Malcolm Sage was shown into the morning-room and told that her ladyship would see him in a few minutes. He was busy in the contemplation of the garden when the door opened and Lady Glanedale entered.

He bowed and then, as Lady Glanedale seated herself at a small table, he took the nearest chair.

She was a little woman, some eight inches too short for the air she assumed, fair, good-looking; but with a hard, set mouth. No one had ever permitted her to forget that she had married margarine.

"You have called about the burglary?" she enquired, in a tone she might have adopted to a plumber who had come to see to a leak in the bath.

Malcolm Sage bowed.

"Perhaps you will give me the details," he said. "Kindly be as brief as possible," his "incipient Bolshevism" manifesting itself in his manner.

Lady Glanedale elevated her eyebrows; but, as Malcolm Sage's eyes were not upon her, she proceeded to tell her story.

"About one o'clock this morning I was awakened to find a man in my bedroom," she began. "He was standing between the bedstead and the farther window, his face masked. He had a pistol in one hand, which he pointed towards me, and an electric torch in the other. I sat up in bed and stared at him. 'If you call out I shall kill you,' he said. I asked him what he wanted. He replied that if I gave him my jewel-case and did not call for help, he would not do me any harm.

"Realising that I was helpless, I got out of bed, put on a wrapper, opened a small safe I have set in the wall, and handed him one of the two jewel-cases I possess.

"He then made me promise that I would not ring or call out for a quarter of an hour, and he disappeared out of the window.

"At the end of a quarter of an hour I summoned help, and my stepson, the butler, and several other servants came to my room. We telephoned for the police, and after breakfast we telephoned to the insurance company."

For fully a minute there was silence. Malcolm Sage decided that Lady Glanedale certainly possessed the faculty of telling a story with all the events in their proper sequence. He found himself with very few questions to put to her.

"Can you describe the man?" he asked as he mechanically turned over the leaves of a book on a table beside him.

"Not very well," she replied. "I saw little more than a silhouette against the window. He was of medium height, slight of build and I should say young."

"That seems to agree with the description of the man who robbed Mrs. Comminge," he said as if to himself.

"That is what the inspector said," remarked Lady Glanedale.

"His voice?"

"Was rather husky, as if he were trying to disguise it."

"Was it the voice of a man of refinement or otherwise?"

"I should describe it as middle-class," was the snobbish response.

"The mask?"

"It looked like a silk handkerchief tied across his nose. It was dark in tone; but I could get only a dim impression."

Malcolm Sage inclined his head comprehendingly.

"You know Mrs. Comminge?"

"Intimately."

"You mentioned two jewel-cases," he said.

"The one stolen contained those I mostly wear," replied Lady Glanedale; "in the other I keep some very valuable family jewels."

"What was the value of those stolen?"

"About 8,000 pounds," she replied, "possibly more. I should explain, perhaps, that Sir Roger was staying in town last night, and so far I have not been able to get him on the telephone. He was to have stayed at the Ritzton; but apparently he found them full and went elsewhere."

"You have no suspicion as to who it was that entered your room?"

"None whatever," said Lady Glanedale.

"The police have already been?" he enquired, as he examined with great intentness a rose he had taken from a bowl beside him.

"Yes, they came shortly after we telephoned. They gave instructions that nothing was to be touched in the room, and no one was to go near the ground beneath the windows."

Malcolm Sage nodded approvingly, and returned the rose to the bowl.

"And now," he said, "I think I should like to see the room. By the way, I take it that you keep your safe locked?"

"Always," said Lady Glanedale.

"Where do you keep the key?"

"In the bottom right-hand drawer of my dressing-table, under a pile of handkerchiefs."

"As soon as you can I should like to see a list of the jewels," said Malcolm Sage, as he followed Lady Glanedale towards the door.

"My maid is copying it out now," she replied, and led the way up the staircase, along a heavily-carpeted corridor, at the end of which she threw open a door giving access to a bedroom.

Malcolm Sage entered and gave a swift look about him, seeming to note and catalogue every detail. It was a large room, with two windows looking out on to a lawn. On the right was a door, which, Lady Glanedale explained, led to Sir Roger's dressing-room.

He walked over to the window near the dressing-room and looked out.

"That is the window he must have entered by; he went out that way," explained Lady Glanedale.

"You spoke of a stepson," said Malcolm Sage. "He is a man, I presume?"

"He is twenty-three." Lady Glanedale elevated her eyebrows as if surprised at the question.

"Can you send for him?"

"Certainly, if you wish it." She rang the bell, and a moment later requested the maid who answered it to ask Mr. Robert to come immediately.

"Do you sleep with lowered blinds?" enquired Malcolm Sage.

"The one nearest my bed I always keep down; the other I pull up after putting out my light."

"Did you awaken suddenly, or gradually—as if it were your usual time to awaken?"

"It was gradual," said Lady Glanedale, after a pause for thought. "I remember having the feeling that someone was looking at me."

"Was the light from the torch shining on your face?"

"No, it was turned to the opposite side of the room, on my right as I lay in bed."

At that moment a young man in tweeds entered.

"You want me, Mater?" he enquired; then, looking across at Malcolm Sage with a slightly troubled shadow in his eyes, he bowed.

"This is Mr. Sage from the insurance company," said. Lady Glanedale coldly. "He wishes to see you."

Again there was the slightly troubled look in young Glanedale's eyes.

"Perhaps you will place Mr. Glanedale in the exact position in which the man was standing when you first saw him," said Malcolm Sage.

Without a word Lady Glanedale walked over to the spot she had indicated, young Glanedale following. When she had got him into the desired position she turned interrogatingly to Malcolm Sage.

"Now," he said, "will you be so kind as to lie on your bed in the same position in which you were when you awakened."

For a moment Lady Glanedale's eyebrows indicated surprise. She used her eyebrows more than any other feature for the purpose of expressing emotion. Without comment, however, she lay down upon the bed on her right side, closed her eyes, then a moment later sat up and gazed in the direction where Glanedale stood looking awkward and self-conscious.

"Perhaps you will repeat every movement you made," said Malcolm Sage. "Try to open the safe-door exactly as you did then, and leave it at the same angle. Every detail is important."

Lady Glanedale rose, picked up a wrapper that was lying over a chair-back, put it on and, walking over to the safe, turned the key that was in the lock, and opened it. Then, standing between the safe and Glanedale, she took out a jewel-case and closed the door. Finally she walked over to where her stepson stood, and handed him the jewel-case.

"Thank you," said Malcolm Sage. "I wanted to see whether or not the man had the opportunity of seeing into the safe."

"I took care to stand in front of it," she said.

"So I observed. You allowed the quarter of an hour to elapse before you raised the alarm?"

"Certainly, I had promised," was the response.

"But a promise extorted by threats of violence is not binding," he suggested as he pulled meditatively at his right ear.

"It is with me," was the cold retort.

He inclined his head slightly.

"I notice that the ground beneath the windows has been roped off."

"The inspector thought it had better be done, as there were footprints."

"I will not trouble you further for the present, Lady Glanedale," said Malcolm Sage, moving towards the door. "I should like to spend a little time in the grounds. Later I may require to interrogate the servants."

Young Glanedale opened the door and his stepmother, followed by Malcolm Sage, passed out. They descended the stairs together.

"Please don't trouble to come out," said Malcolm Sage. "I shall probably be some little time," this as Lady Glanedale moved towards the hall-door. "By the way," he said, as she turned towards the morning-room where she had received him, "did you happen to notice if the man was wearing boots, or was he in stockinged feet?"

"I think he wore boots, she said, after a momentary pause.

"Thank you," and Malcolm Sage turned towards the door, which was held open by the butler.

Passing down the steps and to the left, he walked round to the side of the house, where the space immediately beneath Lady Glanedale's windows had been roped off.

Stepping over the protecting rope, he examined the ground beneath the window through which the burglar had entered.

Running along the side of the house was a flowerbed some two feet six inches wide, and on its surface was clearly indicated a series of footprints. On the side of the painted water-pipe were scratches such as might have been made by someone climbing up to the window above.

Drawing a spring metal-rule from his pocket, he proceeded to take a series of measurements, which he jotted down in a notebook.

He next examined the water-pipe up which the man presumably had climbed, and presently passed on to a similar pipe farther to the left. Every inch of ground he subjected to a careful and elaborate examination, lifting the lower branches of some evergreens and gazing beneath them.

Finally, closing his notebook with a snap, Malcolm Sage seated himself upon a garden-seat and, carefully filling and lighting his pipe, he became absorbed in the polished pinkness of the third fingernail of his left hand.

A quarter of an hour later he was joined by young Glanedale.

"Found anything?" he enquired.

"There are some footprints," said Malcolm Sage, looking at him keenly. "By the way, what did you do when you heard of the robbery?"

"I went to the Mater's room."

"And after that?"

"I rushed downstairs and started looking about."

"You didn't happen to come anywhere near this spot, or walk upon the mould there?" He nodded at the place he had just been examining.

"No; as a matter of fact, I avoided it. The Mater warned me to be careful."

Malcolm Sage nodded his head.

"Did the butler join you in your search?" he enquired.

"About five minutes later he did. He had to go back and put on some things; he was rather sketchy when he turned up in the Mater's room." Glanedale grinned at the recollection.

"And you?" Malcolm Sage flashed on him that steel grey look of interrogation. For a moment the young man seemed embarrassed, and he hesitated before replying.

"As a matter of fact, I hadn't turned in," he said at length.

"I see," said Malcolm Sage, and there was something in his tone that caused Glanedale to look at him quickly.

"It was such a rippin' night that I sat at my bedroom window smoking," he explained a little nervously.

"Which is your bedroom window?"

Glanedale nodded in the direction of the farther end of the house.

"That's the governor's dressing-room," he said, indicating the window on the left of that through which the burglar had escaped, "and the next is mine."

"Did you see anything?" enquired Malcolm Sage, who, having unscrewed the mouthpiece of his pipe, proceeded to clean it with a blade of grass.

Again there was the slightest suggestion of hesitation before Glanedale replied.

"No, nothing. You see," he added hastily, "I was not looking out of the window, merely sitting at it. As a matter of fact, I was facing the other way."

