"You never can tell what a woman is really like across the footlights," I overheard one man say to his companion.

"Perhaps not," was the answer; "but I have seen her out of the theater. I dropped in at Forbes's studio the other day. He was finishing a bust of her, and she was giving him a sitting. It is a jolly good bust, but the woman—"

"Is she pretty?" asked the other.

"Upon my word, I don't know; what I do know is that I wanted to look at her all the time, and when she had gone life seemed to have left the studio."

I did not know the speaker, but I did not lose sight of him until I had tracked him to a club in Piccadilly and discovered that his name was Tenfield, and that he was a partner in a firm of art dealers in Bond Street.

When I repeated this conversation to Quarles he wondered why I had taken so much trouble over the art dealer.

"Looking for a clue," I answered.

Quarles shrugged his shoulders.

"What did you think of the portrait?"

"Frankly, not much."

"But you got an impression of Madame Vatrotski's character."

"I cannot say I got any great enlightenment. It made me wonder why she had made such a great reputation."

"The fact that it made you wonder at all shows there is something in the portrait," said Quarles. "Let us argue indirectly from the picture. You will agree that the lady was fascinating, since she had so many admirers, but in the portrait you discern nothing to account for that fascination. We may conclude that the painter saw the real woman underneath the superficial charm. She could not hide herself from him as she did from others. Now in that portrait I see rather a commonplace woman, essentially bourgeoise and vulgar, not naturally artistic. I can imagine her the wife of a small shopkeeper, or a girl given to cheap finery on holidays. I think she would be capable of any meanness to obtain that finery. Her face shows a decided lack of talent, but it also shows tremendous greed. The critics have said that her dancing was a pose and not in good taste."

I nodded.

"They are practically unanimous on this point. It was beyond her to appeal to the artistic sense, so she appealed to the lower nature, and therein lay her fascination. Just consider who the men are to whom she appealed. A millionaire with an unsavory reputation. To two or three peers who, even by the wildest stretch of imagination, cannot be considered ornaments of their order. To some younger sons of the Nut description who are ready to pay anything to be seen with a popular actress, and to the kind of fools who are always ready to offer marriage to a divorcee, or to a husband murderer when she comes out of prison. She appeals to a man like Paul Renaud, whose outlook upon life is disgusting, and who would not be able to keep a decent girl on his premises were it not for the fact that the whole management of the business is in the hands of his two partners. Sir Charles Woodbridge I do not understand. He is a decent man. I could easily imagine his killing her in a revulsion of feeling after being momentarily fascinated. Honestly, I have wondered whether this may not be the solution of the case."

"You are suspicious of Sir Charles?" I asked.

"I do not give that as my definite opinion. She may not be dead. Perchance some particularly mean exploit has made her afraid and she has gone into hiding; but if she is dead, I think we must look for her murderer—I had almost said her executioner—amongst the decent men who have been caught for a while in her toils."

"The only decent man seems to be Sir Charles," said Zena.

"And I am convinced he was genuinely in love with her," I said.

"Well, we are at a dead end," said Quarles. "I think I should go and see Musgrave and ask his opinion of her. It may help us."

I went simply because there was nothing else to do, and I felt that I must; be doing something. The authorities seemed to think that I was making a great muddle over a very ordinary affair, possibly because rather contemptuous comments in the press had annoyed them, while the letters from amateur detectives had been more abundant than usual. Oh, those amateur detectives!

I found Musgrave quite willing to talk about Madame Vatrotski, and before I had been with him ten minutes I discovered that his opinion of her very nearly coincided with Quarles's.

He put it differently, but it came to the same thing.

"To tell you the truth, she rather appealed to me when I first saw her," he said. "It was at an artists' affair in Chelsea. She came there with a man named Renaud, who has a big shop in Regent Street, and had spent money on her, I imagine. She was interesting because she was something new in the way of vulgarity. It was for this man Renaud that I did the portrait, but when it was finished he repudiated the bargain. He said it wasn't a bit like her. You see, I was not looking at her with his eyes"

"Had she no beauty, then?"

"I cannot say that," Musgrave answered. "She had a beautiful figure, and her face—well, I painted it as I saw it. Renaud said it wasn't in the least like her, and I am bound to admit that most of the people who knew her and have seen the portrait in the Academy agree with him."

"You claim that you show her character, I suppose?"

"No; I merely say I painted what I saw."

"Can you account for the fascination she exerted?" I asked.

"I answer that question by asking you another. Can you account for the fascination which sin exerts over a vast number of people in the world? See sin as it really is, and it repels you; but sin seldom lets you see the reality, that is why it is so successful. A man requires grace to see sin as it really is, and that is his salvation. I was in a detached position when I painted Madame Vatrotski's portrait, and you have seen the result; had I been under her spell the result would undoubtedly have been different. I should have painted only the mask of the moment, and that would have satisfied her admirers, I imagine. I suppose you know that my ideas of the true functions of art have caused many people to call me a crank?"

"I know little of the artistic world," I answered; "but any man who takes himself seriously always appeals to me."

Musgrave smiled. I fancy he was about to favor me with his ideas, but concluded I was not worth the trouble. I had not got much out of my visit beyond the knowledge that Quarles was not alone in his estimate of Madame Vatrotski.

The professor's opinion combined with the artist's influenced me, and gave me a kind of rough theory. A man might be fascinated, then repelled, the repulsion being far stronger than the attraction.

To make this possible the man must normally be decent, and because Sir Charles Woodbridge seemed the only person who fitted all the conditions I gave his movements a considerable amount of my attention during the next few days. He had certainly been amongst the most assiduous of her admirers, and I discovered that he had put a private detective on to the business who was chiefly concerned in shadowing Paul Renaud.

Sir Charles was evidently convinced that Renaud was at the bottom of the mystery.

Nearly a month went by, and, except to those chiefly concerned, interest in the dancer's disappearance was fading out, when it was suddenly revived by the notice of a picture exhibition in Bond Street, at the gallery belonging to the firm in which Tenfield was a partner.

The pictures were the work of French artists of the cubist school, but also on view was a portrait bust of Madame Vatrotski by Lovet Forbes. It was evidently the bust I had overheard Tenfield speak about that day in the Academy, and I discovered that his firm had bought it as a speculation.

Lovet Forbes had been only a vague name until a few days ago, when a symbolic group of his had been placed in the entrance hall of the Agricultural Institution, and had at once attracted attention. The critics spoke of him as a new force in art, and a bust of the famous dancer by him was therefore, under the circumstances, an event.

"People will go to see it who wouldn't cross the road to look at a cubist's picture," said Quarles. "It is for sale, no doubt, and the dealers may clear a very nice little profit over it. Not a bad speculation, I should say; I wonder how much they paid the artist. We will go and have a look at it, Wigan."

The three of us went on the opening day. Zena in a dress I had not seen before, which suited her to perfection. She was much more interesting to me than Forbes's bust of Madame Vatrotski.

Quarles was right in his prophecy; the gallery was full, and the cubists were not the attraction. Sir Charles was there, so was Renaud, and many others whose names had been mentioned more or less prominently in this case, including the managing director of the Olympic; and before I got a view of the bust I heard whispers of the prices which had been offered for it; rather fabulous prices they were.

"But she is perfectly beautiful!" Zena exclaimed, when at last we stood before the bust.

She was right, and there was evidently something wrong somewhere. The difference between Musgrave's picture and Forbes's marble was tremendous, and yet they were unmistakably the same woman.

Where the essential likeness was I cannot say, nor can I explain where the difference lay, but the marble was charming, while the painting was horrible.

"Rather a surprise, eh, Wigan?" said the professor.

"Very much so."

"I hear Forbes is about somewhere. I should like to see him. He is one of the lucky ones; this mystery has helped him to fame."

"But his work is good, isn't it?"

"Yes; slightly meretricious, perhaps. I shall want to see more of his work before I express a definite opinion. I think we must go and see what he has done for the Agricultural Institute."

We not only saw Forbes, but had a talk with him. He was a man well on in the forties, carelessly dressed, a Bohemian, and not particularly elated at his success apparently. He smiled at the prices which were being offered for his work.

"It is the dancer they are paying for, not my genius," he said. "She seems to have fooled men in life; she is fooling them in death, if she is dead."

"Ah, that is the question," said Quarles. "I have my doubts."

"She is safer dead, at any rate, if only half they say of her is true," Forbes returned.

"How came she to sit for you?" I asked.

"Vanity. I was introduced to her one night at an Artists' Ball—the Albert Hall affair, you know—and I told her she had the figure of a Venus. I was consciously playing on her vanity for a purpose. In the thing I have done for the Agricultural Institute there is a recumbent figure, and I wanted the perfect model for it. The right woman is more difficult to get than you would imagine. Of course she agreed with me as to the perfectness of her figure, and then I began to doubt it. That settled the business. She fell into my trap and agreed to be the model."

"Posing in the nude?" I asked.

"Oh, that did not trouble her at all," answered Forbes. "I shouldn't be surprised if she had been a model in Paris studios before she blossomed out as a dancer. She spoke Russian, but I am inclined to think France had the honor of giving her birth. In return for her complaisance I promised to do a portrait bust of her for herself. That is it. If she is alive and comes to claim it I shall have to do her another one."

"She was evidently a very beautiful woman," said Quarles, glancing in the direction of the bust.

"Beautiful and bad, I fancy. Curiously enough, I did not hear of her disappearance until I telephoned to her flat two days after it had happened. She had broken an appointment to give me a final sitting, and I wanted to know why she hadn't come."

