The address of Miss L’Estrange, given to David by Dibbin, was in King’s Road, Chelsea, and thither David set out, thinking in his cab of that word “papers,” of the oddness of Violet’s question at the grave: “What have you done with my sister’s papers?”

Whatever papers might be meant, it was hardly to be supposed that Miss L’Estrange knew aught of them, yet he hoped for information from her, since a tenant next in order is always likely to have gathered many bits of knowledge about the former tenant.

As for his right to pry and interfere, that, he assured himself, was a settled thing. Going over in his mind Violet’s words and manner in the cemetery, he came to the conclusion that she was half inclined to suspect that he was her sister’s destroyer, who had now taken the flat for some vaguely evil reason, perhaps to seek, or to guard from her, those very papers for which she so craved. Had she never heard, he wondered, that her sister’s evil mate was a man with a black mustache and pale, dark skin? Perhaps, if she ever had, she would suspect—some one else than he! That would be strange enough, her suspicion of the innocent, if at the same time the guilty was at her side, unsuspected! But David tried to banish from his mind the notion that Van Hupfeldt might possibly be Johann Strauss.

At Chelsea he was admitted to a flat as cozily dim as his own, but much more frivolously crowded with knickknacks; nor had he long to wait until Miss L’Estrange, all hair and paint, dashed in. It was near one in the afternoon, but she had an early-morning look of rawness and dÉshabillement, as if she had just risen from bed. Her toilet was incomplete. Her face had the crude look of a water-color daub by a school-girl; her whirl of red hair swept like a turban about her head.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I am sorry—” began David.

“Cut the excuses,” said Miss Ermyn L’Estrange. She had a reputation for bruskness which passed for wit in her set.

“I am the occupant of the flat in Eddystone Mansions which you recently left.”

“I hope you like it.”

“I like it fairly well, as a flat.”

“What? Not seen anything?”

“No. Anything of what nature?”

“Anything ghostified?” she snapped, sitting with her chin on her palm, her face poked forward close to David’s, while the sleeve fell away from her thin forearm. She had decided that he was an interesting young man.

“I have seen no ghost,” he said. “I don’t believe I ever shall see one.”

“There are ghosts,” she said; “so it’s no good saying there are not, for my old Granny Price has been chased by one, and there’s been a ghost in that very flat. My servant Jenny saw it with her own eyes.”

“It is always some one else’s eyes which see the invisible,” said David.

“Jenny’s eyes are not some one else’s, they are her own. She saw it, I tell you, but perhaps you are one of those people who cower under the sheets all night for fright, and in the daytime swear that there are no ghosts.”

“What? You know so much of me already?”

“Oh, I know my man the moment I lay eyes on him, as a rule. You’re from Australia—I can tell your twang—and you have come to England to look for a wife. Can’t very well get along without us, after all, can you?”

“There is some truth in that. What a pity you didn’t see the ghost yourself!”

“I heard it; I smelled it.”

“Really? What did it smell of? Brimstone?”

“Violets!”

David started, not wholly because he thought Miss L’Estrange would be flattered by this tribute to her forcible style.

“And I’m not one of your fanciful ones either,” she went on, smirking at the effect she had made.

“How often did this thing happen to you?”

“Twice in three months.”

“Daytime? Night-time?”

“Dead of night. The first time about two in the morning, the second time about three.”

“To me this is naturally fascinating,” said David. “Do tell me—”

“The first time, I was asleep in that front bed-room, when I suddenly found myself awake—couldn’t tell why, for I hadn’t long been in bed, and was tired. I found myself listening, heard some creaks about, nothing more than you can generally hear in a house in the dead of night, and I was thinking of going to sleep again, when all at once I seemed to scent violets somewhere. I wasn’t certain at first, but the notion grew, and if it had been brimstone, as you said, I couldn’t have been so overcome as I was—something so solemn and deathly in that fume of violets visiting anybody in the dark in that fashion. As I knew that Gwen Barnes, who poisoned herself in that very room, was fond of violets—for I had seen her both on and off the stage several times—you can guess whether I felt rummy or not. Pop went my little head under the bed-clothes, for I’ll stand up to any living girl you care to mention, and send her home all the worse for it; but the dead have an unfair advantage, anyhow. The next minute I heard a bang—it sounded to me like the lid of one of my trunks dropping down—and this was followed by a scream. The scream did for me—I was upset for weeks. It was Jenny who had screamed; but, like a fool, I thought it was the ghost—I don’t know what I thought; in fact, I just heard the scream, and lay me down and d’eed. When I came to myself, there was Jenny shivering at my side, with the light turned on, saying that a tall woman had been in the flat—”

“Was Gwendoline Barnes in the flesh a tall girl?” asked David.