"You heard no noise?"

Glanedale shook his head.

"So that the first intimation you had of anything being wrong was what?" he asked.

"I heard the Mater at her door calling for assistance, and I went immediately."

Malcolm Sage turned and regarded the water-pipe speculatively.

"I wonder if anyone really could climb up that," he said. "I'm sure I couldn't."

"Nothing easier," said Glanedale. "I could shin up in two ticks," and he made a movement towards the pipe.

"No," said Malcolm Sage, putting a detaining hand upon his arm. "If you want to demonstrate your agility, try the other. There are marks on this I want to preserve."

"Right-o," cried Glanedale with a laugh, and a moment later he was shinning up the further pipe with the agility of a South Sea islander after coker-nuts.

Malcolm Sage walked towards the pipe, glanced at it, and then at the footprints beneath.

"You were quite right," he remarked casually. Then a moment later he enquired:

"Do you usually sit up late?"

"We're not exactly early birds," Glanedale replied a little irrelevantly. "The Mater plays a lot of bridge, you know," he added.

"And that keeps you out of bed?"

"Yes and no," was the reply. "I can't afford to play with the Mater's crowd; but I have to hang about until after they've gone. The governor hates it. You see," he added confidentially, "when a man's had to make his money, he knows the value of it."

"True," said Malcolm Sage, but from the look in his eyes his thoughts seemed elsewhere.

"By the way, what time was it that you had a shower here last night?"

"A shower?" repeated Glanedale. "Oh! yes, I remember, it was just about twelve o'clock; it only lasted about ten minutes."

"I'll think things over," said Malcolm Sage, and Glanedale, taking the hint, strolled off towards the house.

Malcolm Sage walked over to where an old man was trimming a hedge.

"Could you lend me a trowel for half an hour?" he enquired.

"No, dang it, I can't," growled the old fellow. "I ain't a-going to lend no more trowels or anything else."

"Why?" enquired Malcolm Sage.

"There's my best trowel gone out of the tool-house," he grumbled, "and I ain't a-going to lend no others."

"How did it go?"

"How should I know?" he complained. "Walked out, I suppose, same as trowels is always doin'."

"When did you miss it?"

"It was there day 'fore yesterday I'll swear, and I ain't a-going to lend no more."

"Do you think the man who took the jewels stole it?" enquired Malcolm Sage.

"Dang the jools," he retorted, "I want my trowel," and, grumbling to himself, the old fellow shuffled off to the other end of the hedge.

Half an hour later Malcolm Sage was in Hyston, interviewing the inspector of police, who was incoherent with excitement. He learned that Scotland Yard was sending down a man that afternoon, furthermore that elaborate enquiries were being made in the neighbourhood as to any suspicious characters having recently been seen.

Malcolm Sage asked a number of questions, to which he received more or less impatient replies. The inspector was convinced that the robbery was the work of the same man who had got away with Mrs. Comminge's jewels, and he was impatient with anyone who did not share this view.

From the police station Malcolm Sage went to The Painted Flag, where, having ordered lunch, he got through to the Twentieth Century Insurance Corporation, and made an appointment to meet one of the assessors at Home Park at three o'clock.



CHAPTER X A LESSON IN DEDUCTION



I

Mr. Grimwood, of the firm of Grimwood, Galton & Davy, insurance assessors, looked up from the list in his hand. He was a shrewd little man, with side-whiskers, pince-nez that would never sit straight upon his aquiline nose, and an impressive cough.

He glanced from Malcolm Sage to young Glanedale, then back again to Malcolm Sage; finally he coughed.

The three men were seated in Sir Roger Glanedale's library awaiting the coming of Lady Glanedale.

"And yet Mr. Glanedale heard nothing," remarked Mr. Grimwood musingly. "Strange, very strange."

"Are you in the habit of sitting smoking at your bedroom window?" enquired Malcolm Sage of Glanedale, his eyes averted.

"Er—no, not exactly," was the hesitating response.

"Can you remember when last you did such a thing?" was the next question.

"I'm afraid I can't," said Glanedale, with an uneasy laugh.

"Perhaps you had seen something that puzzled you," continued Malcolm Sage, his restless fingers tracing an imaginary design upon the polished surface of the table before him.

Glanedale was silent. He fingered his moustache with a nervous hand. Mr. Grimwood looked across at Malcolm Sage curiously.

"And you were watching in the hope of seeing something more," continued Malcolm Sage.

"I——" began Glanedale, starting violently, then he stopped.

"Don't you think you had better tell us exactly what it was you saw," said Malcolm Sage, raising a pair of gold-rimmed eyes that mercilessly beat down the uneasy gaze of the young man.

"I—I didn't say I saw anything."

"It is for you to decide, Mr. Glanedale," said Malcolm Sage, with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, "whether it is better to tell your story now, or under cross-examination in the witness-box. There you will be under oath, and the proceedings will be public."

At that moment Lady Glanedale entered, and the three men rose.

"I am sorry to interrupt you," she said coldly, "but Sir Roger has just telephoned and wishes to speak to Mr. Glanedale."

"I fear we shall have to keep Sir Roger waiting," said Malcolm Sage, walking over to the door and closing it.

Lady Glanedale looked at him in surprise.

"I do not understand," she began.

"You will immediately," said Malcolm Sage quietly. "We were just discussing the robbery." He slightly stressed the word "robbery."

"Really——" began Lady Glanedale.

"Mr. Glanedale was sitting at his window smoking," continued Malcolm Sage evenly. "He cannot remember ever having done such a thing before. I suggested that something unusual had attracted his attention, and that he was waiting to see what would follow. I was just about to tell him what had attracted his attention when you entered, Lady Glanedale."

Glanedale looked across at his step-mother and then at Malcolm Sage. His misery was obvious.

"Last night, soon after twelve," continued Malcolm Sage, "Mr. Glanedale happened to look out of his window and was surprised to see a figure moving along towards the left. It was not the figure of a man with a handkerchief tied across his face as a mask; but a woman. He watched. He saw it pause beneath the second window of your bedroom, Lady Glanedale, not the one by which the burglar entered. Then it stooped down."

Malcolm Sage's fingers seemed to be tracing each movement of the mysterious figure upon the surface of the table. Lady Glanedale gazed at his long, shapely hands as if hypnotised.

"Presently," he continued, "it returned to the first window, where it was occupied for some minutes. Mr. Glanedale could not see this; but the figure was engaged in making footprints and marking the sides of the water-pipe with a shoe or boot as high up as it could reach. It——"

"How dare you make such an accusation!" cried Lady Glanedale, making an effort to rise; but she sank back again in her chair, her face plaster-white.

"I have made no accusation," said Malcolm Sage quietly. "I am telling what Mr. Glanedale saw."

A hunted look sprang to Lady Glanedale's eyes. She tore her eyes from those magnetic fingers and gazed about her wildly as if meditating flight. Her throat seemed as if made of leather.

"Would you be prepared to deny all this in the witness-box under oath, Mr. Glanedale?" enquired Malcolm Sage.

Glanedale looked at him with unseeing eyes, then across at his step-mother.

"The woman had put on a pair of men's boots that the footprints might be masculine. They were so much too large for her that she had to drag her feet along the ground. The boots were those of a man weighing, say, about eleven and a half stone; the weight inside those boots shown by the impression in the mould was little more than seven stone."

Lady Glanedale put out her hand as if to ward off a blow; but Malcolm Sage continued mercilessly, addressing Glanedale.

"The length of a man's stride is thirty inches; between these steps the space was less than fifteen inches. Skirts are worn very narrow."

He paused, then, as Lady Glanedale made no reply, he turned to Glanedale.

"I asked you this morning," he said, "to climb the other pipe for the double purpose of examining the impress of your boots on the mould as you left the ground and when you dropped back again on to the mould. Also to see what sort of marks a pair of leather boots would make upon the weatherworn paint of the pipe.

"As you sprang from the ground and clutched the pipe, there was a deep impress on the mould of the soles of both boots, deep at the toes and tapering off towards the heel. On your return you made distinct heel-marks as well."

Lady Glanedale had buried her face in her hands. She must blot out the sight of those terrible hands! Glanedale sat with his eyes upon Malcolm Sage as if hypnotised.

"There was a shower of rain last night about twelve, an hour before the alleged burglar arrived; yet the footprints were made before the rain fell. In two cases leaves had been trodden into the footprints; yet on these leaves were drops of rain just as they had fallen."

The hands seemed to draw the leaves and indicate the spots of water as if they had been blood. Glanedale shuddered involuntarily.

"In the centre-part of the pipe there were no marks, although there were light scratches for as high up as the arm of a short person could reach, and as far down from the bedroom window as a similar arm could stretch. These scratches were quite dissimilar from those made on the other pipe."

Lady Glanedale moaned something unintelligible.

"Although there had been a shower and the mould was wet," proceeded Malcolm Sage, "there were no marks of mud or mould on the pipe, on the window-sill, or in Lady Glanedale's bedroom, which, I understand, had purposely not been swept. A man had slid down that water-pipe; yet he had done so without so much as removing the surface dust from the paint.

"He had reached the ground as lightly as a fairy, without making any mark upon the mould; the footprints were merely those of someone approaching and walking from the pipe."

Glanedale drew a cigarette case from his pocket; opened it, took out a cigarette, then, hesitating a moment, replaced it, and returned the case to his pocket, his eyes all the time on Malcolm Sage.

"I think," continued Malcolm Sage, "we shall find that the burglar has buried the jewel-case a few yards to the right of the pipe he is supposed to have climbed." His forefinger touched a spot on the extreme right of the table. "There are indications that the mould has been disturbed. Incidentally a trowel is missing——"

Glanedale suddenly sprang to his feet, just as Lady Glanedale fell forward in her chair—she had fainted.



II

"It's a very unpleasant business," remarked Mr. Goodge, the General Manager of the Twentieth Century Insurance Company, as he looked up from reading a paper that Malcolm Sage had just handed to him. In it Lady Glanedale confessed the fraud she had sought to practise upon the Corporation. "A very unpleasant business," he repeated.

Malcolm Sage gazed down at his finger-nails, as if the matter had no further interest for him. When his brain was inactive, his hands were at rest.