"Was the final sitting for the Agricultural group?" Quarles asked.

"No; for the bust there. I had to leave it as it was, but there is something in the line of the mouth which does not please me. What has become of her, do you suppose?"

"Possibly some one or something she is afraid of has caused her to go into hiding," said Quarles.

"Afraid! I doubt if she had any fear of devil or man. Have you seen Musgrave's portrait of her?"

The professor nodded, and I thought it was curious that the Academy picture should be referred to so persistently.

"She was like that," said Forbes. "Musgrave's is a wonderful piece of work."

Involuntarily I glanced at the bust, and he noticed my surprise.

"Oh, she was like that too at times," he said.

"I should doubt if Musgrave ever saw her as you have represented her," said Quarles.

"Perhaps not. He claims to paint character; possibly I might succeed in chiseling character, but give me a beautiful model, and as a rule I am content to show the surface only. Besides, the bust was for her, and I made the best of my subject."

"And in the Agricultural piece?" asked Quarles.

"Naturally I idealized her."

"I suppose he is not the born artist that Musgrave is?" I said, when Forbes had left us.

"I don't know," returned Quarles. "We will go and have another look at the bust, and I think on the way home we might drop in and have another look at Musgrave's picture."

"That portrait bothers me," I said. "One might suppose it was the key to the mystery."

"I am not sure that it isn't," Quarles answered.

Further acquaintance with the Academy picture had rather a curious effect upon me. I do not think I lost anything of my original sense of repulsion, but I was strangely conscious that there was something attractive in the face. I was astonished to find what a likeness there was between the portrait and the bust. The impression created by one became mingled with the impression made by the other.

I said as much to Quarles.

"That is tantamount to saying they are both fine pieces of work," he answered.

"And means, I suppose, that the real woman was somewhere between the two," said Zena.

"Possibly, but with Musgrave's idea the predominant truth," said Quarles.

"Why?" asked Zena.

Quarles shrugged his shoulders. He had no answer to give.

"The day after to-morrow, Wigan, we will go to the Agricultural Institute."

"Why not to-morrow?"

"To-morrow I am busy. Did you know I was writing an article for a psychological review?"

On the following evening I took Zena to a theater—to the Olympic. I suppose I chose the Olympic with a sort of idea that I was keeping in touch with the case I had in hand, that if any one chanced to see me there they would conclude that I was following up some clue. It is hateful to feel that there is nothing to be done, more hateful still that people should imagine you are beaten or are neglecting your work.

Zena told me the professor had been out all day, but she did not know what business he was about. He was certainly not engaged in writing his article.

The Olympic was by no means full that night; the disappearance of the dancer was evidently having a disastrous effect upon the receipts.

The next day I went to the Agricultural Institute with Quarles. He had got a card of introduction to the secretary.

The building had recently been enlarged, and at the top of the first flight of the staircase stood a group representing the triumph of modern methods.

Standing or crouching, and full of energy, were figures symbolic of science and machinery, while in the foreground was a recumbent figure from whose hands the sickle had fallen.

The woman was sleeping, her work done; yet she suggested that there was beauty in those old methods which, for all their utility, was lacking in the new.

"It is probably the best work that Lovet Forbes has done," said the secretary, who came round with us.

"He is the coming man, they say," Quarles remarked.

"He has surely arrived," was the answer, "for the critics are unanimous as to the beauty of this."

"Yes, it is remarkable in idea and execution. I am told the famous dancer, who has recently disappeared, was the model for the recumbent figure."

"So I understand. The figure is the gem of the whole composition."

Quarles was not inclined to endorse this opinion, and the secretary was nothing loath to argue the point.

The discussion led to a close examination of the figure, Quarles arguing that it was out of proportion in comparison with the standing figures, a comment which the secretary met with some learned words on the laws relating to perspective.

They were both a little out of their depth, I thought, and after a few moments I did not pay much attention to them. My thoughts had gone back to Musgrave's picture and to Forbes's bust of Madame Vatrotski. Zena had said that the real woman was probably somewhere between the two, and as I looked at the figure for which the dancer had been the model I felt she was right.

I suppose the limbs were perfect, but it was the face which chiefly interested mo. It was like Musgrave's picture, but it was more like Forbes's bust, with something in it which differed entirely from the bust and from the picture.

It was a beautiful figure, and I think the face was beautiful, but I am not sure.

The secretary had just measured the figure, and the result seemed to have established the fact that Quarles's contention was right. This evidently pleased him, and he was inclined to give way on minor points of difference.

"No doubt the sculptor's perspective has something to do with it," he said; "but we must not forget that the group is symbolic. I should not be surprised if the figure in the foreground is larger to illustrate the fact that modern methods are of yesterday, while the sickle has reaped the harvests of the world from old time. The sickle is not broken, you observe, and the artist may mean that it will be used again in the time to come."

"You may be right," said the secretary. "I shall take an early opportunity of asking Forbes."

Soon afterwards, we left, and had got a hundred yards from the building when the professor suddenly found he had left his gloves behind in the library.

"I shall only be a minute or two, Wigan. Stop a taxi in the meantime."

He was longer than that, but he came back triumphant, waving the gloves, an old pair hardly worth returning for. He seemed able to talk of nothing but the symbolism of the group, finding many points in it which had escaped me entirely.

"It has given me an idea, Wigan."

"About Madame Yatrotski?"

"Yes; but we will wait until we get home."

We went straight to that empty room. Zena could not persuade the old man to have some tea first.

"Tea! I am not taking tea to-day. Bring me a little weak brandy and water, my dear."

"Don't you feel well?"

"Yes, but I am a little exhausted by talking to a man who thinks he understands art and doesn't."

"Oh, Murray doesn't pretend to understand it."

"Murray is not such a fool as he pretends to be, even in art; but I was thinking of the secretary, not Murray."

The brandy was brought, and then the professor turned to me.

"You suggested that perhaps Forbes was not the born artist that Musgrave is. What is your opinion now, Wigan?"

"I am chiefly impressed with the fact that Zena was right when she said the real woman was probably between Forbes's bust and Musgrave's picture."

"And I am chiefly impressed with the fact that they are both great artists," said Quarles. "I said Musgrave was, but I reserved my opinion of Forbes until I had seen this group. It has convinced me. Now, for my idea concerning the dancer. The first germ was in the notion that in Musgrave's picture lay the key to the mystery. Knowing something of the painter's power and ideals, I felt that the portrait must be true from one point of view. What was his standpoint? He explained it to you. He was detached, unbiased, putting on to his canvas that which he saw behind the mere outer mask. When I saw Forbes's bust, one of two things was certain: either he was incapable of seeing below the surface, or in this particular case he was incapable of doing so. I could not decide until I had seen other work of his. To-day I know he is as capable with his chisel as Musgrave is with his brush. You have only to study the standing and crouching figures in the group to see how virile and full of insight he can be."

"But the recumbent figure—" I began.

"You remember that he said it was idealized," Quarles said. "It is undoubtedly full of—of strength, but for the moment I am more interested in the bust. Why does it differ so widely from Musgrave's portrait? Well, I think Forbes was only capable of seeing Madame Vatrotski like that, and we have to discover the reason."

"Temperament," I suggested. "He said himself he was content as a rule to show the beautiful exterior."

"He also said one or two other interesting things," said Quarles, "For instance, he was certain she was dead, or he would hardly have sold the bust he had executed specially for her. Why was he so certain? Again, he suggested she was French and not Russian, scorned the idea of her being afraid of any one, and altogether he showed rather an intimate knowledge of her, which makes one fancy that she had been more open with him than she had been with others."

"The fact that she was sitting to him might account for that," said Zena.

"One would also expect that it would have made him come forward and give what help he could in clearing up the mystery." Quarles answered; "but he does nothing of the kind. We do not hear that he has used her as a model for his Agricultural group until we hear it casually on the day the bust was exhibited, and he tells us that he did not know of her disappearance until he telephoned to her rooms two days afterwards. Does that sound quite a likely story, Wigan?"

"I think you are building a theory on a frail foundation, Professor."

"It has served its purpose; I have built my theory—the artistic mind fascinated and becoming revengeful in a moment of repulsion. I think Madame Vatrotski had an appointment with Forbes that day, and more, that she kept it."

"Where?"

"At his studio. It may have been to give him a final sitting, or it may have been a lovers' meeting. Forbes could only see her beauty and fascination; he put what he saw into the bust. He loved her with all the unreasoning power that was in him; it is possible that in her limited way she loved him, that he was more to her than all the rest. Then came the sudden revulsion, perhaps because stories concerning her had reached Forbes, stories he was convinced were true. She was alone with him in the studio, and—well, I do not think she left it alive."

"But the body?" I said.

"Always the great difficulty," Quarles returned. "Yesterday I spent an interesting day in Essex, Wigan, watching the various processes used in making artificial stone, from its liquid and plastic state to its setting into a hard block. I was amazed at what can be done with it."

"You mean that—"

"It is impossible!" Zena exclaimed.

"It is not a very difficult matter to treat a body so as to preserve it, but to cover it with a preparation and with such precision that when it is set you shall see nothing but a stone figure is, of course, only possible to an artist."

"But she had sat for him, the figure must have been far advanced before—before she disappeared."

"I have no doubt it was, Wigan; but, far advanced as it was, that stone figure was removed and replaced by one that only superficially was stone."

"I do not believe it. It is absurd."

