“Possibly,” was the guarded answer.

Paul Harley nodded to the constable in charge, and the ghastly figure was promptly covered up again.  My friend stood staring vacantly at Wessex, and presently: 

“The chief actor, I think, will prove to be not Chinese,” he said, turned, and walked out.

“If there’s any development,” remarked Wessex as the three of us entered Harley’s car, which stood at the door, “I will, of course, report to you, Mr. Harley.  But in the absence of any clue or mark of identification, I fear the verdict will be, ’Body of a man unknown,’ etc., which has marked the finish of a good many in this cheerful quarter of London.”

“Quite so,” said Harley, absently.  “It presents extraordinary features, though, and may not end as you suppose.  However—­where do you want me to drop you, Wessex, at the Yard?”

“Oh no,” answered Wessex.  “I made a special visit to Wapping just to get your opinion on the shaven man.  I’m really going down to Deepbrow to look into that new disappearance case; the daughter of the gamekeeper.  You’ll have read of it?”

“I have,” said Harley shortly.

Indeed, readers of the daily press were growing tired of seeing on the contents bills:  “Another girl missing.”  The circumstance (which might have been no more than coincidence) that three girls had disappeared within the last eight weeks leaving no trace behind, had stimulated the professional scribes to link the cases, although no visible link had been found, and to enliven a somewhat dull journalistic season with theories about “a new Mormon menace.”

The vanishing of this fourth girl had inspired them to some startling headlines, and the case had interested me personally for the reason that I was acquainted with Sir Howard Hepwell, one of whose gamekeepers was the stepfather of the missing Molly Clayton.  Moreover, it was hinted that she had gone away in the company of Captain Ronald Vane, at that time a guest of Sir Howard’s at the Manor.

In fact, Sir Howard had ’phoned to ask me if I could induce Harley to run down, but my friend had expressed himself as disinterested in a common case of elopement.  Now, as Wessex spoke, I glanced aside at Harley, wondering if the fact that so celebrated a member of the C.I.D. as Detective-Inspector Wessex had been put in charge would induce him to change his mind.

We were traversing a particularly noisy and unsavoury section of the Commercial Road, and although I could see that Wessex was anxious to impart particulars of the case to Harley, so loud was the din that I recognized the impossibility of conversing, and therefore: 

“Have you time to call at my rooms, Wessex?” I asked.

“Well,” he replied, “I have three-quarters of an hour.”

“You can do it in the car,” said Harley suddenly.  “I have been asked to look into this case myself, and before I definitely decline I should like to hear your version of the matter.”