cigar, which had gone out,

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now you have the whole story, what do you think of it ?"

"Faith, it's interesting enough," began Michael slowly, "and you've done well to find out so much about it all, but I can't see for the life of me why you're all so puzzled over it."

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What do you mean? "cried Mr Peabody in surprise. "Do

you imagine that you can see he the one who told that story the solution of it?

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Why, of course I do," said Dr Costello calmly. "I don't think there can be any solution except one."

"Oh, you think so, do you? And what's that?" demanded Mr Peabody, with the nearest approach to hauteur which his cheerful nature could achieve.

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"Well, you see," said Michael, there must be some way of reconciling all these factors, and the only way I can think of is that the poor woman was cut up in the bath and thrown out of the porthole."

"I thought of that," said Mr Peabody, giving his conscience a slight pat to soothe it, "but I gave it up, because I didn't think anybody but a butcher or a doctor or something could have done it in the time."

"Of course he couldn't,"

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scoffed Michael. But how do you know that Northbrook wasn't a butcher or a doctor (thanks for the association) or something? You don't know anything at all about him. But all that aside, my opinion is that he had a confederate in the ship's surgeon."

"Good God! I never thought of that," cried Mr Peabody.

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of the papers round the bathroom ventilators being put there when he was fumigating some clothes or something-a likely yarn! Of course they were put there to prevent the light from being seen while he was at work cutting her up. And didn't he go ashore with Northbrook in New York and help him to pass through the customs the pearls and jewels that they had taken off her dead body? Why, it is as plain as daylight, man."

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My God!" groaned Mr
Peabody.
Peabody. "I wonder if you
are right."

'Of course I'm right," cried Michael. "And your friend the detective must be a fool not to have thought of it."

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Thesiger! Yes, by Jove! we must get hold of Thesiger," cried Mr Peabody. "He will be as sick as muck when he finds that you have wiped his eye like this. You go off to your tailor now, but come back here this evening. I will try and get the inspector to come, and we can talk it all over. I'm sorry I can't ask you to dinner, as I'm dining out; but I should be able to get away by 10.30. Can you be here by then?

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"I'm sorry, but I am dining out too, and going to the theatre," said Michael. "Better make it to-morrow morning."

"All right, lunch with me here at one o'clock," returned Mr Peabody. "I'll get Thesiger by then, or if not, I shall let you know."

At lunch the next day Dr Costello seemed at first inclined to regard the inspector with the kindly and rather condescending tolerance which characterises the attitude of the younger and more inexperienced Hibernians towards their slower-witted neighbours. Thesiger, however, appeared unconscious of anything unusual, and went out of his way to congratulate the young physician on the accuracy of his observations and the aptness of his deductions.

"You ought to make a good detective," he assured him. "You might try being Doctor Sherlock Holmes to Mr Peabody Watson here. It's about time the doctors and the regular detectives got some credit.'

Mr Peabody was a little uncomfortable. He felt that it would be unfair to jest with the inspector until they had exposed their trump card.

"That's just it," he broke in. "We haven't given the doctor on the Casabianca the credit he deserves in this case up to now. Costello has a theory, and it really seems to fit in remarkably well with the fact that the ship's surgeon was Northbrook's confederate," and he proceeded to elaborate for Inspector Thesiger's benefit the hypothesis which Michael had propounded the day before. Inspector Thesiger listened in silence.

"So you see we ought to get after that doctor right away," finished Mr Peabody triumphantly.

Inspector Thesiger, his hands on his knees and his head # poked forward, glanced from one to the other of his young friends with a quizzical smile.

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"Well, well," he said,

you'd almost think that there had been somebody murdered by the way you talk. Let me see now, what proof did you give me that the finger your uncle found was Mrs Northbrook's ? Was it that the ring, which Mr Peabody caught so skilfully, fitted it? But things shrink in methylated spirit, don't they? I thought Dr Costello said so himself. But even so, suppose it was the finger that belonged to the ring-a finger implies a body of course, but not necessarily a dead body, does it? Or are you still so certain that it was cut off after death as to swear to it in a Court of Law? It's a difficult point, mind you, on which to give such a positive opinion after a cursory examination."

The two young gentlemen looked at one another dubiously. Had they gone too fast? Inspector Thesiger was amused at their discomfiture. "But you've done well," he continued. "You've found a very good plot for your friend's story. Use it, Mr Peabody, use it; but don't pin it on to the Force. However, just to set your minds at rest, we will find out about our doctor friend -MacCormick his name is; I saw him last month, when I asked him about these papers.

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