"I don't know what view the Board will take," continued Mr. Goodge, as Malcolm Sage made no comment.

"They will probably present me with another walking-stick," he remarked indifferently.

Mr. Goodge laughed. Malcolm Sage's walking-stick had been a standing joke between them.

"What made you first suspect Lady Glanedale?" he enquired.

"She had omitted to rehearse the episode of the burglary, and consequently when it came to reconstructing the incident, she failed in a very important particular." Malcolm Sage paused.

"What was that?" enquired Mr. Goodge with interest, as he pushed a box of cigars towards Malcolm Sage, who, however, shaking his head, proceeded to fill his pipe.

"She had already told me that the key of the safe was always kept beneath a pile of handkerchiefs in one of the drawers of her dressing-table; yet when I asked her to go through exactly the same movements and actions as when the burglar entered her room, she rose direct from the bed and went to the safe. The dressing-table was at the other end of the room, and to get to it she would have had to pass the spot where she said the man was standing."

Mr. Goodge nodded his head appreciatively.

"The next point was that I discovered it was Lady Glanedale who suggested to the police inspector that means should be taken to prevent anyone approaching the water-pipe by which the man was supposed to have climbed. She was anxious that the footprints should be preserved.

"Another point was that young Glanedale happened to remark that his step-mother was much addicted to bridge, and that the stakes were too high to admit of his joining in. Also that men who have themselves accumulated their wealth know the value of money. Sir Roger disliked bridge and probably kept his lady short."

"Most likely," agreed Mr. Goodge. "He has the reputation of being a bit shrewd in money matters. When did you begin to suspect Lady Glanedale?"

"From the first," was the reply. "Everything rang false. Lady Glanedale's story suggested that it had been rehearsed until she had it by heart," continued Malcolm Sage. "It was too straightforward, too clearly expressed for the story of a woman who had just lost eight thousand pounds' worth of jewels. When I put questions to her she hesitated before replying, as if mentally comparing her intended answer with what she had already told.

"Then she was so practical in preparing a list of the lost jewels at once, and in warning her stepson not to go near the spot beneath her window, as there might be footprints; this at a time when she was supposed to be in a state of great excitement."

"Did you suspect young Glanedale at all?" queried Mr. Grimwood.

"No," said Malcolm Sage, "but to make quite sure I cast doubt upon the possibility of anyone climbing the pipe. If he had been concerned he would not have volunteered to prove I was wrong."

"True," said Mr. Goodge as he examined critically the glowing end of his cigar. "Lady Glanedale seems to have done the job very clumsily, now that you have explained everything."

"Even the professional criminal frequently underrates the intelligence of those whose business it is to frustrate him; but Lady Glanedale's efforts in marking the water-pipe would not have deceived a child. A powerful magnifying-glass will show that on all such exterior pipes there is an accumulation of dust, which would be removed from a large portion of the surface by anyone climbing either up or down. Lady Glanedale had thought marks made by a boot or a shoe would be sufficient confirmation of her story. She is rather a stupid woman," he added, as he rose to go.

"I suppose she got the idea from the Comminge affair?"

"Undoubtedly," was the response; "but as I say, she is a stupid woman. Vanity in crime is fatal; it leads the criminal to underrate the intelligence of others. Lady Glanedale is intensely vain."

"The Board will probably want to thank you personally," said Mr. Goodge as he shook hands; "but I'll try and prevent them from giving you another walking-stick," he laughed as he opened the door.



CHAPTER XI THE MCMURRAY MYSTERY



I

Of the many problems upon which Malcolm Sage was engaged during the early days of the Malcolm Sage Bureau, that concerning the death of Professor James McMurray, the eminent physiologist, was perhaps the most extraordinary. It was possessed of several remarkable features; for one thing the murderer had disappeared, leaving no clue; for another the body when found seemed to have undergone a strange change, many of the professor's sixty-five years appearing to have dropped from him in death as leaves from an autumn tree.

It was one of those strange crimes for which there is no apparent explanation, consequently the strongest weapon the investigator has, that of motive, was absent. As far as could be gathered the dead professor had not an enemy in the world. He was a semi-recluse, with nothing about him to tempt the burglar; yet he had been brutally done to death in his own laboratory, and the murderer had made good his escape without leaving anything likely to prove helpful to the police.

One day as Gladys Norman, like "panting Time," toiled after her work in vain, striving to tap herself up to date with an accumulation of correspondence, the telephone-bell rang for what seemed to her the umpteenth time that morning. She seized the receiver as a dog seizes a rat, listened, murmured a few words in reply, then banged it back upon its rest.

"Oh dear!" she sighed. "I wish they'd let him alone. The poor dear looks tired out." She turned to William Johnson, who had just entered. "Why don't you hurry up and become a man, Innocent," she demanded, "so that you can help the Chief?"

William Johnson looked vague and shuffled his feet. His admiration of Malcolm Sage's secretary rendered him self-conscious in her presence.

"Sir John Dene and Sir Jasper Chambers to see the Chief," he announced, obviously impressed by the social importance of the callers.

"Sure it's not the Shah of Persia and Charlie Chaplin?" she asked wearily as she rose from her table and, walking over to the door marked "Private," passed into Malcolm Sage's room.

Reappearing a moment later she instructed William Johnson to show the visitors in at once.

As the two men passed through Miss Norman's room, they formed a striking contrast, Sir John Dene short, thick-set, alert, with the stamp of the West-End upon all he wore; Sir Jasper Chambers tall, gaunt arid dingy, with a forehead like the bulging eaves of an Elizabethan house, and the lower portion of his face a riot of short grizzled grey hair that seemed to know neither coercion nor restraint. His neck appeared intent on thrusting itself as far as possible out of the shabby frock-coat that hung despairingly from his narrow shoulders.

"I wonder," murmured Gladys Norman, as she returned to her typing, "how many geraniums he had to give for those clothes."

"Morning, Mr. Sage," cried Sir John Dene.

Malcolm Sage rose. There was an unwonted cordiality in the way in which he extended his hand.

"This is Sir Jasper Chambers." Sir John Dene turned to his companion. "You'll be able to place him," and he twirled the unlit cheroot between his lips with bewildering rapidity.

Sir Jasper bowed with an old-world courtliness and grace that seemed strangely out of keeping with his lank and unpicturesque bearing. Malcolm Sage, however, held out his hand with the air of one wishing to convey that a friend of Sir John Dene merited special consideration.

He motioned the two men to seats and resumed his own. Both declined the box of cigars he proffered, Sir John Dene preferring the well-chewed cheroot between his lips, whilst Sir Jasper drew a pipe from the tail-pocket of his frock-coat, which with long fleshless fingers he proceeded to fill from a chamois-leather tobacco-pouch.

"I've brought Sir Jasper along," said Sir John Dene. "You've heard about the murder of his friend Professor McMurray. He didn't want to come; but I told him you'd be tickled to death, and that you'd get it all figured out for him in two wags of a chipmunk's tail."

Malcolm Sage looked across at the eminent philanthropist, whose whole attention seemed absorbed in the filling of his well-worn briar.

Sir Jasper's wise charities and great humanitarianism were world-famous. It was Will Blink, the Labour demagogue, who had said that of all the honours conferred during the century, Sir Jasper Chambers' O.M. had alone been earned, the others had been either bought or wangled.

The McMurray Murder was the sensation of the hour. The newspapers had "stunted" it, and the public, always eager for gruesome sensation, had welcomed it as if it had been a Mary Pickford film.

Four days 'previously, Professor James McMurray of Gorling, in Essex, had been found dead in his laboratory, his head fearfully battered in by some blunt instrument.

It was the professor's custom, when engaged upon important research work, to retire, sometimes for days at a time, to a laboratory he had built in his own grounds.

Meals were passed through a small wicket, specially constructed for that purpose in the laboratory wall, and the professor's servants had the most explicit instructions on no account to disturb him.

A fortnight previously Professor McMurray had retired to his laboratory to carry out an important series of experiments. He informed his butler that Sir Jasper Chambers, his life-long friend, would visit him on the third day, and that dinner for two was to be supplied in the usual way, through the wicket.

On the evening in question, Sir Jasper Chambers had arrived and stayed until a little past nine. He then left the laboratory and proceeded to the house, where he told the butler that his master was quite well, and that in all probability his researches would occupy him another week.

Eight days later, when the butler took the professor's luncheon down to the laboratory, he noticed that the breakfast-tray had not been removed from the shelf just inside the wicket. Convinced that the professor had been so absorbed in his researches that he had forgotten the meal, the butler placed the luncheon-tray beside that containing the breakfast, thinking it better to leave the earlier meal as a reminder to the professor of his forgetfulness.

At dinner-time the butler was greatly surprised to find that both breakfast and luncheon had remained as he had left them; still, remembering how definite and insistent the professor had been that he was not to be disturbed, the butler had, after consulting with the housekeeper, decided to do nothing for the moment, and contented himself with ringing several times the electric-bell that was the signal of another meal.

An hour later he went once more to the wicket, only to discover that nothing had been touched. Hurrying back to the house with all speed he had conferred with Mrs. Graham, the housekeeper, and, on her insistence, he had telephoned to the police.

Sergeant Crudden of the Essex County Constabulary immediately bicycled over to "The Hollows," Professor McMurray's residence, and, after hearing the butler's story, he had decided to force the door; there are no windows, the laboratory being lighted from above, in order to secure entire privacy.

To the officer's surprise the door yielded readily, having apparently been previously forced. Entering the laboratory he was horrified to discover the body of the professor lying in the centre of the floor, his head literally smashed by a terrible blow that had obviously been delivered from behind.

Acting on the instructions of the police-sergeant, the butler had telephoned the news to the police-station at Strinton, with the result that shortly afterwards Inspector Brewitt arrived with a doctor.

The police had made no statement; but there were some extraordinary rumours current in the neighbourhood. One was to the effect that it was not Professor McMurray's body that had been discovered; but that of a much younger man who bore a striking resemblance to him.

"You have seen the accounts of my friend's terrible end?" enquired Sir Jasper, as he took the box of matches Malcolm Sage handed him and proceeded to light his pipe.