"Measurement proved that the recumbent figure was out of proportion in comparison with the other figures, accounted for by the stone casing. Of course with the secretary there I could not look too closely."

"No, or you would have found—"

"You seem to forget that I went back for my gloves," said Quarles. "I left them on purpose. I ran up to the library; no one was about. I had a chisel and hammer with me. By this time some one may have discovered that the group has been chipped. There are the pieces."

He took from his pocket some fragments of stone, pieces of a stone mold, in fact.

"Whether they will realize what it is that is disclosed where that piece is missing is another matter, but we know, Wigan. It is the body of Madame Vatrotski. Can you wonder, my dear Zena, that I felt more like a little brandy and water than tea?"

How far Quarles was right in his idea of the relations between Forbes and the dancer no one will ever know. When the police went to arrest him he was found dead in his studio. He had shot himself. How had he heard of Quarles's discovery? How did he know that his ingenious method of concealing the body had been found out?

It was so strange that I asked Quarles whether he had warned him.

"Do you think I should be likely to do such a thing?" was his answer.

He would give me no other answer, and all I can say positively is that he has never actually denied it.



CHAPTER X

THE MYSTERY OF THE MAN AT WARBURTON'S

Two days later Zena went to visit friends in the country, and for some weeks I did not go near Chelsea. Quarles was busy with some Psychological Society which was holding a series of meetings in London, and was quite pleased, no doubt, to be without my society for a while.

Except when I have a regular holiday, my leisure hours are limited, but I was taking a night off. It was not because I had nothing to do, but because I had so many things to think of that my brain had become hopelessly muddled in the process, and a few blank hours seemed to be advisable. When this kind of retreat becomes necessary, I invariably find my way to Holborn, to a very plain-fronted establishment there over which is the name Warburton. If you are a gastronomic connoisseur in any way you may know it, for Warburton's is a restaurant where you can get an old-fashioned dinner cooked as nowhere else in London, I believe, and enjoy an old port afterwards which those delightful sinners, our grandfathers, would have sat over half the night, and been pulled out from under the table in the morning perchance. I am not abnormally partial to the pleasures of the table, but I have found a good dinner in combination with first-rate port, rationally dealt with, an excellent tonic for the brain.

I do not suppose any one knew my name at Warburton's, and I have always prided myself on not carrying my profession in my face. The man who dined opposite to me that night possibly began by taking me for a prosperous city man, to whom success had come somewhat early, or perhaps for a barrister, not of the brilliant kind, but of the steady plodders who get there in the end by sheer force of sticking power. I was not in the least interested in him until he spoke to me—asked me to pass the Worcester sauce, in fact. His voice attracted me, and his hands. It was a voice which sounded out of practise, as if it were seldom used, and his hands were those of an artist. I made some casual remark, complimentary to Warburton's, and we began to talk. He seemed glad to do so, but he spoke with hesitation, not as one who has overcome an impediment in his speech, but as one who had forgotten part of his vocabulary. The reason leaked out presently.

"I wonder whether there is something—how shall I put it?—simpatica between us?" he said suddenly.

"Why the speculation?" I asked.

"Otherwise I cannot think why I am talking so much," he said with a nervous laugh. "I live alone, I hardly know a soul, and all I say in the course of a week could be repeated in two minutes, I suppose."

"Not a healthy existence," I returned.

"It suits me. I dine here most nights; the journey to and fro forms my daily constitutional. You are not a regular customer here?"

"No, an occasional one only. I should guess that you are engaged in artistic work of some kind."

"Right!" he said with a show of excitement. "And when I tell you I live in Gray's Inn do you think you could guess what kind of work it is?"

"That is beyond me," I laughed. "Gray's Inn sounds a curious place for an artist."

"I am an illuminator, not for money, but for my own pleasure. Do you know Italy?"

"No."

"At least you know that some of the old monks spent their hours in wonderful work of this kind, carefully illuminating the texts of works with marvelous design and color. Now and then some special genius arose and became a great fresco painter. Fra Angelico painted pictures for the world to marvel over, while some humbler brother pored over his illuminating. You will find some of this work in the British Museum."

Evidently my newly acquired friend was an eccentric, I thought.

"Pictures have no particular interest for me," he went on; "these illuminated texts have. I am an expert worker myself. First in Italy, now in Gray's Inn."

"And there is no market for such work?" I enquired.

"I believe not. I have never troubled to find out. I have no need of money, and if I had I could not bring myself to part with my work."

"You interest me. I should like to see some of your work."

"Why not? It is a short walk to Gray's Inn. To me you are rather wonderful. I have not felt inclined to talk to a stranger for years, and now I am anxious to show you what I have done. We will go when you like."

I had not bargained for this. Had I foreseen that I should have a conversation forced upon me to-night I should have avoided Warburton's; even now I was inclined to excuse myself, but curiosity got the upper hand. I finished my wine and we went to Gray's Inn.

On the way, I told him my name, but, apparently, he had never heard it, nor did he immediately tell me his. I purposely called him Mr. —— and paused for the information.

"Parrish," he said. "Bather a curious name," and then he went on talking about illuminating, evidently convinced that I was intensely interested. It was the man who interested me, not his work, and the interest was heightened when I entered his rooms. He occupied two rooms at the top of a dreary building devoted to men of law. The rooms were well enough in themselves, but the furniture was in the last stage of dilapidation, there were holes in the carpet, and everything looked forlorn and poverty-stricken. I glanced at my companion. Certainly, his clothes were a little shabby, but quite good, and he was oblivious to the decayed atmosphere of his surroundings. He drew me at once to a large table, where lay the work he was engaged upon. Of its kind, it was marvelous both in design and execution, reproducing the color effects of the old illuminators so exactly that it was almost impossible to tell it from that of the old monks. This is not my opinion, but that of the expert from the British Museum when he pronounced upon the work later.

"Wonderful," I said. "And there is no sale for it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. Environment seemed to have an effect upon him, for his conversation was mostly by signs after we entered his room. Without a word he took finished work from various drawers and put it on the table for my inspection. I praised it, asked questions to draw him out, but failed to get more than a lift of the eyebrows, or an occasional monosyllable. It was not exhilarating, and as soon as I could I took my leave.

"Come and see me again soon," he said, parting with me at the top of the stairs.

"Thanks," I answered, as I went down, but I made no promise as I looked up at him silhouetted against the light from his open door. Little did I guess how soon I was to climb those stairs again.

Next morning I was conscious that the night off, although not spent exactly as I had intended, had done me good. Some knotty points in a case I was engaged upon had begun to unravel themselves in my mind, and I reached the office early to find that the chief was already there and wanted to see me.

"Here is a case you must look after at once, Wigan," he said, passing me the report of the murder of a man named Parrish, in Gray's Inn.

Now, one of the essentials in my profession is the ability to put the finger on the small mistakes a criminal makes when he endeavors to cover up his tracks. I suppose nine cases out of ten are solved in this way, and more often than not the thing left undone, unthought of, is the very one, you would imagine, which the criminal would have thought of first. I fancy the reason lies in the fact that the criminal does not believe he will be suspected. I said nothing to my chief about my visit to Gray's Inn last night. Experience has shown me the wisdom of a still tongue, and knowledge I have picked up casually has often led to a solution which has startled the Yard. The Yard was destined to be startled now, but not quite in the way I hoped.

When I arrived at Gray's Inn, a small crowd had collected before the entrance door of the house, as if momentarily expecting some information from the constable who stood on duty there—a man I did not happen to know.

"That's him! That's him!"

A boy pointed me out excitedly to the constable, who looked at me quickly. I smiled to find myself recognized, but I was laboring under a mistake.

"Yes, that's the man," said a woman standing on the edge of the crowd.

The explanation came when the constable understood who I was.

"Both of them declare they saw the dead man in company with another man last night, described him, and now—"

"I saw you with him," said the boy. "I never saw him with any one before, that's why I took particular notice."

The woman nodded her agreement.

"Better take the names and addresses, constable."

"I've already done that, sir."

I entered the house inclined to smile, but the inclination vanished as I went upstairs. No doubt these two had seen me last night, and it was fortunate, perhaps, that I was a detective, and not an ordinary individual. And yet a detective might commit murder. It was an unpleasant thought, unpleasant enough to make me wish I had mentioned last night's adventure to the chief.

A constable I knew was on the top landing, and entered the rooms with me. Parrish had not been moved. He was lying by the table; had probably fallen forward out of his chair.

A thin-bladed knife had been driven downwards, at the base of the neck, apparently by some one who had stood behind him. I judged, and a doctor presently confirmed my judgment, that he had been dead some hours; must have met his death soon after I had left him. As far as I could tell, the papers on the table were in exactly the same position as I had seen them, and the finished work which he had taken out of his drawers to show me had not been replaced. The fact seemed to add to the awkwardness of my position.

The first thing I did was to telegraph to Christopher Quarles. I do not remember ever being more keen for his help. I occupied the time of waiting in a careful examination of the rooms and the stairs, and in making enquiries in the offices in the building.

The first thing I told Quarles, on his arrival, was my adventure last night, and the awkward fact that two people had recognized me this morning.

"Then we mustn't fail this time, Wigan," he said gravely. "It is a pity you did not mention the adventure to your chief."

"Yes, but—"

"You'd suspect a man with less evidence against him," Quarles answered quickly. "We'll look at the rooms, and the dead man, then you had better go back to the Yard and tell your chief all about it."

