Acting upon instructions received, the police are investigating a somewhat curious case of disappearance.  Philip Romilly, a teacher of art in a London school, visited Detton Magna on Friday afternoon and apparently started for a walk along the canal bank, towards dusk.  Nothing has since been heard of him or his movements, and arrangements have been made to drag the canal at a certain point.

The letters seemed to grow larger to him as he stood and read.  He remained in front of the message for an inordinately long time.  Again his imagination was at work.  He saw the whole ghastly business, the police on the canal banks, watching the slow progress of the men with their drags bringing to the surface all the miserable refuse of the turgid waters, the dripping black mud, perhaps at last....

He was back again on the deck, walking quite steadily yet seeing little.  He made his way to the smoking room, asked almost indifferently for a brandy and soda, and drained it to the last drop.  Then he walked up the deck to where Elizabeth was seated, and dropped into a chair by her side.

“So I am missing,” he remarked, almost in his ordinary tone.  “I really had no idea that I was a person of such importance.  Fancy reading of my own disappearance within a few days of its taking place, in the middle of the Atlantic!”

“There was probably some one there who gave information,” she suggested.

“There was the young lady whom I went to visit,” he assented.  “She probably watched me cross the road and turn in at that gate and take the path by the canal side.  Yes, she may even have gone to the station to see whether I took the only other train back to London, and found that I did not.  She knew, too, that I could only have had a few shillings in my pocket, and that my living depended upon being in London for my school the next morning.  Yes, the whole thing was reasonable.”

“And they are going to drag the canal,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully.

“A difficult business,” he assured her.  “It is one of the most ghastly, ill-constructed, filthiest strips of water you ever looked upon.  It has been the garbage depository of the villages through which it makes its beastly way, for generations.  I don’t envy the men who have to handle the drags.”

“You do not believe, then, that they will find anything—­interesting?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“That type of man,” he continued, “must have a morbid mind.  There will be dead animals without a doubt, worn-out boots, filthy and decomposed articles of clothing—­”

“Don’t!” she interrupted.  “You know what I mean.  Do leave off painting your ghastly pictures.  You know quite well what I mean.  Philip Romilly is here by my side.  What can they hope to find there in his place?”

His evil moments for that afternoon were over.  He answered her almost carelessly.

“Not what they are looking for.  Have you brought the paper and pencil you spoke of?  I have an idea—­I am getting fresh ideas every moment now that I picture you as my heroine.  It is queer, isn’t it, how naturally you fall into the role?”