Malcolm Sage nodded. His gaze was fixed upon Sir Jasper's grey worsted socks, which concertinaed up his legs above a pair of strangely-fashioned black shoes.

"He was about to enter upon a series of experiments with a serum he had discovered, his object being to lengthen human life."

Sir Jasper spoke in a gentle, well-modulated voice, in which was a deep note of sadness. He and Professor McMurray had been life-long friends, their intimacy appearing to become strengthened by the passage of years.

"You were the last to see him alive, I understand." Malcolm Sage picked up his fountain-pen and began an elaborate stipple design of a serpent upon the blotting-pad.

"Eight days before he was found I dined with him," said Sir Jasper, his voice a little unsteady.

"What happened?" Malcolm Sage enquired without looking up.

"I arrived at seven o'clock," continued Sir Jasper. "From then until half-past we talked upon things of general interest, after which we dined. Later he told me he was about to enter upon a final series of experiments, the result of which would, in all probability, either be fatal to himself, or mean the lengthening of human life."

He paused, gazing straight in front of him, ejecting smoke from his lips in staccatoed puffs. Then he continued:

"He said that he had recently made a will, which was lying with his solicitor, and he gave me certain additional instructions as to the disposal of his property."

"Did he seem quite normal?" enquired Malcolm Sage, adding a pair of formidable fangs to his reptile.

"He was calm and confident. At parting he told me I should be the first to know the result."

"Have you any reason to believe that Professor McMurray had enemies?" Malcolm Sage enquired.

"None," was the reply, uttered in a tone of deep conviction, accompanied by a deliberate wagging of the head.

"He was confident of the success of his experiments?"

"Absolutely."

"And you?"

"I had no means of knowing," was the reply.

"You were his greatest friend and his only confidant?" suggested Malcolm Sage, adding the sixth pair of legs to his creation.

"Yes."

"And you were to be the first to be told of the result of the experiments?"

"Those were his last words to me."

There was a suggestion of emotion in Sir Jasper's otherwise even voice.

"Can you remember his actual words?"

"Yes; I remember them," he replied sadly. "As we shook hands he said, 'Well, Chambers, you will be the first to know the result.'"

Again there was silence, broken at length by Malcolm Sage, who stroked the back of his head with his left hand. His eyes had returned to Sir Jasper's socks.

"Do you think the professor had been successful in his experiments?" he enquired.

"I cannot say." Again Sir Jasper shook his head slowly and deliberately.

"Did you see the body?"

"I did."

"Is there any truth in the rumours that he looked much younger?"

"There was certainly a marked change, a startling change," was the reply.

"But death plays odd tricks with years," suggested Malcolm Sage, who was now feeling the lobe of his left ear as if to assure himself of its presence.

"True," said Sir Jasper, nodding his head as if pondering the matter deeply. "True."

"There was an article in last month's The Present Century by Sir Kelper Jevons entitled 'The Dangers of Longevity.' Did you read it?" enquired Malcolm Sage.

"I did."

"I read it too," broke in Sir John Dene, who had hitherto remained an interested listener, as he sat twirling round between his lips the still unlit cheroot. "A pretty dangerous business it seems to me, this monkeying about with people's glands."

"It called attention to the danger of any interference with Nature's carefully-adjusted balances between life and death," continued Malcolm Sage, who had returned to the serpent which now sported a pair of horns, "and was insistent that the lengthening of human life could result only in harm to the community. Do you happen to know if Professor McMurray had seen this?"

"He had." Sir Jasper leaned forward to knock the ashes from his pipe into the copper tray on Malcolm Sage's table. "We talked of it during dinner that evening. His contention was that science could not be constricted by utilitarianism, and that Nature would adjust her balances to the new conditions."

"But," grumbled Sir John Dene, "it wouldn't be until there had been about the tallest kind of financial panic this little globe of misery has ever seen."

"The article maintained that there would be an intervening period of chaos," remarked Malcolm Sage meditatively, as he opened a drawer and took from it a copy of The Present Century. "I was particularly struck with this passage," he remarked:

"'It is impossible to exaggerate the extreme delicacy of the machinery of modern civilization,' he read. 'Industrialism, the food-supply, existence itself are dependent upon the death-rate. Reduce this materially and it will inevitably lead to an upheaval of a very grave nature. For instance, it would mean an addition of something like a million to the population of the United Kingdom each year, over and above those provided for by the normal excess of births over deaths, and it would be years before Nature could readjust her balances.'"

Malcolm Sage looked across at Sir Jasper, who for some seconds remained silent, apparently deep in thought.

"I think," he said presently, with the air of a man carefully weighing his words, "that McMurray was inclined to under-estimate the extreme delicacy of the machinery of modern civilization. I recall his saying that the arguments in that article would apply only in the very unlikely event of someone meeting with unqualified success. That is to say, by the discovery of a serum that would achieve what the Spaniards hoped of the Fountain of Eternal Youth, an instantaneous transformation from age to youth."

"A sort of Faust stunt," murmured Sir John Dene.

Sir Jasper nodded his head gravely.

For some minutes the three men sat silent, Sir Jasper gazing straight in front of him, Sir John Dene twirling his cheroot between his lips, his eyes fixed upon the bald dome-like head of Malcolm Sage, whose eyes were still intent upon his horned reptile, which he had adorned with wings. He appeared to be thinking deeply.

"It's up to you, Mr. Sage, to get on the murderer's trail," said Sir John Dene at length, with the air of a man who has no doubt as to the result.

"You wish me to take up the case, Sir John?" enquired Malcolm Sage, looking up suddenly.

"Sure," said Sir John Dene as he rose. "I'll take it as a particular favour if you will. Now I must vamoose. I've got a date in the city." He jerked himself to his feet and extended a hand to Malcolm Sage. Then turning to Sir Jasper, who had also risen, he added, "You leave it to Mr. Sage, Sir Jasper. Before long you won't see him for dust. He's about the livest wire this side of the St. Lawrence," and with this enigmatical assurance, he walked to the door, whilst Malcolm Sage shook hands with Sir Jasper.



II

"Johnnie," said Miss Norman, as William Johnson entered her room in response to a peremptory call on the private-telephone, "Inspector Carfon is to honour us with a call during the next few minutes. Give him a chair and a copy of The Sunday at Home, and watch the clues as they peep out of his pockets. Now buzz off."

William Johnson returned to his table in the outer office and the lurid detective story from which Miss Norman's summons had torn him. He was always gratified when an officer from Scotland Yard called; it seemed to bring him a step nearer to the great crook-world of his dreams. William Johnson possessed imagination; but it was the imagination of the films.

A quarter of an hour later he held open the door of Malcolm Sage's private room to admit Inspector Carfon, a tall man, with small features and a large forehead, above which the fair hair had been sadly thinned by the persistent wearing of a helmet in the early days of his career.

"I got your message, Mr. Sage," he began, as he flopped into a chair on the opposite side of Malcolm Sage's table. "This McMurray case is a teaser. I shall be glad to talk it over with you."

"I am acting on behalf of Sir Jasper Chambers," said Malcolm Sage. "It's very kind of you to come round so promptly, Carfon," he added, pushing a box of cigars towards the inspector.

"Not at all, Mr. Sage," said Inspector Carfon as he selected a cigar. "Always glad to do what we can, although we are supposed to be a bit old-fashioned," and he laughed the laugh of a man who can afford to be tolerant.

"I've seen all there is in the papers," said Malcolm Sage. "Are there any additional particulars?"

"There's one thing we haven't told the papers, and it wasn't emphasised at the inquest." The inspector leaned forward impressively.

Malcolm Sage remained immobile, his eyes on his finger-nails.

"The doctor," continued the inspector, "says that the professor had been dead for about forty-eight hours, whereas we know he'd eaten a dinner about twenty-six hours before he was found."

Malcolm Sage looked up slowly. In his eyes there was an alert look that told of keen interest.

"You challenged him?" he queried.

"Ra-ther," was the response, "but he got quite ratty. Said he'd stake his professional reputation and all that sort of thing."

Malcolm Sage meditatively inclined his head several times in succession; his hand felt mechanically for his fountain-pen.

"Then there was another thing that struck me as odd," continued Inspector Carfon, intently examining the end of his cigar. "The professor had evidently been destroying a lot of old correspondence. The paper-basket was full of torn-up letters and envelopes, and the grate was choc-a-bloc with charred paper. That also we kept to ourselves."

"That all?"

"I think so," was the reply. "There's not the vestige of a clue that I can find."

"I see," said Malcolm Sage, looking at a press-cutting lying before him, "that it says there was a remarkable change in the professor's appearance. He seemed to have become rejuvenated."

"The doctor said that sometimes 'death smites with a velvet hand.' He was rather a poetic sort of chap," the inspector added by way of explanation.

"He saw nothing extraordinary in the circumstance?"

"No," was the response. "He seemed to think he was the only one who had ever seen a dead man before. I wouldn't mind betting I've seen as many stiffs as he has, although perhaps he's caused more."

Then as Malcolm Sage made no comment, the inspector proceeded.

"What I want to know is what was the professor doing while the door was being broken open?"

"There were no signs of a struggle?" enquired Malcolm Sage, drawing a cottage upon his thumbnail.

"None. He seems to have been attacked unexpectedly from behind."

"Was there anything missing?"

"We're not absolutely sure. The professor's gold watch can't be found; but the butler is not certain that he had it on him."

For some time there was silence. Malcolm Sage appeared to be pondering over the additional facts he had just heard.

"What do you want me to do, Mr. Sage?" enquired the inspector at length.

"I was wondering whether you would run down with me this afternoon to Gorling."

"I'd be delighted," was the hearty response. "Somehow or other I feel it's not an ordinary murder. There's something behind it all."

"What makes you think that?" Malcolm Sage looked up sharply.

"Frankly, I can't say, Mr. Sage," he confessed a little shamefacedly, "it's just a feeling I have."

"The laboratory has been locked up?"

"Yes; and I've sealed the door. Nothing has been touched."

Malcolm Sage nodded his head approvingly and, for fully five minutes, continued to gaze down at his hands spread out on the table before him.

"Thank you, Carfon. Be here at half-past two."

