"The victim was Sir Basil's daughter, Mrs. Haslett," Monk said with bitter satisfaction.

"Good God! How appalling!" The man's expression changed instantly. In a single sentence the danger had moved from affecting someone distant, not part of his world, to being a close and alarming threat. The chill hand of violence had touched his own class and in so doing had become real. "This is dreadful!" The blood fled from his tired face and his voice cracked for an instant.”What are you doing about it? We need more police in the streets, more patrols! Where did the man come from? What is he doing here?"

Monk smiled sourly to see the alteration in him. If the victim was a servant, she had brought it upon herself by keeping loose company; but now it was a lady, then police patrols must be doubled and the criminal caught forthwith.

"Well?" the man demanded, seeing what to him was a sneer on Monk's face.

"As soon as we find him, we will discover what he was doing," Monk replied smoothly. "In the meantime, if you will give me your physician's name, I will question him to see if he observed anything as he came or went.''

The man wrote the name on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

"Thank you, sir. Good day."

But the doctor had seen nothing, being intent upon his own art, and could offer no help. He had not even noticed Miller on his beat. All he could do was confirm his own time of arrival and departure with an exactitude.

By mid-afternoon Monk was back in the police station, where Evan was waiting for him with the news that it would have been quite impossible for anyone at all to have passed by the west end of Queen Anne Street and not have been seen by several of the servants waiting for their masters outside the house where the party was being held. There had been a sufficient number of guests, including late arrivals and early departures, to fill the mews at the back with carriages and overflow into the street at the front.