Our search revealed very little. It was evident that Parrish had lived a lonely life, as he had told me. His evening dinner at Warburton's appeared to have been his only real meal of the day. There was a half-empty tin of biscuits in the cupboard, and some coffee and tea, but no other food whatever, nor evidence that it was ever kept there. I have said the clothes he was wearing were shabby, but there was a shabbier suit still lying at the bottom of a drawer, and his stock of shirts and underclothing reached the minimum. Practically, there were no papers, only a few receipted bills for material for his work, a few advertisements still in their wrappers, and two letters which had not been opened.

"We will examine these later, Wigan," said Quarles. "I want to get an impression before anything definite puts me on the wrong road. What about his work?" and the professor examined it with his lens. "Good, of its kind, I should imagine, and what is more to the point, requiring expensive materials. These bills show a good many pounds spent in less than four months. He was not poverty-stricken, in spite of shabby clothes, and holes in the carpet. Where did he get his money from? There is no check book here, no money except a few shillings in his pocket. That is a point to remember."

"The murderers may have taken it," I said.

"This doesn't look like a place ordinary thieves would come to."

There was a shelf in one corner, with books on it, perhaps a score in all. Quarles took down every one of them, and opened them.

"John Parrish. Did you know his name was John?"

"No. He didn't mention his Christian name."

"Here it is, written in every book," said Quarles as he deliberately tore a fly-leaf out of one and began to put down on it the titles of some of the books. "Evidently he did not read much, the dust here is thick. Did he open his door with a key when you came in with him last night?"

"I couldn't swear to it."

"You see it does not lock of itself. He might have left it merely closed. Did he go into the bedroom while you were here?"

"No."

"Then the murderer may have been there while you were with him. You have made enquiries about him in this building, of course?"

"Yes."

"About his personal appearance and habits, I mean. You see, Wigan, your own idea of him is not sufficient. He may have deceived you entirely regarding his character, assuming eccentricity for some purpose. Think the affair out from that point of view, and when you have been to the Yard, come to Chelsea. If you do not mind I will take these two unopened letters. We will look at them together presently."

As a matter of fact, Quarles had opened them before I saw him; indeed, their contents took him out of town, and I did not see him for three days. They were very trying days for me, for the chief took me off the case when he had heard my story. He could not understand why I had not mentioned at once that I had been with the dead man on the previous night, and his manner suggested that my being the criminal was well within the bounds of possibility. I suppose every one likes to have a cut at a successful man occasionally, but I am bound to admit he had some reason for his action. He showed me a halfpenny paper in which an enterprising scribbler, under the headline "Murder in Gray's Inn," had heightened the sensation by another headline, "Strange recognition of a well-known detective by a woman and a boy."

"We mustn't give the press any reason to suppose that we want to thwart justice for the purpose of shielding an officer," the chief said. "Cochran will take charge of the case, and I am letting the press know this."

There was nothing to be said, and I left him feeling very much like a criminal, and very conscious of being in an awkward position. Unless the case were satisfactorily cleared up there would be plenty of people to suspect me.

Quarles, when at last we foregathered in the empty room, was sympathetic but not surprised; Zena, who had come back to town immediately on receiving a letter from me, was furious that I should be suspected.

"I have been busy," said the professor. "I opened those letters, Wigan. Of course Zena's first question on her arrival was why Mr. Parrish had not opened them. Her second question was: Why did he live the life of a recluse in Gray's Inn? How would you answer those questions?"

"I see no reason why a recluse should not live in Gray's Inn," I answered, "and an eccentric person, obsessed with one idea in life, might throw letters aside without opening them."

"Quite a good answer," said Quarles. "Now, here are the letters. This one is dated eighteen months ago, postmark Liverpool, written at Thorn's Hotel, Liverpool. 'Dear Jack,—Back again like the proverbial bad penny. Health first class; luck medium. Pocket full enough to have a rollick with you. Shall be with you the day after to-morrow.—Yours, C.M.' Your friend Parrish was not a man you would expect to rollick, I imagine?''

"No."

"So either he entirely deceived you or had changed considerably since 'C.M.' had seen him. Here is the other letter. Postmark Rome, dated three years ago, but no address. Just a message in indifferent English: 'Once more you do me good and I repay in interest. B. knows and comes to you. Beware.—Emanuele.'"

"Parrish told me he was in Italy for some time," I said.

"The first letter took me to Liverpool," Quarles went on. "Thorn's Hotel is third-rate, but quite good enough for a man who does not want to burn money. 'C.M.' stands for Claude Milne. That was the only name with those initials in the hotel books on that date. He had come from New York, and he left an address to which letters were to be forwarded, an hotel in Craven Street. I traced him there. He stayed a week, and, I gather, spent a rollicking time, mostly returning to bed in the early hours not too sober. No friends seem to have looked him up. He appears to have gone abroad again."

"And it is eighteen months ago," I said.

"Exactly. We will remember that," said Quarles. "The other letter is older still. It is evidently a warning. The writer believed Parrish to be in danger from this 'B.' who was coming to England. Now, was it B. who found him the other night after three years' search?"

"The name is on the door and in the directory," I answered.

"That is another point to remember, Wigan. Now, I daresay you have learnt from your inquiries in the building that very little was known about Parrish. Some of the tenants did not remember there was such a name on the door. I have interviewed the agents who receive the rent, and they tell me that until about three years ago they received Parrish's rent by check, always sent from Windsor, and on a bank at Windsor; but since then they have received it in cash, promptly, and sent by messenger boy, the receipt always being waited for. They inform me that at one time, at any rate, Parrish did not use his chambers much, was a river man in the summer, and in the winter was abroad a great deal. The letter sent with the cash was merely a typed memorandum. There was no typewriter in Parrish's chambers, I think?"

"No."

Quarles took from some papers the fly-leaf he had torn from one of the books.

"That is Parish's signature," said Quarles. "The agents recognize it, the bank confirms it; the account is not closed, but has not been used for three years. The rooms he occupied in Windsor are now in other hands, and nothing is known of him there. Inspector Cockran made these inquiries at Windsor. You see, as you are off the case I am helping him. Having no official position in the matter I must attach myself to some one to facilitate my investigation. Cockran thinks I am an old fool with lucid moments, during which I may possibly say something which is worth listening to."

"He is generally looked upon as a smart man," I said.

"Oh, perhaps he is right in his opinion of me, also in his judgment of you."

"What has he got to say about me?"

"He says very little, but as far as I can gather his investigations are based on the assumption that you killed Parrish. Don't get angry, Wigan. It is really not such an outrageous point of view, and for the present I am shaking my head with him and am inclined to his opinion."

"It is a disgraceful suspicion," said Zena.

"Those who plead not guilty always say that, but it really does not count for much with the judge," Quarles answered. "We will get on with the evidence. I jotted down on this fly-leaf the names of some of the books on that shelf, Wigan. Nothing there, you see, bears any reference to his illuminating work."

"Are you suggesting it was a blind?"

"No, I haven't got as far as that yet, but it is curious that none of his books should relate to his hobby in any way. I have ascertained that he always bought his materials personally, never wrote for them. From the postman I discover that it was seldom they had to go to the top floor; the advertisements and letters we have found may be taken to be all the communications he has received through the post. At the same time we have evidence that he had command of money, since he paid his rent promptly, bought expensive materials, and dined every night at Warburton's. Since he did not sell his work, where did the money come from?"

"Some annuity," I suggested.

"Exactly, which he must have collected himself, since he received no letters, and taken away in cash, since he had given up using a banking account. Cockran has made inquiries at the insurance offices, and in the name of Parrish there exists no such annuity, apparently. It was, therefore, either in another name or came from a private source."

"So we draw blank," I said.

"In one sense we do, in another we do not," returned Quarles. "We come back to the letters and to Zena's questions. First, why did he live the life of a recluse in Gray's Inn? The answer does not seem very difficult to me. He had something to hide, something which made him cut himself off from the world, and that something had its beginning about three years ago, when he ceased paying his rent by check, when he gave up his rooms at Windsor; in short, when he entirely became a changed character. We may take 'C.M.'s' letter, with its talk of rollicking, as confirming this view."

"But he did not open either letter. He did not see Emanuele's warning," I said.

"True, but I believe, Wigan, the first two words in Emanuele's letter should stand by themselves; that the letter should read thus: 'Once more. You do me good, I repay, etc,' I think there was a previous letter which Parrish did see."

"A far-fetched theory," I returned.

"The key to it is in Zena's question: Why didn't Parrish open his letters?"

"Why, indeed?" I said. "He might throw 'C.M.'s' letter aside, but if there had been a previous letter warning him that danger threatened him from Italy, do you imagine he would have failed to open one with the Rome postmark on it?"

"That does seem to knock the bottom out of my argument," said Quarles.

"I am afraid the theory is too elaborate altogether," I went on. "Parrish was an eccentric. I was not deceived. I am astonished there should ever have been an episode in his life which should necessitate a warning from Emanuele. Probably the Italian exaggerated the position. That B. is stated to have come to England three years ago, and the murder has only just occurred, would certainly confirm this view."

"It does, but you throw no light on the mystery, and the fact remains that Parrish was murdered. You have not knocked the bottom out of my theory, and with Cockran's help I am going to put it to the test. For the moment there is nothing more to be done. I must wait until I hear from Cockran. I will wire you some time to-morrow. You must meet me without fail wherever I appoint. I think Cockran is fully persuaded that I am helping him to snap the handcuffs on to your wrists. The capture of a brother detective would be a fine case to have to his credit, wouldn't it?"