"The funeral's to-day, by the way," said the inspector as he rose and, with a genial "good morning," left the room.

For the next hour Malcolm Sage was engaged in reading the newspaper accounts of the McMurray Mystery, which he had already caused to be pasted up in the current press-cutting book; he gathered little more from them, however, than he already knew.

That afternoon, accompanied by Inspector Carfon, Malcolm Sage motored down to "The Hollows," which lies at the easternmost end of the village of Gorling.

The inspector stopped the car just as it entered the drive. The two men alighted and, turning sharply to the right, walked across the lawn towards an ugly red-brick building, screened from the house by a belt of trees. Malcolm Sage had expressed a wish to see the laboratory first.

It was a strange-looking structure, some fifty feet long by about twenty feet wide, with a door on the further side. In the red-brick wall nearer the house there was nothing to break the monotony except the small wicket through which the professor's meals were passed.

Malcolm Sage twice walked deliberately round the building. In the meantime the inspector had removed the seal from the padlock and opened the door.

"Did you photograph the position of the body?" enquired Malcolm Sage, as they entered.

"I hadn't a photographer handy," said the inspector apologetically, as he closed the door behind him; "but I managed to get a man to photograph the wound."

"Put yourself in the position of the body," said Malcolm Sage.

The inspector walked to the centre of the room, near a highly-polished table, dropped on to the floor and, after a moment's pause, turned and lay on his left side, with right arm outstretched.

From just inside the door Malcolm Sage looked about him. At the left extremity a second door gave access to another apartment, which the professor used as a bedroom.

A little to the right of the door, on the opposite side, stood the fireplace. This was full of ashes, apparently the charred remains of a quantity of paper that had been burnt. On the hearth were several partially-charred envelopes, and the paper-basket contained a number of torn-up letters.

"That will do, Carfon," said Malcolm Sage, as he walked over to the fireplace and, dropping on one knee, carefully examined the ashes, touching them here and there with the poker.

He picked up something that glittered and held it out to the inspector who scrambled to his feet, and stood looking down with keen professional interest.

"Piece of a test tube," remarked Malcolm Sage, as he placed the small piece of glass upon the table.

"Moses' aunt!" gasped the inspector. "I missed that, though I saw a lot of bits of glass. I thought it was an electric bulb."

"Somebody had ground it to powder with his heel, all except this piece. Looks as if there might have been more than one," he added more to himself than to the inspector.

"These are not letters," he continued without looking up.

"Not letters?"

"The paper is all of the same quality. By the way, has anyone disturbed it?" He indicated the grate.

"No one," was the reply.

Malcolm Sage rose to his feet. For some minutes he stood looking down at the fireplace, stroking the back of his head, deep in thought.

Presently he picked up the poker, a massive steel affair, and proceeded to examine the fire-end with great minuteness.

"It was done with the other end," said the inspector. "He must have wiped it afterwards. There was no sign of blood or hair."

Malcolm Sage ignored the remark, and continued to regard the business-end of the poker. Walking over to the door, he examined the fastenings. Having taken a general survey, he next proceeded to a detailed scrutiny of everything the place contained. From the fireplace he picked up what looked like a cinder and placed it in a small box, which he put in his pocket.

The polished surface of the table he subjected to a careful examination, borrowing the inspector's magnifying-glass for the purpose. On hands and knees he crawled round the table, still using the magnifying-glass upon the linoleum, with which the floor was covered. From time to time he would pick up some apparently minute object and transfer it to another small box. At length he rose to his feet as if satisfied.

"The professor did not smoke?" he queried.

"No; but the murderer did," was the rather brusque reply. Inspector Carfon was finding the role of audience trying, alike to his nerves and to his temper.

"Obviously," was Malcolm Sage's dry retort. "He also left his pipe behind and had to return for it. It was rather a foul pipe, too," he added.

"Left his pipe behind!" cried the inspector, his irritation dropping from him like a garment. "How on earth——!" In his surprise he left the sentence unfinished.

"Here," Malcolm Sage indicated a dark stain on the highly-polished table, "and here," he pointed to a few flecks of ash some four or five inches distant, "are indications that a pipe has remained for some considerable time, long enough for the nicotine to drain through the stem; it was a very foul pipe, Carfon."

"But mightn't that have trickled out in a few minutes, or while the man was here?" objected Inspector Carfon.

"With a wet smoker the saliva might have drained back," said Malcolm Sage, his eyes upon the stain, "but this is nicotine from higher up the stem, which would take time to flow out. As to leaving it on the table, what inveterate smoker would allow a pipe to lie on a table for any length of time unless he left it behind him? The man smoked like a chimney; look at the tobacco ash in the fireplace."

The inspector stared at Malcolm Sage, chagrin in his look.

"Now that photograph, Carfon," said Malcolm Sage.

Taking a letter-case from his breast-pocket, Inspector Carfon drew out a photograph folded in half. This he handed to Malcolm Sage, who, after a keen glance at the grim and gruesome picture, put it in his pocket.

"I thought so," he murmured.

"Thought what, Mr. Sage?" enquired the inspector eagerly.

"Left-handed." When keenly interested Malcolm Sage was more than usually economical in words.

"Clean through the left side of the occipital bone," Malcolm Sage continued. "No right-handed man could have delivered such a blow. That confirms the poker."

The inspector stared.

"The sockets of the bolts, and that of the lock, have been loosened from the inside with the poker," explained Malcolm Sage in a matter-of-fact tone. "The marks upon the poker suggest a left-handed man. The wound in the head proves it."

"Then the forced door was a blind?" gasped the inspector.

"The murderer was let in by the professor himself, who was subsequently attacked from behind as he stood with his back to the fireplace. You are sure the grate has not been touched?" He suddenly raised his eyes in keen interrogation.

Inspector Carfon shook his head. He had not yet recovered from his surprise.

"Someone has stirred the ashes about so as to break up the charred leaves into small pieces to make identification impossible. This man has a brain," he added.

The inspector gave vent to a prolonged whistle. "I knew there was something funny about the whole business," he said as if in self-defence.

Malcolm Sage had seated himself at the table, his long thin fingers outspread before him. Suddenly he gave utterance to an exclamation of annoyance.

The inspector bent eagerly forward.

"The pipe," he murmured. "I was wrong. He put it down because he was absorbed in something, probably the papers he burnt."

"Then you think the murderer burnt the papers?" enquired the inspector in surprise.

"Who else?" asked Malcolm Sage, rising. "Now we'll see the butler."

Whilst the inspector was locking and re-sealing the door, Malcolm Sage walked round the building several times in widening circles, examining the ground carefully; but there had been no rain for several weeks, and nothing upon its surface suggested a footprint.



CHAPTER XII THE MARMALADE CLUE



I

AS Malcolm Sage and Inspector Carfon crossed the lawn from the laboratory, Sir Jasper Chambers was seen coming down the drive towards them.

"There's Sir Jasper," cried the inspector.

When they reached the point where the lawn joined the drive they paused, waiting for Sir Jasper to approach. He walked with long, loose strides, his head thrust forward, his mind evidently absorbed and far away from where he was. His coat flapped behind him, and at each step his trousers jerked upwards, displaying several inches of grey worsted sock.

"Good afternoon, Sir Jasper," said Inspector Carfon, stepping forward and lifting his hat.

Sir Jasper stopped dead, with the air of one who has suddenly been brought to a realisation of his whereabouts. For a moment he stared blankly, then apparently recognition came to his aid.

"Good afternoon, inspector," he responded, lifting his black felt hat with a graceful motion that seemed strangely out-of-keeping with his grotesque appearance. In the salutation he managed to include Malcolm Sage, who acknowledged it with his customary jerky nod.

"We have just been looking at the laboratory," said the inspector.

"Ah!" Sir Jasper nodded his head several times. "The laboratory!"

"Will you oblige me with your pouch, Carfon," said Malcolm Sage, drawing his pipe from his pocket. "I've lost mine."

Inspector Carfon thrust his hand into his left-hand pocket, then began to go hurriedly through his other pockets with the air of a man who has lost something.

"I had it a quarter of an hour ago," he said. "I must have dropped it in the——"

"Allow me, sir," said Sir Jasper, extending to Malcolm Sage his own pouch, which he had extracted from his tail-pocket, whilst the inspector was still engaged in his search. Malcolm Sage took it and with a nod proceeded to fill his pipe.

"Looks like Craven Mixture," he remarked without looking up from the pipe which he was cramming from Sir Jasper's pouch.

Malcolm Sage was an epicure in tobacco.

"No; it's Ormonde Mixture," was the reply. "I always smoke it. It is singularly mellow," he added, "singularly mellow." He continued to look straight in front of him, whilst the inspector appeared anxious to get on to the house.

Having completed his task, Malcolm Sage folded the tobacco-pouch and handed it back to Sir Jasper.

"Thank you," he said, and proceeded to light his

Apparently seeing nothing to detain him further, Sir Jasper lifted his hat, bowed and passed on.

"Regular old cure, isn't he?" remarked the inspector as they watched the ungainly figure disappear round the bend of the drive.

"A great man, Carfon," murmured Malcolm Sage, "a very great man," and he turned and walked towards the house.

The front door of "The Hollows" was opened by the butler, a gentle-faced old man, in appearance rather like a mid-Victorian lawyer. At the sight of the inspector, a troubled look came into his eyes.

"I want to have a few words with you," said Malcolm Sage quietly.

The old man led the way to the library. Throwing open the door for them to pass in, he followed and closed it behind him. Malcolm Sage seated himself at the table and Inspector Carfon also dropped into a chair. The butler stood, his hands half-closed before him, the palm of one resting upon the knuckles of the other. His whole attitude was half-nervous, half-fearful, and wholly deprecating.

"I'm afraid this has been a great shock to you," said Malcolm Sage.

Inspector Carfon glanced across at him. There was an unaccustomed note of gentleness in his tone.

"It has indeed, sir," said the butler, and two tears gathered upon his lower lids, hung pendulous for a second, then raced one another down either side of his nose. It was the first sympathetic word the old man had heard since the police had arrived, insatiable for facts.

"Sit down," said Malcolm Sage, without looking up, "I shall not keep you many minutes." His tone was that one might adopt to a child.

