She half rose to her feet.  She was perplexed, uneasy.

“Asleep?” she murmured.  “Have I?  And I dreamed a horrible dream!...  Have I been ringing anyone up on the telephone?”

“Not that I know of,” Quest assured her.  “As a matter of fact, I was called downstairs to see one of my men soon after we got here.”

“Can I go now?” she asked.

“Certainly,” Quest replied.  “To tell you the truth, I find that I shall not need to ask you those questions, after all.  A messenger from the police-station has been here.  He says they have come to the conclusion that a very well-known gang of New York criminals are in this thing.  We know how to track them down all right.”

[Illustration:  Sanford Quest is called upon to clear the mystery of the murder of lord Ashleigh’s daughter.]

[Illustration:  Under the hypnotic influence of Quest, Lenora reveals the strange disappearance of the jewels, and the murder.]

“I may go now, then?” she repeated, with immense relief.

Quest escorted the girl downstairs, opened the front door, blew his whistle and his car pulled up at the door.

“Take this young lady,” he ordered, “wherever she wishes.  Good night!”

The girl drove off.  Quest watched the car disappear around the corner.  Then he turned slowly back and made preparations for his adventure....

“Number 700, New York,” he muttered, half an hour later, as he left his house.  “Beyond Fourteenth Street—­a tough neighbourhood.”

He hesitated for a moment, feeling the articles in his overcoat pocket—­a revolver in one, a small piece of hard substance in the other.  Then he stepped into his car, which had just returned.

“Where did you leave the young lady?” he asked the chauffeur.

“In Broadway, sir.  She left me and boarded a cross-town car.”

Quest nodded approvingly.

“No finesse,” he sighed.

5.

Sanford Quest was naturally a person unaffected by presentiments or nervous fears of any sort, yet, having advanced a couple of yards along the hallway of the house which he had just entered without difficulty, he came to a standstill, oppressed with the sense of impending danger.  With his electric torch he carefully surveyed the dilapidated staircase in front of him, the walls from which the paper hung down in depressing-looking strips.  The house was, to all appearances, uninhabited.  The door had yielded easily to his master-key.  Yet this was the house connected with Number 700, New York, the house to which Lenora had come.  Furthermore, from the street outside he had seen a light upon the first floor, instantly extinguished as he had climbed the steps.