this fragment had come into the possession of the sender some time ago, and seemed to refer to a militant Suffragist who called herself “Vivie Warren” or “David Williams,” and perhaps it might be of some assistance to the authorities in tracking down these dangerous women who now stuck at nothing.  She posted the letter with her own hands in the North West district.  Park Crescent, Portland Place, she always reflected, was still in the Western district, though it lay perilously near the North West border line, beyond which Lady Jeune had once written, no one in Society thought of living.  This was a dictum that at one time had occasioned Mrs. Rossiter considerable perturbation.  It was alarming to think that by crossing the Marylebone Road or migrating to Cambridge Terrace you had passed out of Society.

It took the police a deuce of a time—­two months—­to make use effectively of the information contained in Mrs. Rossiter’s scrap of burnt paper; though the statement of their anonymous correspondent that Vivie Warren and David Williams were probably the same person helped to locate Mr. Michaelis’s office.  It was soon ascertained that Miss Vivien Warren, well known as a sort of Society speaker on Suffrage, lived at the Lilacs in Victoria Road, Kensington.  But when a plain-clothes policeman called at Victoria Road he was only told by the Suffragette caretaker (whose mother now usually lived with her to console her for her mistress’s frequent absences) that Miss Warren was away just then, had recently been much away from home, probably abroad where her mother lived. (Here the enquirer registered a mental note:  Miss Warren has a mother living abroad:  could it be the Mrs. Warren?).  Polite and respectful calls on Lady Feenix, Lady Maud Parry, and Mrs. Armstrong—­Vivie’s known associates—­elicted no information, till on leaving the last-named lady’s house in Kensington Square the detective heard Colonel Armstrong come in from the garden and call out “Ho-no-ria.” “’—­ria,” he said to himself, “’-ria kept the keys, and now—­’ Honoria.  What was her name before she married Colonel Armstrong?—­why—­” He soon found out—­“Fraser.”  “Wasn’t there once a firm, Fraser and Warren, which set up to be some new dodge for establishing women in a city career?—­Accountancy?  Stockbroking?  Where did Fraser and Warren have their office?  Fifth floor of Midland Insurance office in Chancery Lane.  What was that building now called?  No. 88-90.”  Done.

These two sentences run over a period of—­what did I say?  Two months?—­in their deductions and guesses and consultation of out-of-date telephone directories.  But on one day in September, 1913, two plain-clothes policemen made their way up to the fifth floor of 88-90 Chancery Lane and found the outer door of Mr. Michaelis’s office locked and a notice board on it saying “Absent till Monday.”  Not deterred by this, they forced open the door—­to the thrilling interest of a spectacled typewriteress,