The old man obeyed, seating himself upon the edge of the chair, one hand still placed upon the other.

"You mustn't think because the police ask a lot of questions that they mean to be unkind," said Malcolm Sage.

"I—I believe they think I did it," the old man quavered, "and—and I'd have done anything——"

His voice broke, the tears coursing down his colourless cheeks.

"I want you to try to help me find out who did kill your master," continued Malcolm Sage, in the same tone, "and you can do that by answering my questions."

There was no restless movement of fingers now. The hard, keen look had left his eyes, and his whole attention seemed to be concentrated upon soothing the old man before him.

With an obvious effort the butler strove to control himself.

"Did the professor ever have visitors at his laboratory?"

"Only Sir Jasper, sir. He was——"

"Just answer my questions," said Malcolm Sage gently. "He told you, I think, never on any account to disturb him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you ever do so?"

"Only once, sir."

"That was?"

"When Mrs. Graham, that's the housekeeper, sir, set fire to the curtains of her room. I was afraid for the house, sir, and I ran down and knocked at the laboratory door."

"Did the professor open it?"

"No, sir."

"Perhaps he did not hear you?"

"Yes, he did, sir. I knocked and kicked for a long time, then I ran back to the house and found the fire had been put out."

"Did Professor McMurray ever refer to the matter?"

"He was very angry when I next saw him, sir, three days later."

"What did he say?"

"That neither fire nor murder was an excuse for interrupting him, and if I did it again I would have to——"

"Quite so," interrupted Malcolm Sage, desirous of saving the old servitor the humiliation of explaining that he had been threatened with dismissal.

"So you are confident in your own mind that no amount of knocking at the door would have caused your master to open it?"

"Quite certain, sir," the butler said with deep conviction. "If he had heard me murdering Mrs. Graham he wouldn't have come out," he added gravely. "He used to say that man is for the moment; but research is for all time. He was a very wonderful man, sir," he added earnestly.

"So that to get into the laboratory someone must have had a duplicate key?"

"No, sir, the professor always bolted the door on the inside."

"Then he must have opened it himself?"

"He wouldn't, sir. I'm sure he wouldn't."

"But how did Sir Jasper get in?"

"He was expected, sir, and when he went to the laboratory, the master always ordered extra food. He was very absent-minded, sir; but he always remembered that. He was very considerate, sir, too. He never forgot my birthday," and he broke down completely, his frail body shaken by sobs.

Rising, Malcolm Sage placed his hand upon the old man's shoulder. As if conscious of the unspoken message of sympathy inspired by the touch, the butler clasped the hand in both his own.

Inspector Carfon looked surprised.

"He was so kind, sir, so kind and thoughtful," he quavered. "I don't know what I shall do without him." There was in his voice something of the querulous appeal of a little child.

"Were letters ever taken to the laboratory?" enquired Malcolm Sage, walking over to the window and gazing out.

"Never, sir," was the reply. "Everything was kept until the professor returned to the house, even telegrams."

"Then he was absolutely cut off?" said Malcolm Sage, returning to his seat.

"That was what he used to say, sir, that he wanted to feel cut off from everybody and everything."

"You have seen the body?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you notice anything remarkable about it?"

"He was more like he was some thirty years ago, sir."

"Rejuvenated in fact."

"I beg pardon, sir?"

"He seemed to have become suddenly a much younger man?" explained Malcolm Sage.

"Yes, sir. I've been with him over thirty years, and he looked very much as he did then, except, of course, that his hair remained grey."

"Apart from the food not being taken in, you noticed nothing else that struck you as strange?" queried Malcolm Sage.

The old man puckered up his eyebrows, as if genuinely anxious to remember something that would please the man who had shown him so much sympathy.

"I can't think of anything, sir," he said at length, apologetically, "only the marmalade, and that, of course, wouldn't——"

"The marmalade?" Malcolm Sage turned quickly.

"It was nothing, sir," said the old man. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned it; but the morning before we found him, the master had not eaten any marmalade, and him so fond of it. I was rather worried, and I asked Mrs. Graham if it was a new brand, thinking perhaps he didn't like it; but I found it was the same he always had."

For fully a minute Malcolm Sage was silent, gazing straight before him.

"He never smoked?" he asked at length.

"Never, sir, not during the whole thirty years I've been with him."

"Who cleaned the laboratory? It did not look as if it had been unswept for a week."

"No, indeed, sir," was the reply, "the professor was very particular. He always swept it up himself each morning. It was cleaned by one of the servants once a month."

"You're sure about the sweeping-up?" Malcolm Sage enquired with a keen glance that with him always meant an important point.

"Quite certain, sir."

"That, I think, will be all."

"Thank you, sir," said the butler, rising. "Thank you for being so kind, and—and understanding, sir," and he walked a little unsteadily from the room.

"I was afraid you wouldn't get anything out of him, Mr. Sage," said Inspector Carfon, with just a suspicion of relief in his voice.

"No," remarked Malcolm Sage quietly, "nothing new; but an important corroboration of the doctor's evidence."

"What was that?"

"That it was the murderer and not Professor McMurray who ate Wednesday's breakfast, luncheon and dinner."

"Good Lord!" The inspector's jaw dropped in his astonishment.

"I suspect that for some reason or other he returned to the laboratory; that accounts for the rough marks upon the door-fastenings as if someone had first torn them off and then sought to replace them. After his second visit the murderer evidently stayed too long, and was afraid of being seen leaving the laboratory. He therefore remained until the following night, eating the professor's meals. Incidentally he knew all about his habits."

"Well, I'm blowed if he isn't a cool un!" gasped the inspector.

Malcolm Sage rose with the air of one who has concluded the business on hand.

"Can I run you back to town, Carfon?" he asked, as he walked towards the door.

"No, thank you," said the inspector. "I must go over to Strinton and see Brewitt. He's following up a clue he's got. Some tramp who was seen hanging about here for a couple of days just before the murder," he added.

"Unless he is tall and powerful, left-handed, with something more than a layman's knowledge of surgery, you had better not trouble about him," said Malcolm Sage quietly. "You might also note that the murderer belongs to the upper, or middle class, has an iron nerve, and is strongly humanitarian."

For a moment Inspector Carfon stared at Malcolm Sage with lengthened jaw. Then suddenly he laughed, a laugh of obvious relief.

"At first I thought you were serious, Mr. Sage," he said, "till I saw what you were up to. It's just like the story-book detectives," and he laughed again, this time more convincingly.

Malcolm Sage shrugged his shoulders. "Let me have a description of the man when you get him," he said, "and some of the tobacco he smokes. Try him with marmalade, Carfon, and plenty of it. By the way, you make a great mistake in not reading The Present Century," he added. "It can be curiously instructive," and without another word he crossed the hall and, a moment later, entered his car.

"Swank!" murmured Inspector Carfon angrily, as he watched Tims swing the car down the drive at a dangerous rate of speed, "pure, unadulterated, brain-rotting swank," and he in turn passed down the drive, determined to let Malcolm Sage see what he could do "on his own."



II

Three weeks passed and there was no development in the McMurray Mystery. Malcolm Sage had heard nothing from Inspector Carfon, who was busily engaged in an endeavour to trace the tramp seen in the neighbourhood of "The Hollows" on the day previous to the murder.

Sir John Dene had called several times upon Malcolm Sage, whom he had come to regard as infallible, only to be told that there was no news. He made no comment; but it was obvious that he was greatly disappointed.

Interest began to wane, the newspapers devoted themselves to other "stunts," and the McMurray Mystery seemed fated to swell the list of unfathomed crimes with which, from time to time, the Press likes to twit Scotland Yard.

Suddenly the whole affair flared up anew, and Fleet Street once more devoted itself and its columns to the death of Professor James McMurray.

A brief announcement that a man of the vagrant class had been arrested in London whilst endeavouring to sell a gold watch believed to be that of Professor McMurray, was the first spark. Later the watch was identified and the man charged with the murder. He protested his innocence, saying that he had picked up the watch by the roadside, just outside Gorling, nearly a month before. There were bloodstains upon his clothes, which he explained by saying he had been fighting with another man who had made his nose bleed.

Inspector Carfon, unable to keep a note of triumph out of his voice, had telephoned the news to Malcolm Sage, who had asked for particulars of the man, his pipe, and a specimen of his tobacco; but day after day had passed without these being forthcoming. Finally the man, against whom the police had built up a damaging case, had been committed for trial.

Two weeks later he was found guilty at the assizes and sentenced to death.

Then it was that Malcolm Sage had written to Inspector Carfon curtly asking him to call at eleven on the following day, bringing with him the information for which he had asked. At the same time he wrote to Sir John Dene and Sir Jasper Chambers.

Punctually at eleven on the following morning the inspector called at the Malcolm Sage Bureau.

"Sorry, Mr. Sage," he said, as he entered Malcolm Sage's room, "I've been so rushed that I haven't been able to get round," and he dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table.

Malcolm Sage pushed across the cigar box.

"That's his tobacco-box," said Inspector Carfon, placing on the table a small tin-box.

Opening it, and after a swift glance at the contents, Malcolm Sage raised it to his nose: "Cigarette-ends," he remarked without looking up.

"And that's his pipe." The inspector laid on the table a black clap pipe, with some two inches of stem attached to the bowl.

Malcolm Sage scarcely glanced at it. Pulling out a drawer he produced a small cardboard box, which he opened and pushed towards the inspector.

"That is the tobacco smoked by the murderer. The makers are prepared to swear to it."

"Where the deuce did you get it?" gasped the inspector.

"Grain by grain from the linoleum in the laboratory," replied Malcolm Sage. "That is why it was necessary to be sure it was swept each day. It also helped me to establish the man as middle or upper class. This tobacco is expensive. What is the man like who has been condemned?"

"A regular wandering willie," replied the inspector. "Oldish chap, gives his age as sixty-one. Five foot three and a half, thin as a rake, twenty-nine inch chest. Miserable sort of devil. Says he picked up the watch about a quarter of a mile from 'The Hollows' early one morning."

"Does he eat marmalade?"

