Evening star., 1924-03-23

person who could not only be secret
but sly.
Il dare say you're right. styler,"
he remarked "Now we shall see"
In few minutes Styler's intuition
had been proved to be correct. A
courteous manageress, to whom
Smith presented his card and with
whom he exchanged a few words in
the information of which she was
possessed. And as Styler had antici-
pated, that information amounted to
little, and proved nothing. All that
the manageress could tell them was
boy in buttons twhom she was quite
sure she had never seen before, and
certainly could not recognize again,
all boys in buttons. in her opinion,
being much of a muchness) came to
the shop a large. busy and fash
ionable estabiishment) and LETT
note. which she now produced to her
visitors. The note mcloSed another
note addressed to The Sexton. Lynne,
Surrey. and was sealed. The covering
note, typewriter, and bearing no
name or address. simply asked that
wreath of violetS. to the value of
one pound Enclosed in the form of
sovereignty should be made up and
dispatched to the address on the Sec
ond note. which was to be placed in
the box with the wreath.
'All of which was done at once
the box being sent 10y that after
moons parcels post" added the man
ageress. obviously charmed to hear
of supposed mystery. But as to
the sender?-sorry | can't tell you
more: sir. If l should ever recognize
that boy
LAS you remarked before. ma'am.
all boys in buttons are very much
alike said Smith gravely. And in
these quarters of the town there are,
| believe. many hundreds Of EN-"
10 Il Srx-1. xNf t,1 h.
and in the direction of the District
railway.
quite right, Styler." he said Not
much there. All the same. some time
you might just satisfy yourself if
there's boy in buttons at that house
to which the governeSS was driven
the other night. You can easily do
that without attracting attention. In
the meantime We're going down To the
city. You've got the copy of those
marriage lines in your pocket"
Here answered Styler. You at
tach Importance to that
IF Kcsteven attached such suffi-
ctent Importance to the certificate az
to keep it stitched up in a secret
pocket of the only coat he had when
he came to Mr.. Darrell TreSs. and if
somebody else also attached such i'm
portance to il as to make il a point
OF stealing II from that secret pocket
as soon as Kesteven was dead" an
consider it highly important. And
for this reason. Styler-it proves that
the person who has been so anxious
about il to get hold of il since
hesteven'S death is an ignorant per
son who knows nothing about these
things. She-for I'm sure il is a
she ,though ii might be Il he. acting
under the suggestion of a she. YOU
know )-probably imagineS that if the
marriage lines are destroyed, and the
entry i'll the church registers defaced
or destroyed or abstracted. all trace
and record OF the marriage is swept
clear away That, OF course, is all
nonsense. because there is Il record
of all marriages at Somerset House.
But that. my dear Styler. is not
known 10 everybody-your general
public. taking it altogether. is re
markabiy ignorant on these little
points. As | say. the person with
whom were having to deal, is. I pre-
sumo. person who wanted TO get
hold of the certificate which kestcven
was hiding so carefully in order TO
destroy it, or, at any rate, to take
good care that il didn't come to light.
there's some extraordinary connec-
tion between the murder of KeSteyen
and the marriage to which this Ger
tifcate refers, and we're now going
to the church whereat that marriage
was celebrated to see what we can
find out. And you can hail that taxi