“Brutes!” muttered Mrs. Hableton, below her breath.

“Yes,” said Gorby, placidly.  “Go on.”

“Well of—­it’s hardly the thing to confess it,” said Moreland, looking from one to the other with a pleasant smile, “but in a case like this, I feel it my duty to throw all social scruples aside.  We both became very drunk.”

“Ah!  Whyte was, as we know, drunk when he got into the cab—­and you—?”

“I was not quite so bad as Whyte,” answered the other.  “I had my senses about me.  I fancy he left the hotel some minutes before one o’clock on Friday morning.”

“And what did you do?”

“I remained in the hotel.  He left his overcoat behind him, and I picked it up and followed him shortly afterwards, to return it.  I was too drunk to see in which direction he had gone, and stood leaning against the hotel door in Bourke Street with the coat in my hand.  Then some one came up, and, snatching the coat from me, made off with it, and the last thing I remember was shouting out:  ‘Stop, thief!’ Then I must have fallen down, for next morning I was in bed with all my clothes on, and they were very muddy.  I got up and left town for the country by the six-thirty train, so I knew nothing about the matter until I came back to Melbourne tonight.  That’s all I know.”

“And you had no impression that Whyte was watched that night?”

“No, I had not,” answered Moreland, frankly.  “He was in pretty good spirits, though he was put out at first.”

“What was the cause of his being put out?”

Moreland arose, and going to a side table, brought Whyte’s album, which he laid on the table and opened in silence.  The contents were very much the same as the photographs in the room, burlesque actresses and ladies of the ballet predominating; but Mr. Moreland turned over the pages till nearly the end, when he stopped at a large cabinet photograph, and pushed the album towards Mr. Gorby.

“That was the cause,” he said.

It was the portrait of a charmingly pretty girl, dressed in white, with a sailor hat on her fair hair, and holding a lawn tennis racquet.  She was bending half forward, with a winning smile, and in the background bloomed a mass of tropical plants.  Mrs. Hableton uttered a cry of surprise at seeing this.

“Why, it’s Miss Frettlby,” she said.  “How did he know her?”

“Knew her father—­letter of introduction, and all that sort of thing,” said Mr. Moreland, glibly.

“Ah! indeed,” said Mr. Gorby, slowly.  “So Mr. Whyte knew Mark Frettlby, the millionaire; but how did he obtain a photograph of the daughter?”

“She gave it to him,” said Moreland.  “The, fact is, Whyte was very much in love with Miss Frettlby.”

“And she—­”

“Was in love with someone else,” finished Moreland.  “Exactly!  Yes, she loved a Mr. Brian Fitzgerald, to whom she is now engaged.  He was mad on her; and Whyte and he used to quarrel desperately over the young lady.”