“Pretty tall; one would have called her tall.”

“And Jenny was certain? She had really seen a woman?”

“Quite certain.”

“In the light?”

“No, in the dark.”

“Ah, that’s not so good. And as to your trunk, had you left it locked?”

“No, I don’t think. It’s certain anyway that something or somebody was at it that night; for next day I found the things rummaged.”

“Sure now? I don’t imagine that you are very tidy.”

“The cheek! I tell you the things were rummaged.”

“And nothing stolen?”

“Ghosts are not thieves. They only come back to pretend to themselves that they are still living in the old scenes, and that their bit of a fling is not all over forever. I can well imagine how the poor things feel, can’t you? Of course, nothing was stolen, though I did miss something out of the trunk a day or two afterward—”

“What was that?”

“My agreement with the theater. Couldn’t find it high or low in the place; though I was pretty sure that I had put it into that very trunk. Three weeks after it had disappeared, lo and behold! my agreement comes to me one morning through the post! No letter with it, not a word of explanation, just the blessed agreement of itself staring me in the face, like a miracle. Now, I’m rather off miracles—aren’t you? So I said to myself—”

“But stay, what was the postmark on the envelope which brought you back this agreement?” asked David.

“Just London, and a six-barred gate.”

“You couldn’t perhaps find that envelope now?”

“Now, do I look like anybody who ties up old envelopes in packets? Or do you take me for an old maid? Because, if you do, just let me know.”

“Certainly not an old one,” said David. “But how as to the second visit of the ghost?”

“The second time it was about three in the morning. Jenny did not see her then; but we both woke up at the same moment without any apparent cause—we were sleeping together, you may bet your last dollar on that!—and we both smelled something like violets, and we heard a sound, too, like the top of the piano being shut down. ‘Miss L’Estrange,’ Jenny whispered into my ear, ‘there’s something in the drawing-room.’—‘Go, Jenny,’ I whispered to her, ‘and see what it is.’—‘You go, Miss L’Estrange,’ Jenny whispered to me, ‘you being the mistress; and I’ll come after.’—‘But you are the servant,’ I whispered to her, ‘you go.’—‘No, Miss L’Estrange,’ she whispered back, ‘you are braver than me, you go, and I’ll come after.’—‘No, you know that you are much the bravest, Jenny, so don’t be such a coward,’ I whispered to her, ‘and I’ll come after.’ It was like a farcical comedy. At this we heard something like a chair falling upon the carpet in the drawing-room, and now we were in such a state of fright that we couldn’t move our hands, to say nothing of our feet. Then a long time passed, we didn’t hear anything more; so, after about half an hour of it, Jenny and I together made a rush for the switch, and got out into the drawing-room. Then again we scented a faint something like violets; but nobody was there, and we neither saw nor heard anything more.”

“So, after that second experience, I suppose, you would stay no longer in the flat?” said David.

“I did stay a few days. It wasn’t altogether the ghost that drove me away, though that may have had something to do with it, but the cheek and the meanness of the man who put me there.”

“Of the—Ah, I beg pardon,” said David, with lowered lids.

“Oh, this isn’t a Sunday school. If you hem and haw at me I shall show you the short cut to the front door. It was a fair business arrangement; so don’t you think anything else. The man was named Strauss, and whether his motive in putting me there was quite square or not, don’t let him suppose that I am going to screen him, for I’m not. I am straight with those that are straight with me; but those that are up to mean tricks, let them beware of the color of my hair—”

“So you were put into the flat!”