"Eat it!" the inspector laughed. "He wolfs it. I remembered what you said and took a pound along with me to Strinton, just for fun." He looked across at Malcolm Sage a little shamefacedly. "I afterwards heard that there was only the jar and the label left; but I don't see what all this has to do with it. The fellow's got to swing for it and——"

"Carfon, you've made a fool of yourself."

The inspector started back in his chair as if someone had struck him.

"I gave you a description of the man who had killed Professor McMurray; yet you proceed to build up a fantastical case against this poor devil."

"But——" began the inspector. He was interrupted by the door being burst violently open and Sir John Dene shot into the room.

For a moment he stood staring at the two men, Gladys Norman and William Johnson framed in the doorway behind him.

"Sir Jasper's killed himself," he cried.

"Moses' aunt!" cried the inspector, starting to his feet.

Malcolm Sage sat immovable at his table, his eyes upon his outstretched hands. Slowly looking up he motioned to Miss Norman to close the door, then nodded towards a chair into which Sir John Dene sank. The inspector resumed his own seat. It was obvious that the news had considerably shaken him.

"You knew?" Sir John Dene interrogated, his voice a little unsteady.

"I expected it," said Malcolm Sage quietly. "But how, Mr. Sage?" enquired Inspector Carfon in a whisper, his throat dry with excitement.

"Because I wrote to him yesterday saying that I could not allow the condemned man to be sacrificed. It was Sir Jasper Chambers who killed Professor McMurray."

For a moment Inspector Carfon's eyes looked as if they would start out of his head. He turned and looked at Sir John Dene, who with unsteady hand was taking a cheroot from his case.

Malcolm Sage drew his pipe from his pocket and proceeded to fill it.

"On the Tuesday night," he began, "it is obvious that Professor McMurray admitted someone to the laboratory. That man was Sir Jasper Chambers.

"When the two had dined together a week before," proceeded Malcolm Sage, "an appointment was obviously made for a week later. The professor's last words were significant: 'Anyway, Chambers, you will be the first to know.' If the experiments had proved fatal, how could Sir Jasper be the first to know unless an appointment had been made for him to call at the laboratory and discover for himself the result?"

The inspector coughed noisily.

"When Sir Jasper learned of the unqualified success of the experiments, and saw by the professor's changed appearance proof of his triumph, he remembered the article in The Present Century. He realised that in the lengthening of human life a terrible catastrophe threatened the world. Humanitarianism triumphed over his affection for his friend, and he killed him."

Sir John Dene nodded his head in agreement. The inspector was leaning forward, his arms on the table, staring at Malcolm Sage with glassy eyes.

"The assailant was clearly a tall, powerful man and left-handed. That was shown by the nature of the blow. That he had some knowledge of physiology is obvious from the fact that he made no attempt at a second blow to insure death, as a layman most likely would have done. He knew that he had smashed the occipital bone right into the brain. In his early years Sir Jasper studied medicine.

"The crime committed, Sir Jasper proceeded to cover his tracks. With the poker he loosened the sockets of the bolts and that of the lock in order to give an impression that the door had been burst open from without. He then left the place and, to suggest robbery as a motive for the crime, he took with him the professor's gold watch, which he threw away. This was found a few hours later by the tramp whom you, Carfon, want to hang for a crime of which he knows nothing." There was a note of sternness in Malcolm Sage's voice.

"But——" began the inspector.

"I suspect," continued Malcolm Sage, "that after he had left the laboratory, Sir Jasper suddenly realised that the professor had probably recorded in his book all his processes. He returned, discovered the manuscript, and was for hours absorbed in it, at first smoking continuously, later too interested in his task to think of his pipe. It must be remembered that he had studied medicine."

The inspector glanced across at Sir John Dene, who sat rigidly in his chair, his eyes fixed upon Malcolm Sage.

"I rather think that he was aroused from his preoccupation by the ringing of the bell announcing the arrival of the professor's breakfast. He then realised that he could not leave the place until nightfall. He therefore ate that meal, carefully avoiding the marmalade, which he disliked, and subsequently he consumed the luncheon, and dinner, passed through the wicket."

Malcolm Sage paused to press down the tobacco in his pipe.

"He burned the manuscript, tearing up letters and throwing them into the waste-paper basket to give the appearance of Professor McMurray having had a clearing-up. He then destroyed all the test-tubes he could find. Finally he left the laboratory late on the Wednesday night, or early Thursday morning."

"But how did you find out all this?" It was Sir John Dene who spoke.

"First of all, Sir Jasper and the murderer smoke the same tobacco, 'Ormonde Mixture.' I verified that by picking Inspector Carfon's pocket." Taking a tobacco-pouch from a drawer Malcolm Sage handed it across the table. "You will remember Sir Jasper lent me his pouch. I had picked up some tobacco on the floor and on the hearth.

"Secondly, the murderer was left-handed, and so is Sir Jasper.

"Thirdly, the murderer does not eat marmalade and Sir Jasper had the same distaste."

"But how——?" began the inspector.

"I telephoned to his housekeeper in the name of a local grocer and asked if it would be Sir Jasper who had ordered some marmalade, as an assistant could not remember the gentleman's name. That grocer, I suspect, got into trouble, as the housekeeper seemed to expect him to know that Sir Jasper disliked marmalade."

"Well, you seem to have got the thing pretty well figured out," remarked Sir John Dene grimly.

"Another man's life and liberty were at stake," was the calm reply, "otherwise——" he shrugged his shoulders.

"As Sir Jasper did not come forward I wrote to him yesterday giving him until noon to-day to make a statement," continued Malcolm Sage, "otherwise I should have to take steps to save the man condemned."

Then after a short pause he continued: "In Sir Jasper Chambers you have an illustration of the smallness of a great mind. He has devoted his vast wealth to philanthropy; yet he was willing to allow another man to be hanged for his crime."

"And this, I take it," said Sir John Dene, "is his reply," and he handed a letter across to Malcolm Sage.

"Read it out," he said.

Malcolm Sage glanced swiftly through the pages and then read:—

My Dear Dene,——

By the time you receive this letter I shall be dead. I have just received a letter from Mr. Malcolm Sage, which shows him to be a man of remarkable perception, and possessed of powers of analysis and deduction that I venture to think must be unique. All he says is correct, but for one detail. I left the laboratory in the first instance with the deliberate intention of returning, although I did not realise the significance of the manuscript until after I had tampered with the fastenings of the doors. Had my servants found that my bed had not been slept in, suspicion might have attached itself to me. I therefore returned to remedy this, and I left a note to say that I had gone out early for a long walk, a thing I frequently do.

In his experiments McMurray had succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings, and I foresaw the horrors that must inevitably follow such a discovery as his. I had to choose between myself and the welfare of the race, and I chose the race.

I did not come forward to save the man condemned for the crime, as I regarded my life of more value to the community than his.

Will you thank Mr. Sage for the very gentle and humane way in which he has written calling upon me to see that justice be not outraged.

I am sending this letter by hand. My body will be found in my study. I have used morphia as a means of satisfying justice.

Very sincerely yours, Jasper Chambers.

"It was strange I should have made that mistake about the reason for his leaving the laboratory," said Malcolm Sage meditatively. "I made two mistakes, one I corrected; but the other was unpardonable."

And he knocked the ashes from his pipe on to the copper tray before him with the air of a man who is far from satisfied.

"And I might have arrested an O.M.," murmured Inspector Carfon, as he walked down Whitehall. "Damn."



CHAPTER XIII THE GYLSTON SLANDER

"It's all very well for the Chief to sit in there like a five-guinea palmist," Gladys Norman cried one morning, as after interviewing the umpteenth caller that day she proceeded vigorously to powder her nose, to the obvious interest of William Johnson; "but what about me? If anyone else comes I must speak the truth. I haven't an unused lie left."

"Then you had better let Johnson have a turn," said a quiet voice behind her.

She span round, with flaming cheeks and white-flecked nose, to see the steel grey eyes of Malcolm Sage gazing on her quizzically through gold-rimmed spectacles. There was only the slightest fluttering at the corners of his mouth.

As his activities enlarged, Malcolm Sage's fame had increased, and he was overwhelmed with requests for assistance. Clients bore down upon him from all parts of the country; some even crossing the Channel, whilst from America and the Colonies came a flood of letters giving long, rambling details of mysteries, murders and disappearances, all of which he was expected to solve.

Those who wrote, however, were as nothing to those who called. They arrived in various stages of excitement and agitation, only to be met by Miss Gladys Norman with a stereotyped smile and the equally stereotyped information that Mr. Malcolm Sage saw no one except by appointment, which was never made until the nature of the would-be client's business had been stated in writing.

The Surrey cattle-maiming affair, and the consequent publicity it gave to the name of Malcolm Sage, had resulted in something like a siege of the Bureau's offices.

"I told you so," said Lady Dene gaily to her husband, and he had nodded his head in entire agreement.

Malcolm Sage's success was largely due to the very quality that had rendered him a failure as a civil servant, the elasticity of his mind.

He approached each problem entirely unprejudiced, weighed the evidence, and followed the course it indicated, prepared at any moment to retrace his steps, should they lead to a cul-de-sac.

He admitted the importance of the Roman judicial interrogation, "cui bono?" (whom benefits it?); yet he realised that there was always the danger of confusing the pathological with the criminal.

"The obvious is the correct solution of most mysteries," he had once remarked to Sir James Walton; but there is always the possibility of exception.

The Surrey cattle-maiming mystery had been a case in point. Even more so was the affair that came to be known as "The Gylston Slander." In this case Malcolm Sage arrived at the truth by a refusal to accept what, on the face of it, appeared to be the obvious solution.

It was through Roger Freynes, the eminent K.C., that he first became interested in the series of anonymous letters that had created considerable scandal in the little village of Gylston.

Tucked away in the north-west corner of Hampshire, Gylston was a village of some eight hundred inhabitants. The vicar, the Rev. John Crayne, had held the living for some twenty years. Aided by his wife and daughter, Muriel, a pretty and high-spirited girl of nineteen, he devoted himself to the parish, and in return enjoyed great popularity.

