"The Registrar of Deaths would be able to inform us," he said reflectively. "We must inquire."
Next day all three of us returned to Richmond, and while Ray and Vera crossed the bridge to the opposite side of the Thames to find the Registrar's office, I lingered and watched in the vicinity of the Professor's house.
I waited for many weary hours in the wet--for rain fell the whole day--but Ray did not return, which caused me considerable misgivings. I was compelled to resort to all sorts of subterfuges in order not to attract attention; but as my friend had directed me to remain and watch, I waited patiently at my post.
Just after the street lamps were lit, a telegraph messenger arrived, and ten minutes after he had gone the girl Annie came out with hat and jacket on, and turning to the left hurried in my direction.
As she passed I spoke to her, and, recognising me, she explained that she was going for a cab to convey the Professor to the station.
"Miss Nella is at Liverpool," she added excitedly. "The master has had a wire from her, asking him to go there at once. She's very ill, it seems. The poor master is greatly excited. He's just telephoned to the police saying that Miss Nella has been found."
And then the girl hurried away, down the hill to the foot of the bridge, where there was a cab-stand.
Nella at Liverpool! What could possibly have occurred?
Later on I watched the Professor, carrying only a handbag, enter a cab and drive rapidly to the station, while Annie returned to the house and closed the front door.
It was then about six o'clock, and I had been watching there for nearly eight hours. Therefore I decided to go in search of Ray, who was over at St. Margaret's, and who, I thought, would most probably be watching the house to which the coffin had been taken.
In this I was not mistaken, for I found him idling at the end of that quiet, dark suburban road. He was on the alert the instant he recognised me, and in a few rapid sentences I told him what had occurred.
"I've ascertained that Hartmann is back at Pont Street," he said. "But why the coffin should be in yonder house is still a mystery. The Registrar has had no intimation of any death in Brunswick Road for the past eight months. I've, however, found the local undertaker, who says that a plain coffin was ordered for a gentleman and that they duly delivered it. They did not see the body, being told that the funeral was to be undertaken by a big West End firm, and that the body was to be conveyed for burial somewhere near Leicester."