It was not till late in the evening that he got back to his hotel, after having brought his inquiry to a successful issue. The nature of it and its result cannot be told more succinctly than in the following note:
"My dearest Fanny,--In Mrs. Melray's statement there occurs the following passage: 'Evan was an especially handsome young man, with large, black, lustrous eyes, and a dark Italian-looking face.' Elsewhere she makes mention of his 'ebon brows.' Now, in face of this, I have ascertained to-day beyond the possibility of doubt, and not from one, but from three different sources, that Evan Wildash, instead of being a dark-complexioned man with black eyes and 'ebon brows,' had a particularly fair complexion, also that his eyes were blue-grey, and the colour both of his hair and eyebrows a light reddish brown.
"Solve me the problem which is involved in this contradiction if you can. For myself, I confess that it baffles me.
"For the present I have decided to say nothing of this to Mr. Melray. It would only unsettle him and cause him to imagine all sorts of things, and just now he has enough to occupy his thoughts, poor man!
"I will write you fully in the matter of R. D. in the course of a few days. I shall be in Merehampton for an hour or two to-morrow, but it is not advisable that we should meet.
In the dusk of the following evening Philip Winslade alighted at Merehampton station. Thence he made his way to the head constable's office, where he was already known, and where he found awaiting him certain information which, the day before, he had asked by letter might be obtained for him.
The information thus supplied him was to the effect that Richard Dyson, at the time of Mr. Melray's death, was lodging with a widow of the name of Parkinson, at No. 5 Lydd Place, but that he had removed to fresh rooms about a month later. It was to No. 5 Lydd Place that Winslade now betook himself.
Widow Parkinson proved to be quite willing to tell all she knew, which was not much, about her late lodger, and even to adorn her somewhat bald narrative with a little fanciful embroidery of her own invention. She considered that she had a grievance against Mr. Dyson. According to her account, he had left her, without any just cause or reason, in what she was pleased to term a very shabby way, and had taken himself and his belongings elsewhere; therefore did she feel herself at liberty to throw reticence to the winds.