“Didn’t I go into it rent-free? Stop, I will tell you, and you shall judge for yourself whether I have been shabbily used or not. One night last August I was introduced by a friend to a gentleman named Strauss—dark, pale man, pretty fetching, but not my style. However, next day he turned up at my place—I was living then in Great Titchfield-St.; and what do you think my man wanted? To put me into the Eddystone Mansions flat for six months at his expense, on the condition that I or Jenny would devote some time every day to searching for papers among the furniture. He said that a chum of his had once occupied the flat, and had left in it one or more documents, carefully hidden somewhere, which were of the utmost importance; I was to search for these, and give them to him. Well, I didn’t half like it, for I thought he was wicked. So I asked him why he didn’t take the flat, and search for the papers himself at his leisure? Well, he made some excuse or other, and at last, as he talked sanely enough, I struck hands over it—rent free, six months, an hour’s search each day; and Jenny and I moved in.”

“Did you search an hour each day?” asked David with a laugh.

“Hardly likely!” grinned Miss Ermyn L’Estrange. “I can see myself searching a small flat day after day for I didn’t know what, like a goose. There was nowhere to search. I did look about a little the first day; but, not finding any documents, I thought to myself, ‘Here endeth.’ Of course, I had to tell him that I was busy searching, for that man pestered me so, you wouldn’t believe. He never actually came to the flat, for some reason or other; but night after night, when the theaters opened in September, there he was, wanting to know if I had found anything, if I had probed the cushions with hat-pins, if I had looked under the carpets, and the rest of it. At last I began to treat him a bit off-handedly, I admit, and before the third month was up, he says to me one night that if I didn’t find something at once, he would have to cut off the allowance for the rent. I told him that he had put me there for six months, that I had made all arrangements, and that he was an idiot. If he didn’t know his mind, I knew mine. Oh, we had a fine set-to, I can tell you. He said that, since I had proved useless to him, I should have to pay my own rent, so, what with ghosts and all, I wouldn’t stay in the place another two days; and in going I gave it hot to that Mr. Dibbin, too—”

“What had Dibbin done?” asked David.

“He hadn’t done anything; but still I gave him a piece of my mind, for I was wild.”

“Poor Dibbin! he is still shaky from it. He has mentioned to me that you went off with a noise like a catherine-wheel. But you never found any papers at all in the flat?”

“No—except one, or rather two, and those Strauss never got.”

“How was that?”

“Because I didn’t find them till the day after we had had the row, when my trunks were ready packed to go, and I wasn’t going to give them to him then, for his cheek. Besides, they didn’t concern him; they were only a marriage certificate, and the certificate of a birth which fell out of a picture.”

David sat up, saying: “How do you mean, ‘fell out of a picture’?”

“As we were carrying out the trunks, there was a bump, and one of the pictures in the corridor came down. The boards at the back of it must have been loose, for they fell out, and among them was an envelope with the two certificates in it.”

“Now, I bless my stars that ever I came to you,” said David. “This may be the very thing I want.”

“How many of you are after papers in that flat, I should like to know. First there was Strauss, then that young lady, and now you—”

“Which young lady?” asked David.

“Why, I hadn’t been in the flat three days when a young lady, a tall, dark girl came, and practically insulted me. She wanted to know what was my motive for coming into the flat, and if I was the agent of any one, and if I meant to purloin any papers which I might find. Well, I’m not one for taking much sauce from another woman; for I’ve got red hair, as you can see for yourself, but somehow I couldn’t be hard on her, she had had some big trouble, I could tell—a bit touched somewhere, too, I thought, suspicious as a bird, sick at the very name of Strauss! She had dropped to it all right that I was there to serve Strauss’s ends, and she went on her bended knees to me, asking me not to do it. I couldn’t quite make out what it was all about, or what there was between her and Strauss, for she wouldn’t tell me. It was something pretty strong, for when I told Strauss about her visit, I thought the man was going to drop dead. Her name was Violet Mordaunt. I remember it; for Mordaunt was also the family name of the woman in the marriage certificate—”

“Why did you not send this marriage certificate to Violet Mordaunt?” asked David, “since you did not give it to Strauss?”

“I would have sent it to her, I’m sure, but I didn’t have her address. She did leave me an address that day she came; but, to tell the truth, I didn’t take the whole to-do about papers, papers, papers, seriously, and Lord knows what became of the address—”

“Oh, good heavens, how selfish and careless!” groaned David.

“Look here, young man, you come from Australia?” cried Miss L’Estrange, bouncing up from her chair. “In London people look after themselves and mind their own business, you see. We are as kind-hearted here as they are anywhere else, but we haven’t the same leisure to be kind. I tell you that if I had had the young lady’s address I should very likely have sent her the papers; but I didn’t, and that’s all; so don’t preach.”