"I hope you are not doing anything risky, dear," said Zena.

"What! Is your faith in Murray growing weak, too?" laughed Quarles.

I was not in the mood to enjoy a joke of this kind—my position was far too serious—and I left Chelsea in a depressed condition. Perhaps it was being so personally concerned in the matter which made me especially critical of Quarles's methods, but it certainly did not seem to me that his arguments had helped me in the least. They only served to emphasize how poor our chance was of finding the criminal.

Next afternoon I received a wire from the professor telling me to meet him at the Yorkshire Grey. I found him waiting there and thought he looked a little anxious.

"We are going to have a tea-party at a quiet place round the corner in Gray's Inn Road," he said; "at least Cockran and I are, while you are going to look on. You are going to be conspicuous by your absence, and under no circumstances must you attempt to join us. When it is all over and we have gone, then you can leave your hiding-place and come to Chelsea."

He would answer no questions as we went to the third-rate tea-rooms, but he was certainly excited. The woman greeted him as an old friend. He had evidently been there before.

"This is the gentleman I spoke of," said Quarles, and then the woman led us into a back room.

"Ah, you've put the screen in that corner, I see. An excellent arrangement; couldn't be better. You quite understand that this room is reserved for me and my guests for as long as I may require it. Good. Now, Wigan, your place is behind this screen. There is a chair, so you can be seated, and there is also a convenient hole in the screen which will afford you a view of our table yonder. It is rather a theatrical arrangement, but I have a score to settle with Cockran if I can. He thinks I am an old fool, and when it does not suit my purpose I object to any one having that idea."

When Cockran arrived it so happened that I had some little difficulty in finding the slit in the screen; when I did I saw that he had a woman with him. By the time I had got a view of the room she had seated herself at the tea-table and her back was toward me. It did not seem to me the kind of back that would make a man hurry to overtake to see what the face was like.

Quarles talked commonplaces while the tea was being brought in, and then, when the proprietress had gone out, he said, leaning toward the woman:

"Do you constantly suffer from the result of your accident?"

"Accident!" she repeated.

"I notice that you limp slightly."

"Oh, it was a long time ago. I don't feel anything of it now."

Quarles handed her some cake.

"It is very good of you to come," he went on, "and I hope you are going to let us persuade you to be definite."

She nodded at Cockran.

"I have told him that I am not sure. I am going to stick to that."

"The fact is, we are especially anxious to solve this mystery," Quarles went on, "and I believe you are the only person who can help us. Now, from certain inquiries which I have been making I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Parrish is not dead."

"Not dead!" the woman exclaimed.

I saw Cockran look enquiringly at Quarles, but he did not say anything. The professor had evidently persuaded the inspector to let him carry out this investigation in his own way.

"Of course, a man has been killed," he went on, "but it wasn't Parrish, I fancy. He lived in Parrish's chambers; was a lonely man with a hobby, and if the people who saw him about liked to think his name was Parrish, well, it didn't trouble him. You didn't happen to know the real Parrish, I suppose?"

"Of course not."

"No, I didn't expect you would," said Quarles, "but tell me how it was you so promptly recognized the man we are after."

"I am not sure it was the same man."

"But you were when the boy recognized him."

"I say now I am not sure."

"Oh, but you are," returned Quarles. "You could not possibly be mistaken. From the inner room of Parrish's chambers you must have watched both the men for the best part of an hour."

A teaspoon clattered in a saucer as the woman sprang to her feet, and I saw she was the woman who had pointed me out to the constable when I had entered Gray's Inn on the morning after the murder. Cockran's face was a study.

"You made a mistake," Quarles went on quietly. "I have worked it all out in my own mind and I daresay there are some details missing. I will tell you how I explain the mystery. Parrish, when in Italy, wronged some one dear to you. You only heard of it afterwards. Personally you did not know Parrish, but you found out what you could about him: that he was connected with the law, that he lived in London, in one of the places where lawyers do live. You determined to come to England for revenge. I do not say you were not justified. I do not know the circumstances. That was three years ago. An accident—was it the one at Basle, which occurred about that time?—detained you, laid you aside for some months, perhaps. You had not much money, you had to live, so your arrival in England was delayed. When you got here, you took a post as waitress in Soho. Only in your leisure time could you look for Mr. Parrish. At first, probably, you knew nothing about the London Directory, and when you did, looked for the name in the wrong part of it, and, of course, you would not ask questions of any one. That might implicate you later on. At last you found him; saw the name on the door. Possibly you have been waiting your opportunity for some little time, but the other night it came. Of course, you could not know there was a mistake. You heard Parrish speak of Italy, and when the other man had departed you crept from your hiding place and struck your blow; but you did not kill Parrish. Three years ago he was warned of his danger, and got out of your way. He was warned that you had started for England by Emanuele. Do you know him?"

The woman had stood tense and rigid, listening to this story of the crime; now she collapsed.

"Emanuele!" she cried.

"I see you do know him," Quarles said. "You have my sympathy. It is possible that the man Parrish deserved his fate, only it happens that another has suffered in his place."

"It was my sister he wronged," said the woman.

"Was it fear that some evidence might be found against you which made you point out a man whom you knew was innocent?" said Quarles.

She nodded, still sobbing.

"The rest is for you to manage," said Quarles, turning to the inspector. "I suppose you are not likely to make any further mistakes. This would all have been cleared up days ago if Wigan had not been taken off the job."

I suppose Cockran felt a fool, as the professor intended he should.

There was little to be explained when I went to Chelsea later. Quarles's reconstruction of the crime had showed me the lines along which he had worked. The unopened letter from Rome had set him speculating with a view to proving that the dead man was not Parrish; and whilst I had only considered the change in character, he had had before him the possibility of a separate identity.

"Still, I do not understand how you came to suspect the woman," I said.

"Her recognition of you was too prompt to carry conviction under the circumstances," he answered. "The boy, who is in an office in Gray's Inn, might have met you together. I have no doubt he did; but since the woman had no business there, and if my theory were right, was concealed in Parrish's chambers at the time, she could not have seen you, except in the way I explained to her. Poor soul! I feel rather a cur for trapping her, but you were in a tight hole, Wigan, and I had to get you out."

Evidence showing that Parrish was a heartless scoundrel, the jury found extenuating circumstances for the woman, in spite of the fact that she had murdered an innocent man, so she escaped the extreme penalty. I was glad, although the strict justice of the verdict may be questioned. From Italy, from Emanuele, who was the woman's cousin, we learnt that when Parrish was in Italy he had a friend with him, an eccentric artist named Langford. We found that an insurance company had an annuity in this name which was not afterwards claimed. This fact, and the officials' description of the man, left no doubt that the murdered man was Langford. Emanuele had written two letters, as Quarles had surmised, and the first had caused Parrish to get out of harm's way. Wishing to keep up his chambers, he allowed Langford to occupy them; had perhaps left him the money to pay the rent, the idea of danger to his friend probably never occurring to him.

Naturally, Langford had not opened his letters, and, being an eccentric and a recluse, had allowed people to call him Parrish without denying the name when it happened that any one had to call him anything.

Since Parrish has never returned, even though the danger is past, it is probable, I think, that he died abroad.



CHAPTER XI

THE STRANGE CASE OF DANIEL HARDIMAN

Not infrequently I am put in charge of cases which are of small importance and might well be left to a less experienced man. I thought the mystery of Daniel Hardiman was such a case. I even went further and imagined that it was given to me because I was a bit under a cloud over the Parrish affair. Quarles jeered at my imagination and was interested from the outset, perhaps because he had had rather more of the Psychological Society than was good for him. Anyway, he traveled north with me to meet the liner Slavonic.

On the passenger list was the name Daniel Hardiman. He had come on board at Montevideo in company with his man, John Bennett, who appeared to be half servant, half companion. They had only a small amount of personal luggage, one trunk each, but several stout packing-cases of various sizes had been stored away in the hold. Hardiman had a first-class cabin to himself; his man traveled second-class, but spent much of his time in his master's cabin; indeed, for the first few days of the voyage Hardiman was not seen except at meal times.

It was said amongst the crew—probably the servant had mentioned the fact—that they were returning to England after an absence of many years, during which time they had lived much alone; and amongst the passengers it was agreed that there was something curious about the pair. There was speculation upon the promenade deck and in the smoking-room; the gossip was a pleasant interlude in the monotony of a long voyage. At the end of a week, however, Mr. Hardiman no longer stayed in his cabin. At first he paced the deck, thoughtfully, only in the early morning or late in the evening, but later was to be found in a deck-chair, either gazing fixedly at the horizon or interested in the games of the children on board. One sturdy youngster, when recovering a ball which had rolled to Hardiman's feet, spoke to him. All the answer he got was a nod of the head, but the boy had broken the ice, and two men afterwards scraped acquaintance with the curious traveler. One was a Mr. Majendie, who was going to England on business; the other Sir Robert Gibbs, a Harley Street specialist, who had broken down with hard work, and was making the round trip for the benefit of his health.

By wireless, when the ship was two days from Liverpool, came the news that Hardiman had been murdered by his man-servant, and it was in consequence of this message that Christopher Quarles and I had gone north to meet the boat on its arrival.

When we went on board the captain gave us the outline of Hardiman's behavior during the voyage as I have here set it down. Quarles asked him at once whether he thought that all the passengers, after landing, could be traced if necessary. The captain seemed to consider this rather a tall order, but thought all those who could possibly have had access to Mr. Hardiman might be traced.

