“If I were in his place.”  Yes, true; but, now I come to think on it, were the positions really parallel?  Hilda was not flying for her life from justice; she was only endeavouring to escape Sebastian—­and myself.  The instances she had quoted of the mountaineer’s curious homing instinct—­the wild yearning he feels at moments of great straits to bury himself among the nooks of his native hills—­were they not all instances of murderers pursued by the police?  It was abject terror that drove these men to their burrows.  But Hilda was not a murderer; she was not dogged by remorse, despair, or the myrmidons of the law; it was murder she was avoiding, not the punishment of murder.  That made, of course, an obvious difference.  “Irrevocably far from London,” she said.  Wales is a suburb.  I gave up the idea that it was likely to prove her place of refuge from the two men she was bent on escaping.  Hong-Kong, after all, seemed more probable than Llanberis.

That first failure gave me a clue, however, as to the best way of applying Hilda’s own methods.  “What would such a person do under the circumstances?” that was her way of putting the question.  Clearly, then, I must first decide what were the circumstances.  Was Sebastian speaking the truth?  Was Hilda Wade, or was she not, the daughter of the supposed murderer, Dr. Yorke-Bannerman?

I looked up as much of the case as I could, in unobtrusive ways, among the old law-reports, and found that the barrister who had had charge of the defence was my father’s old friend, Mr. Horace Mayfield, a man of elegant tastes, and the means to gratify them.

I went to call on him on Sunday evening at his artistically luxurious house in Onslow Gardens.  A sedate footman answered the bell.  Fortunately, Mr. Mayfield was at home, and, what is rarer, disengaged.  You do not always find a successful Q.C. at his ease among his books, beneath the electric light, ready to give up a vacant hour to friendly colloquy.

“Remember Yorke-Bannerman’s case?” he said, a huge smile breaking slowly like a wave over his genial fat face—­Horace Mayfield resembles a great good-humoured toad, with bland manners and a capacious double chin—­“I should just say I did!  Bless my soul—­ why, yes,” he beamed, “I was Yorke-Bannerman’s counsel.  Excellent fellow, Yorke-Bannerman—­most unfortunate end, though—­precious clever chap, too!  Had an astounding memory.  Recollected every symptom of every patient he ever attended.  And such an eye!  Diagnosis?  It was clairvoyance!  A gift—­no less.  Knew what was the matter with you the moment he looked at you.”

That sounded like Hilda.  The same surprising power of recalling facts; the same keen faculty for interpreting character or the signs of feeling.  “He poisoned somebody, I believe,” I murmured, casually.  “An uncle of his, or something.”