“Well, better late than never,” said David. “Just give me the papers now, if you will, for I know her address—”

“But where are the papers?” said Miss L’Estrange. “You don’t suppose that I keep papers—”

“Don’t say that you have lost them!” pleaded David.

“I haven’t the faintest idea where the papers are! I was in a regular flurry, just moving out of the place; I had no interest in the papers. I glanced at them to see what they were, and, as far as I can remember, I threw them on the floor, or handed them to Jenny. It’s just possible that they are here now; but I shouldn’t fancy so. I’ll ask Jenny when she comes in.”

“Ah, you little know how much misery you might have saved a poor girl, if you had been a little more thoughtful,” growled David, and his wrath seemed to cow the woman somewhat. “This name of Mordaunt was the maiden name of your predecessor in the flat, who took the name of Gwendoline Barnes; Violet Mordaunt is her sister; Gwendoline is believed by all the world, including her own mother, to have been led astray, and the certificates which you handled so lightly would have cleared her name and lifted a world of grief from her poor sister’s heart.”

“Good Lord! How was I to know all that?” shrilled Miss L’Estrange, staring. “So it was Strauss that ruined Gwen Barnes? And this Violet Mordaunt was Gwen Barnes’s sister? Now you say it, they were something alike. I always put down that Strauss for a rotter—”

“But why, since he married her?”

“Married whom? Strauss wasn’t the husband’s name on the marriage-certificate! Gwendoline Mordaunt was one, and the other, as far as I can recollect, was a foreign name, von Somebody or other—”

“Von!” David also sprang to his feet. “Are you sure? or might it have been ‘van’? Oh, try now to remember! One is German, the other Dutch!”

“It might have been ‘van,’ or it might have been ‘von’—you can’t expect one to remember after all these names. But I remember the woman’s name, Gwendoline Mordaunt, quite well, because the Gwendoline reminded me of Gwen Barnes, and the Mordaunt reminded me of Miss Violet Mordaunt; and the husband’s name, I know, was von or van Something, and so was the name of the child—a boy it was—I think its name was Henry—”

“Hupfeldt?” suggested David, suddenly.

“Hupfeldt? It might have been Hupfeldt. I really can’t say now. I’ll ask Jenny.”

“At any rate,” said David, calming himself with a great effort, “we have that certain fact that Gwendoline Mordaunt was a wife. Good, to begin; most excellent, to begin. You can’t say where the marriage took place? No other information at all.”

“I’m sorry, since it is so mighty important, but I’m afraid not. However, I’ll do my best for you. I’ll see if I or Jenny can remember anything. When we left the flat, there was a great overflowing with my torn-up letters, and Jenny may have thrown the certificates on that grate, or the bits of them, or she may have dropped them on the floor, or, just possibly, she put them in her pocket and may have them still. She will be here in less than half an hour, so, if I may offer you a cigar, and a whisky and soda—”

“You are very good. I won’t stay now, as I am in a hurry to do something. But, if I may come back—may I?”

“Modest request! As often as you please, and welcome. This is Liberty Hall, you know.”

“Thank you, I will, then. There is one thing I have to ask you. Could you point out to me Mr. Johann Strauss?”

“Of course, if I saw him. But I never knew where he lived, and have never seen him since the day I left the flat.”

“Well, that may come in time,” said David, putting out his hand; “and meantime you will do your best for me in finding out about the two certificates. Thank you for all your goodness, and I will be here again soon.”

“Good-by,” said Miss L’Estrange, “and I do hope you mean to give that Strauss a sound hiding some day. You look as if you could do it with one hand and pick your teeth with the other. It would be no more than he deserves.”

David ran down the flight after flight of stairs quicker than he had gone up.

“Now,” he thought to himself as he left the building with eager steps, “is my chance to give some joy!” Going into the first paper-shop, he wrote: “A well-wisher of Miss Mordaunt desires to assure her that it is a pretty certain thing that her sister Gwendoline was a duly wedded wife; the proofs of this statement may sooner or later be forthcoming.”

He put no signature to it, made haste to post it, and drove back to Eddystone Mansions. It had been wiser had he flattered Miss Ermyn L’Estrange by returning to her.