"It is a pity we cannot forbid any one to land until we like," said the professor.

"There is not so much mystery about it as all that," said the captain, "although it isn't quite plain sailing. One of our passengers, a swell doctor, who examined the body with our ship's doctor directly after the discovery, will give you the benefit of his opinion, and I am detaining another passenger, a Mr. Majendie."

"Then there is some doubt as to the servant's guilt?" I said.

"I don't think so, but you shall hear the whole story."

"First, we should like to see the body," said Quarles. "We might be influenced unconsciously by your tale. It is well to come to the heart of the matter with an open mind."

The captain sent for the ship's doctor and a stewardess, and with them we went to the cabin, which had been kept locked.

The body, which lay in the berth where it had been found, an upper berth with a porthole, had been washed and attended to by the stewardess. The lower berth had been used by the traveler for some of his clothes—they were still there, neatly folded. The dead man's trunk was on a sofa on the opposite side of the cabin, a sofa which could be made into a third berth if necessary. Except that the body had been attended to, the cabin was just as it had been found.

"I took the stained sheets away," said the stewardess, "but I thought it would be wiser not to move him from the upper berth."

"It is a pity he couldn't have been left just as he was," Quarles answered; "you have no doubt washed away all the evidence."

He was a long time examining the wound, a particularly jagged one in the neck, a stab rather than a cut, but with something of both in it.

"Has the—the knife been found?" Quarles asked.

"No," answered the captain. "You hesitate in your question a little. You are certain it was a knife, I suppose?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"His man says it was a bullet."

"A bullet!" and Quarles looked back at the wound.

"The servant Bennett does not deny that he killed his master," said the doctor; "but he persists in saying that he had no knife."

"Has a revolver been found?" I asked.

"No, and no one heard any report," said the captain. "I cannot make this fellow Bennett out. He seems to me rather mad. Besides, there are one or two curious points. Would you like to hear them now?"

"Please," said Quarles.

With sailor-like directness the story was told in a straightforward narrative, destitute of trimmings of any kind. A steward had gone to Mr. Hardiman's cabin to take him a weak brandy-and-water; he had done the same first thing every morning during the voyage. He saw Hardiman lying with his face toward the cabin, one arm hanging over the side of the berth. There was no sign of a struggle. The clothes were not thrown back, but there was a considerable quantity of blood. Curiously enough, the porthole had been unscrewed and was open. The steward fetched Dr. Williams, the ship's doctor, who said death had probably occurred five or six hours previously, a statement Sir Robert Gibbs corroborated. There was no knife anywhere.

"The time of death is important," the captain went on. "Bennett has occupied a second-class cabin with a man named Dowler, and on the night of the murder Dowler, having taken something which disagreed with him, was awake all night, and he declares that Bennett never stirred out of his bunk. If the doctors are right, then Dowler's evidence provides Bennett with an alibi, of which, however, he shows no anxiety to take advantage. This cabin trunk, Mr. Quarles"—and the captain lifted up the lid as he spoke—"this trunk is all Mr. Hardiman's cabin luggage. There are some papers, chiefly in a kind of shorthand, which you will no doubt examine presently, and these stones, merely small chunks of rock, as far as I can see, although Sir Robert Gibbs suggests they may have value. There are similar stones in Bennett's trunk. There is a curious incident in connection with these bits of stone. On the night after the murder one of the middle watch saw a man come on deck and hastily fling something overboard. At least, that was the intention, apparently, but as a fact, either through agitation or a bad aim, the packet did not go overboard, but landed on a coil of rope on the lower deck forward. It proved to be a small canvas bag containing seven of these bits of rock, or, at any rate, pieces like them. Now, the man on the watch is not inclined to swear to it, but he believes the thrower was Majendie. Majendie denies it."

"You are an excellent witness, Captain," said Quarles as he took up two or three of the bits of rock and looked at them. "Is Mr. Majendie annoyed at not being allowed to land at once?"

"On the contrary, he is keen to give us all the help in his power. He is a fairly well-known man on the other side, has means and position, and, personally, I have little doubt that the watch was mistaken. You see, the servant does not deny his guilt."

"Would Bennett be likely to be in the place where the watch saw this man?" I asked.

"Not under ordinary circumstances, but if he had been trying to get into the locked cabin he would be."

"I think if we could have a few words with Sir Robert Gibbs it would be useful," said Quarles. "Have you the canvas bag of stones?"

"Yes, locked up in my cabin. I will send and ask Sir Robert to join us there."

"And could you get a knife?" asked the professor. "Any old knife will do, a rusty one for preference."

A few minutes later we were in the captain's cabin, and on the table was the bag of stones and a rusty and much-worn table-knife. Dr. Williams had just explained to us his reasons for fixing the time of death when Sir Robert entered. He was a man with a pronounced manner, inclined to take the lead in any company in which he found himself, and was very certain of his own opinion. On the way to the cabin Quarles had whispered to me to take the lead in asking questions, and to leave him in the background as much as possible, so after the captain's short introductions I began at once:

"I may take it, Sir Robert, that you agree with Dr. Williams as to the time Hardiman had been dead when you saw the body?"

"Certainly."

"And in your opinion the wound could not, under any circumstances, have been caused by a bullet?"

"Certainly not," and he smiled at the futility of the question.

"The bullet might have been a peculiar one," I suggested, "different from any with which we are familiar. The servant, who does not deny his guilt, says it was a bullet."

"And I say it was not," Sir Robert answered. "No kind of bullet could make such a wound. A knife with a point to it was used. The action would be a stab and a pull sideways. I am of the opinion that the blow was struck while the victim was in a deep sleep. I think Dr. Williams agrees with me."

Williams nodded.

"You would otherwise have expected to find some signs of a struggle?" I said.

"I should. It is quite possible, I think, that at times Mr. Hardiman had recourse to a draught or a tablet to induce sleep."

"I understand that you had some conversation with Mr. Hardiman during the voyage, Sir Robert. Were you struck by any peculiarity in him?"

"He was an eccentric man, but a man of parts undoubtedly. He told me very little about himself, but I gathered that he had traveled extensively, and out of the beaten track. I put down his difficulty in sustaining a conversation to this fact. He seemed in good health—one of those wiry men who can stand almost anything."

"Sir Robert, could it possibly have been a case of suicide?" Quarles asked, suddenly leaning forward.

"Have you examined the wound carefully?" asked the doctor.

"I have."

"If you will try to stab yourself like that you will see how impossible it is. Besides, you forget that no knife has been found, and in a case of suicide it would have been. I may add that the knife used was not in the least like the one I see on the table there."

"It must have had a point, you think?" said Quarles.

"I do not think—I am certain."

"Did Mr. Hardiman ever say anything about these bits of rock to you?"

"Never," answered the doctor. "I think I suggested to the captain that they might be valuable. I have no knowledge on the point, but I cannot conceive a man like Hardiman carrying them about unless they were of value."

"I take it he is a geologist," Quarles said carelessly.

Sir Robert would like to have been present throughout our inquiry, but the professor firmly but courteously objected. He said it would not be fair to those chiefly concerned, and he appealed to me to endorse his opinion. The doctor had raised a spirit of antagonism in him. They were both too dogmatic to agree easily.

The sailor of the watch was next interviewed, a good, honest seaman who evidently had a wholesome dread of the law in any form. He thought it was Mr. Majendie he had seen on the deck that night, but he would, not swear to it.

"Are you sure it wasn't Bennett?" I asked.

"Ay, sir, I'm pretty sure of that."

"What is it that particularly makes you think it was Mr. Majendie?"

"I just think it, sir; I can't rightly say why."

"What did he do, exactly?" said Quarles. "Just show me—show me his action. Here are the bits of rock in the bag; take the bag up and pretend to pitch it into the sea, as he did."

The sailor took up the bag and did so. His pantomime was quite realistic.

"I note that you turn your back to us," said Quarles.

"Ay, sir, because his back was turned to me. It wasn't until he made the action of throwing—just like that, it was—that I knew he had anything in his hand."

"Did you call out to him?"

"No; he was there and gone directly."

"It was a bad throw, too?"

"Ay, sir, it was; he did it awkward, something like women throws when they ain't used to throwing."

"That good fellow would feel far more uncomfortable in the witness-box than most criminals do in the dock," said Quarles when the sailor had gone. "He is as certain that it was Mr. Majendie as he is certain of anything, but he is not going to commit himself. Shall we have a talk with Mr. Majendie next? Let me question him, Wigan."

Majendie's appearance was in his favor. He might be a villain, but he didn't look it. There was Southern warmth in his countenance and temper in his dark eyes, but his smile was prepossessing.

"A sailor's absurd mistake has put you to great inconvenience, I fear," said Quarles.

"The inconvenience is nothing," was the answer. "I court enquiry."

"Of course you were not on the deck that night?"

"No."

"It is Mr. Hardiman's past I want to get at," said the professor. "You had some talk with him during the voyage; what did you think was his business in life?"

"He was a traveler. I think he had been where no other civilized man has been. He did not directly tell me so, but I fancy he had wandered in the interior of Patagonia."

"Should you say he was a geologist?"

"No," said Majendie with a smile. "He showed me some pieces of rock he had with him; indeed, I am suspected of flinging some of these bits of rock away in that canvas bag I see there. Is it likely I should do anything so foolish? It is part of my business to know something of bits of rock and blue clay and the like, and unless I am much mistaken those bits of rock are uncut diamonds."