Life at the vicarage was an ideal of domestic happiness. Mr. and Mrs. Crayne were devoted to each other and to their daughter, and she to them. Muriel Crayne had grown up among the villagers, devoting herself to parish work as soon as she was old enough to do so. She seemed to find her life sufficient for her needs, and many were the comparisons drawn by other parents in Gylston between the vicar's daughter and their own restless offspring.

A year previously a new curate had arrived in the person of the Rev. Charles Blade. His frank, straightforward personality, coupled with his good looks and masculine bearing, had caused him to be greatly liked, not only by the vicar and his family, but by all the parishioners.

Suddenly and without warning the peace of the vicarage was destroyed. One morning Mr. Crayne received by post an anonymous letter, in which the names of his daughter and the curate were linked together in a way that caused him both pain, and anxiety.

A man with a strong sense of honour himself, he cordially despised the anonymous letter-writer, and his first instinct had been to ignore that which he had just received. On second thoughts, however, he reasoned that the writer would be unlikely to rest content with a single letter; but would, in all probability, make the same calumnious statements to others.

After consulting with his wife, he had reluctantly questioned his daughter. At first she was inclined to treat the matter lightly; but on the grave nature of the accusations being pointed out to her, she had become greatly embarrassed and assured him that the curate had never been more than ordinarily attentive to her.

The vicar decided to allow the matter to rest there, and accordingly he made no mention of the letter to Blade.

A week later his daughter brought him a letter she had found lying in the vicarage grounds. It contained a passionate declaration of love, and ended with a threat of what might happen if the writer's passion were not reciprocated.

Although the letter was unsigned, the vicar could not disguise from himself the fact that there was a marked similarity between the handwriting of the two anonymous letters and that of his curate. He decided, therefore, to ask Blade if he could throw any light on the matter.

At first the young man had appeared bewildered; then he had pledged his word of honour, not only that he had not written the letters, but that there was no truth in the statements they contained.

With that the vicar had to rest content; but worse 'was to follow.

Two evenings later, one of the churchwardens called at the vicarage and, after behaving in what to the vicar seemed a very strange manner, he produced from his pocket a letter he had received that morning, in which were repeated the scandalous statements contained in the first epistle.

From then on the district was deluged with anonymous letters, all referring to the alleged passion of the curate for the vicar's daughter, and the intrigue they were carrying on together. Some of the letters were frankly indelicate in their expression and, as the whole parish seethed with the scandal, the vicar appealed to the police for aid.

One peculiarity of the letters was that all were written upon the same paper, known as "Olympic Script." This was supplied locally to a number of people in the neighbourhood, among others, the vicar, the curate, and the schoolmaster.

Soon the story began to find its way into the newspapers, and Blade's position became one full of difficulty and embarrassment. He had consulted Robert Freynes, who had been at Oxford with his father, and the K.C., convinced of the young man's innocence, had sought Malcolm Sage's aid.

"You see, Sage," Freynes had remarked, "I'm sure the boy is straight and incapable of such conduct; but it's impossible to talk to that ass Murdy. He has no more imagination than a tin-linnet."

Freynes's reference was to Chief Inspector Murdy, of Scotland Yard, who had been entrusted with the enquiry, the local police having proved unequal to the problem.

Although Malcolm Sage had promised Robert Freynes that he would undertake the enquiry into the Gylston scandal, it was not until nearly a week later that he found himself at liberty to motor down into Hampshire.

One afternoon the vicar of Gylston, on entering his church, found a stranger on his knees in the chancel. Note-book in hand, he was transcribing the inscription of a monumental brass.

As the vicar approached, he observed that the stranger was vigorously shaking a fountain-pen, from which the ink had evidently been exhausted.

At the sound of Mr. Crayne's footsteps the stranger looked up, turning towards him a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, above which a bald conical head seemed to contradict the keenness of the eyes and the youthful lines of the face beneath.

"You are interested in monumental brasses?" enquired the vicar, as he entered the chancel, and the stranger rose to his feet. "I am the vicar," he explained. There was a look of eager interest in the pale grey eyes that looked out from a placid, scholarly face.

"I was taking the liberty of copying the inscription on this," replied Malcolm Sage, indicating the time-worn brass at his feet, "only unfortunately my fountain-pen has given out."

"There is pen and ink in the vestry," said the vicar, impressed by the fact that the stranger had chosen the finest brass in the church, one that had been saved from Cromwell's Puritans by the ingenuity of the then incumbent, who had caused it to be covered with cement. Then as an afterthought the vicar added, "I can get your pen filled at the vicarage. My daughter has some ink; she always uses a fountain-pen."

Malcolm Sage thanked him, and for the next half-hour the vicar forgot the worries of the past few weeks in listening to a man who seemed to have the whole subject of monumental brasses and Norman architecture at his finger-ends.

Subsequently Malcolm Sage was invited to the vicarage, where another half-hour was occupied in Mr. Crayne showing him his collection of books on brasses.

As Malcolm Sage made a movement to depart, the vicar suddenly remembered the matter of the ink, apologised for his remissness, and left the room, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of fountain-pen ink. Malcolm Sage drew from his pocket his pen, and proceeded to replenish the ink from the bottle. Finally he completed the transcription of the lettering of the brass from a rubbing produced by the vicar.

Reluctant to allow so interesting a visitor to depart, Mr. Crayne pressed him to take tea; but Malcolm Sage pleaded an engagement.

As they crossed the hall, a fair girl suddenly, rushed out from a door on the right. She was crying hysterically. Her hair was disordered, her deep violet eyes rimmed with red, and her moist lips seemed to stand out strangely red against the alabaster paleness of her skin.

"Muriel!"

Malcolm Sage glanced swiftly at the vicar. The look of scholarly calm had vanished from his features, giving place to a set sternness that reflected the tone in which he had uttered his daughter's name.

At the sight of a stranger the girl had paused, then, as if realising her tear-stained face and disordered hair, she turned and disappeared through the door from which she had rushed.

"My daughter," murmured the vicar, a little sadly, Malcolm Sage thought. "She has always been very highly strung and emotional," he added, as if considering some explanation necessary. "We have to be very stern with her on such occasions. It is the only way to repress it."

"You find it answers?" remarked Malcolm Sage.

"She has been much better lately, although she has been sorely tried. Perhaps you have heard."

Malcolm Sage nodded absently, as he gazed intently at the thumb-nail of his right hand. A minute later he was walking down the drive, his thoughts occupied with the pretty daughter of the vicar of Gylston.

At the curate's lodgings he was told that Mr. Blade was away, and would not return until late that night.

As he turned from the gate, Malcolm Sage encountered a pale-faced, narrow-shouldered man with a dark moustache and a hard, peevish mouth.

To Malcolm Sage's question as to which was the way to the inn, he nodded in the direction from which he had come and continued on his way.

"A man who has failed in what he set out to accomplish," was Malcolm Sage's mental diagnosis of John Gray, the Gylston schoolmaster.

It was not long before Malcolm Sage realised that the village of Gylston was intensely proud of itself. It had seen in the London papers accounts of the mysterious scandal of which it was the centre. A Scotland Yard officer had been down, and had subjected many of the inhabitants to a careful cross-examination. In consequence Gylston realised that it was a village to be reckoned with.

The Tired Traveller was the centre of all rumour and gossip. Here each night in the public-bar, or in the private-parlour, according to their social status, the inhabitants would forgather and discuss the problem of the mysterious letters. Every sort of theory was advanced, and every sort of explanation offered. Whilst popular opinion tended to the view that the curate was the guilty party, there were some who darkly shook their heads and muttered, "We shall see."

It was remembered and discussed with relish that John Gray, the schoolmaster, had for some time past shown a marked admiration for the vicar's daughter. She, however, had made it clear that the cadaverous, saturnine pedagogue possessed for her no attractions.

During the half-hour that Malcolm Sage spent at The Tired Traveller, eating a hurried meal, he heard all there was to be heard about local opinion.

The landlord, a rubicund old fellow whose baldness extended to his eyelids, was bursting with information. By nature capable of making a mystery out of a sunbeam, he revelled in the scandal that hummed around him.

After a quarter of an hour's conversation, the landlord's conversation, Malcolm Sage found himself possessed of a bewildering amount of new material.

"A young gal don't have them highsterics for nothin'," my host remarked darkly. "Has fits of 'em every now and then ever since she was a flapper, sobbin' and cryin' fit to break 'er heart, and the vicar that cross with her."

"That is considered the best way to treat hysterical people," remarked Malcolm Sage.

"Maybe," was the reply, "but she's only a gal, and a pretty one too," he added inconsequently.

"Then there's the schoolmaster," he continued, "'ates the curate like poison, he does. Shouldn't be surprised if it was him that done it. 'E's always been a bit sweet in that quarter himself, has Mr. Gray. Got talked about a good deal one time, 'angin' about arter Miss Muriel," added the loquacious publican.

By the time Malcolm Sage had finished his meal, the landlord was well in his stride of scandalous reminiscence. It was with obvious reluctance that he allowed so admirable a listener to depart, and it was with manifest regret that he watched Malcolm Sage's car disappear round the curve in the road.

A little way beyond the vicarage, an admonitory triangle caused Tims to slow up. Just by the bend Malcolm Sage observed a youth and a girl standing in the recess of a gate giving access to a meadow. Although they were in the shadow cast by the hedge, Malcolm Sage's quick eyes recognised in the girl the vicar's daughter. The youth looked as if he might be one of the lads of the village.

In the short space of two or three seconds Malcolm Sage noticed the change in the girl. Although he could not see her face very clearly, the vivacity of her bearing and the ready laugh were suggestive of a gaiety contrasting strangely with the tragic figure he had seen in the afternoon.

Muriel Crayne was obviously of a very mercurial temperament, he decided, as the car swung round the bend.

The next morning, in response to a telephone message, Inspector Murdy called on Malcolm Sage.

"Well, Mr. Sage," he cried, as he shook hands, "going to have another try to teach us our job," and his blue eyes twinkled good-humouredly.

The inspector had already made up his mind. He was a man with many successes to his record, achieved as a result of undoubted astuteness in connection with the grosser crimes, such as train-murders, post-office hold-ups and burglaries. He was incapable, however, of realising that there existed a subtler form of law-breaking, arising from something more intimately associated with the psychic than the material plane.