"Diamonds!" I exclaimed.

"Yellow diamonds of a kind that are very rarely found," Majendie answered. "I may be mistaken, but that is my opinion. If I am right, the actual gem, when cut, would be comparatively small. It is enclosed, as it were, in a thick casing of rock."

"Did Hardiman know this?" Quarles asked.

"I am not sure. In the course of conversation I told him that I knew something about diamonds, and he asked me into his cabin to show me some bits of rock he had in his trunk. He spoke of them as bits of rock, but he may have known what they really were."

"Did he give you this invitation quite openly?" asked Quarles.

"Oh, yes. There were others sitting near us who must have overheard it. I went with him, and gave him my opinion as I have given it to you. Of course, there may not be a jewel at the heart of every bit of rock; no doubt there are a great many quite useless bits in Hardiman's collection."

"This is very interesting," said Quarles. "Would you look at the pieces in that bag and tell us if any of them are useless."

Majendie spent some minutes in examining them, and then gave it as his opinion that they all contained a jewel.

"Now that knife—"

"I thought no knife had been found," said Majendie.

"That has just been found on the ship," said Quarles. "It is an absurd question, but as a matter of form I must ask it. Have you ever seen that knife before?"

Majendie took it up and looked at it.

"Hardiman was apparently stabbed with a rusty knife," Quarles remarked.

"Stabbed! You could not stab any one with this, and certainly I have never seen it before."

I did not understand why Quarles was passing this off as the real weapon. He took it up, grasped it firmly, and stabbed the air with it.

"I don't know, it might—"

He shook his head and put the knife on the table again. Majendie took it up and in his turn stabbed the air with it.

"Utterly impossible," he said. "This could not have been the knife used; besides, there would surely be stains on it."

"I am inclined to think you are right," said Quarles. "You must forgive the captain for detaining you, Mr. Majendie, and of course you can land this afternoon. The captain wishes us to lunch on board; perhaps you will join us?"

"With pleasure. So long as I am in London to-night no harm is done."

When he had gone Quarles turned to the captain.

"Pardon my impudence, but we must not lose sight of Majendie. You must follow him this afternoon, Wigan, and locate him in London. You must have him watched until we get to the bottom of this affair. Now let us see Bennett."

The man-servant proved to be a bundle of nerves, and it was hardly to be wondered at if the story he told was true. A question or two set him talking without any reticence apparently.

Time seemed to have lost half its meaning for him. He could not fix how long he and his master had been away from England; many years was all he could say. They had traveled much in South America, latterly in the wilds of Patagonia. There they had fallen into the hands of savages, and for a long time were not sure of their lives from hour to hour. Always Mr. Hardiman seemed able to impress their captors that he was a dangerous man to kill; fooled them, in fact, until they came to consider him a god. Master and man were presently lodged in a temple, and were witnesses of some horrible rites which they dared not interfere with. Finally, at a great feast, Hardiman succeeded in convincing them that he was their national and all-powerful deity, and that he had come to give them victory over all their enemies. By his command the wooden figure of one of their gods was taken from the temple, and, together with two curious drums used for religious purposes, and other sacred things, was carried through the forest to a certain spot which Hardiman indicated. The whole company was then to go back three days' march, spend seven days in religious feasting, and return. In the meanwhile he and his servant must be left quite alone with these sacred things.

"I suppose they returned," Bennett went on, "but they did not find us. They did not find anything. The spot my master had fixed upon was within a day's march of help. We set out as soon as those devils had left us, and, having got assistance, my master would go back and fetch the wooden figure and the other things. They are in the cases in this ship."

"What was the main object of your master's travels?" I asked.

"He was writing a book about tribes and their customs."

"And he took a great interest in stones and bits of rock?"

"That was only recently, and I never understood it, sir. He put some in my trunk and some in his own, but what they were for I do not know. I don't suppose he did himself. He was always peculiar."

"Always or recently, do you mean?" Quarles asked.

"Always, but more so lately. Can you wonder after all we went through? You can't imagine the horrors that were done in that heathen temple."

He told us some of them, but I shall not set them down here. It is enough to say that human sacrifices were offered. The mere remembrance of Bennett's narrative makes me shudder.

"It is a wonder it did not drive you both mad," said Quarles.

"That is what the master was afraid of," was the answer, "and it is the cause of all this trouble. He did not seem to think it would affect me, but he was very much afraid for himself."

"He told you so?"

"He did more than that. He said that if I saw he was going mad I was to shoot him, and so—"

"Wait a minute," said Quarles, "when did he say this to you?"

"The first time was when we got those things from the place in the forest where they had been left. Then he said it two or three times during the voyage. The last time was when I was cutting his nails."

"Cutting his nails?" I said.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Hardiman could never cut the nails on his right hand. He was very helpless with his left hand in things like that, always was. On this particular day he said his hand was growing stronger, and declared it all was because of will-power. He was quite serious about it, and then he was suddenly afraid he was growing mad. 'Shoot me if I am going mad, Bennett.' That is what he said."

"And how were you to know?" asked Quarles.

"He said I should know for certain when it happened, and I did. The next evening he began telling me that we were bringing a lot of diamonds back to England. He promised me more money than I had ever heard of. I should have shot him then, only I wasn't carrying a revolver."

"So you did it later in the evening?"

"I cannot tell you exactly when I did it," the man answered. "I knew the time had come, but I do not remember the actual doing of it. Only one thing I am certain of—I didn't use a knife. He was always particular to tell me to shoot him."

"You are sure you did kill him?" I said.

"Shot him—yes. I did not stab him. That is a mistake."

"Do you know that your cabin companion says you did not leave your bunk at all that night?" said Quarles.

"That must be another mistake," was the answer.

When he had gone the professor remarked that John Bennett was far nearer an asylum than a prison.

"If Hardiman had been shot I should think the servant had shot him, but he was not shot. You see, Captain, the case is not so easy. These bits of rock complicate it, and we must keep an eye on Majendie."

There was a man I knew well attached to the Liverpool police, and I was fortunate enough to get hold of him to follow Majendie to London that afternoon. Bennett, having virtually confessed to the crime, was kept in custody, and I was free to remain with Quarles and examine the cases which Hardiman had brought to England. After certain formalities had been complied with, we carried out this examination in one of the shipping company's sheds. There were many things of extreme interest of which I could write a lengthy account, but they had no bearing on our business. The things which concerned us were the Patagonian relics.

The two drums did not interest the professor much, but the figure of the god did. It was about three-quarters life size, roughly carved into a man's shape. The wood was light in weight and in color, but had been smeared to a darker hue over the breast and loins. One arm hung by the figure's side, was, indeed, only roughly indicated; but the other, slightly bent, was stretched out in front of the figure. There was nothing actually horrible about the image, but, remembering Bennett's description of some of the rites performed in that temple, it became sinister enough. Quarles's inspection took a long time, and during it I do not think he uttered a word.

"I think we may go back to Chelsea, Wigan," he said at last.

Late on the following night we were in the empty room. At the professor's suggestion I repeated the whole story for Zena's benefit, although I fancy Quarles wanted to have a definite picture before his mind, as it were, and to find out whether any particular points had struck me. Zena's comment when I had finished was rather surprising.

"This Mr. Majendie must be a clumsy thrower," she said.

Quarles sat up in his chair as if his interest in the conversation had only become keen at that moment.

"She hits the very heart of the mystery, Wigan."

"There is no certainty that it was Majendie," I replied.

"Whether it was or not is immaterial for the moment. The fact remains that some one who was anxious to get rid of incriminating evidence was so clumsy that he threw it where any one could pick it up. Not one man in a thousand would have done that, no matter what state of agitation he was in. The packet was deliberately thrown away, remember; it was not done in a moment of sudden fear."

"I am all attention to hear what theory you base upon it," I returned.

"We will begin with the wound," said Quarles. "Sir Robert Gibbs and Dr. Williams agree that it could not have been self-inflicted. Sir Robert suggested that I should try to stab myself in the same way and see how impossible it was. Remember it was a stab and a pull of the blade to one side. It was impossible for a right-handed man, difficult even for a left-handed one, but not impossible. That was the first point I made a mental note of."

"Why did you not speak of the possibility?"

"Chiefly, I think, because I was convinced that Sir Robert expected me to do so, was waiting for me to do so, in fact. He is far too cute a man not to have considered the possibility, and was prepared to prove that Hardiman was a right-handed man, as we know he was from his servant. In all probability Sir Robert knew that Bennett had to cut his master's nails. I was not disposed to give the doctor such an opening as that, although no doubt he thought me a fool for not thinking of it."

"Then we do away with the theory of suicide?" I said.

"Well, the absence of any weapon appears to do that," said Quarles. "What was the weapon? A knife of some kind, a rusty knife and rather jagged, I fancy. The wound suggested that it was jagged, and in spite of the washing my lens revealed traces of rust. Rather a curious knife to commit murder with. That was my second mental note. We had to be prepared for a curious personality somewhere in the business."

"Mr. Majendie," I said.

"He is hardly such an abnormal individual as the servant Bennett. We will consider Bennett first. His story is a straightforward one, nervously told, dramatically told. We might easily assume that imagination had much to do with that story were it not for the contents of those packing-cases. They are corroborative evidence. We may grant that the man's recent experiences have had their effect upon him, have laid bare his nerves, as it were, but since the most unlikely part of his story is true we may assume that the rest of it is. We need not go over it again in detail. The man was evidently attached to his master, and was prepared to shoot him if he exhibited signs of madness. Considering the state of his own nerves, I can believe that Bennett watched for these signs, and felt convinced of his master's madness when he spoke of a wealth of diamonds. Bennett knew they had no diamonds in their possession. He only knew of those bits of rock. So he determined to shoot Hardiman. However, I am convinced that he did not leave his cabin that night. Sleep prevented his carrying out the intention, but when in the morning he found that his master was dead—murdered—he immediately translated his intention into action, and concluded that he had done it. There was no one else who would be likely to murder him. That he should do it was natural under the circumstances. He would not look upon it as a crime. He had only carried out his instructions to the letter, as I have little doubt he has been accustomed to do for years."

"It is a theory, of course, but—"

"Oh, it is more than a theory now," said Quarles, interrupting me. "He admits his guilt, yet we know that Hardiman was stabbed, not shot. We conclude, therefore, that Bennett, although he fully intended to kill his master, did not do so."

"So we come to Majendie," I said.

"Yes, and to the yellow diamonds which Bennett knew nothing about. I admit that Majendie was a distinct surprise to me. He had to prove that the sailor of the watch was mistaken, that he was not the person who threw the stones away. How does he do it? By asking whether he, an expert in diamonds, would be likely to throw away what he knew to be valuable. This was a very ingenious argument. He did not deny that he knew Hardiman had these stones in his possession, because he believed that people must have seen him go into Hardiman's cabin. We have his statement that Hardiman invited him to do so, and that the invitation was given in the hearing of others. So he asked a perfectly simple question to show that the sailor was mistaken."

"Evidently you do not believe that the sailor was mistaken."

"We will go on considering Majendie," said Quarles. "Now, when he took up the knife and imitated my action of stabbing the air with it I made a discovery. He did so with his left hand. Since my first mental note concerned a left-handed man the coincidence is surprising. The sailor in his pantomime had used the right hand. Majendie's action was unexpected, and for a time I did not see its significance. But let us suppose for a moment that Majendie did throw the bag of stones away. He might argue that some one might possibly see the action, and would note that it was done by a left-handed man, so used his right hand to deceive any one who might be there. Hence his bad aim."

I shook my head.

"Wait," said Quarles. "Some one had stolen those bits of rock, else how came they in that canvas bag, and why were they thrown away? Majendie told us that only certain of those stones had at the heart of them a diamond, yet he also said that all those in the bag had. That looks as if they had been picked out and stolen by an expert, and when we remember that Hardiman had shown him the contents of the trunk suspicion points very strongly to Majendie as the thief. Of course, when Hardiman was found dead, he would get rid of evidence which must incriminate him. We must see Majendie, Wigan, and ask him a few questions."

"Then he did not kill Hardiman?" said Zena.

"I do not think so."

"Who did?"

"Nobody. Hardiman was mad and committed suicide, and in a particular way. Think of Bennett's description of that Patagonian temple, Wigan. Those savages were persuaded that Hardiman was a god; possibly human sacrifices were offered to him, and he dared not interfere. That was sufficient to start a man on the road to madness. That wooden god he brought home tells us something. It was the left arm which was stretched out, and in the closed fist was a hole into which a knife had been fixed, a symbol of vengeance and sacrifice, a symbol, mind you, not a weapon which was actually used. I imagine that time had caused it to become rusty and jagged. Now, I think Hardiman removed that knife before packing the figure, kept it near him, because obsessed with it; went mad, in short. We know from Bennett that he believed his left hand was becoming stronger, and I believe his madness compelled him to practise his left hand until it became strong enough to grasp the knife firmly and strike the blow. Since the god was left-handed, his priests were probably so too, and the victims would be slain with the left hand. There was some religious significance attached to the fact, no doubt, and Hardiman's madness would compel him to be exact."

"But what became of the knife?" I asked.

"The porthole was found open," said Quarles. "I think he deliberately put it out of the porthole, his madness suggesting to him that no one should know how he died. He would have strength enough to do this, for he died quietly, bled to death, in fact, and gradually fell into a comatose condition, hence no sign of a struggle. It is impossible to conceive what devilish power may lurk about those things which have been used for devilish purposes. I am very strong on this point, as you know, Wigan."

Of course it was quite impossible to prove whether Quarles was right about the knife, but he was correct as regards Majendie, who had hoped to get possession of a few of these stones without Hardiman missing them, and then, when the unexpected tragedy happened, had tried to get rid of them, using his right hand to throw them away. Amongst the dead man's papers there was a will providing amply for his servant Bennett—who, I may add, recovered his normal health after a time—and leaving his relics to different museums, and any other property he was possessed of to charities. I believe the yellow diamonds proved less valuable than Majendie imagined, but at any rate the various charities benefited considerably.



CHAPTER XII

THE CRIME IN THE YELLOW TAXI

One's last adventure is apt to assume the place of first importance, the absorption in the details is so recent and the gratification at solving the problems still fresh. Used to his methods as I had become, Quarles's handling of the Daniel Hardiman case was constantly in my mind until I had become acquainted with the yellow taxi. I will not say his deductions in the taxi affair were more clever—you must judge that—but I am sure they were more of a mental strain to him, for he lost his temper with Zena.

We had been arguing various points, and seemed to have exhausted all our ideas.

"Give a dog a bad name and hang him," said Zena, breaking the silence which had seemed to indicate that our discussion was at an end.

"I repeat that had he been in a different position he would have been arrested at once," said Quarles testily; "but because he happens to be a prominent Member of Parliament, goes everywhere which is anywhere, and knows everybody who is anybody, it suits people to forget he is a blackguard and it suits Scotland Yard to neglect its duty."

An inquest in connection with a very extraordinary case had taken place that day, and had been adjourned.

On the previous Monday, between seven and eight in the evening, the traffic had become congested at Hyde Park Corner, chiefly owing to the fog, and the attention of a gentleman standing on the pavement—a Mr. Lester Williams—had been drawn suddenly to the occupant of a taxi. Possibly a street lamp, or the light on an adjacent motor, picked out the lady's face particularly, and he had opened the door before he called to the driver.

The lady was leaning back in the corner, but he saw at once that something was wrong, and when he touched her the horrible truth became apparent.

She was dead.

He called to the driver to draw up to the curb and then called a policeman. Williams jumped at once to the conclusion that a crime had been committed, and the police took the same view.

There was no difficulty as regards identification. She was Lady Tavener, wife of Sir John Tavener, M.P. The driver, Thomas Wood, had come from the other side of Twickenham and had taken up Sir John and his wife at their own front door. He had constantly driven them up to town and elsewhere, sometimes separately, sometimes together. On this occasion he had driven to a house on Richmond Green, where Sir John had got out. Lady Tavener was going on to the Piccadilly Hotel. Wood had got as far as Hyde Park Corner when a gentleman called to him. He had not seen the gentleman open the door of the taxi, knew nothing in fact until he was told to drive up to the curb and Lady Tavener was taken out dead.

At the inquest the evidence took rather a curious turn. It was common knowledge that Sir John had married Lady Tavener after her divorce from a Mr. Curtis, since dead, and Sir John's reputation was none of the best.

Veiled accusations were constantly made against him in those would-be smart journals catering for that public interested in this kind of scandal, and several questions founded on this knowledge were put to him at the inquest.

He came out of the ordeal very well, and gave his evidence in a straightforward manner. He did not pretend that he and his wife did not quarrel at times, sometimes rather severely he admitted, but he maintained there was no reason why his wife should commit suicide. He ignored altogether the idea that he was in any way responsible for her death. She seemed in perfect health when he had left her that evening. She was dining with some people called Folliott, and was going on to the theater with them afterwards. He also believed that a crime had been committed.

The medical evidence threw some doubt on this opinion, however. True, there were slight marks on Lady Tavener's throat, but it was possible she had caused them herself by catching hold of her own throat in some spasm. She was addicted to drugs, a fact which she had concealed from her husband apparently, and her general condition was such that a shock or some sudden excitement might very easily prove fatal. Two doctors were agreed upon this point, and said that she was in a condition known as status lymphaticus.

After the inquest I had gone to see Quarles, and his one idea was that Sir John should have been arrested. Zena's sarcastic suggestion that her grandfather would hang him merely because of his reputation, had made the old man lose his temper altogether.

As I was the representative of Scotland Yard in that empty room at Chelsea, I felt compelled to say something in its defense.

"Have you read the evidence given to-day carefully?" I asked.

"I was there," he snapped.

I had not seen him and was astonished.

"Arrest Tavener," he went on, "and then you may be able to solve the problem. There may be extenuating circumstances, but they can be dealt with afterwards. Let us go into another room."

He got up and brought the discussion to a close. He was in one of those moods in which there was no doing anything with him.

Although I was at the inquest, I had had little to do with the case up to this point; now it came entirely into my hands, and it may be that Quarles's advice was at the back of my mind during my inquiries.

I made one or two rather interesting and significant discoveries. The Folliotts, with whom it was said Lady Tavener was dining that night, did not know Sir John, and moreover, they had no appointment with Lady Tavener that evening, nor were they dining at the Piccadilly Hotel. The people on Richmond Green, with whom Sir John had dined, admitted that he was in an excited condition. He made an expected division in the House of Commons an excuse for leaving early, directly after dinner in fact, but he had not gone to the House and did not arrive home until after midnight, when he found a constable waiting for him with the news of his wife's death.

These facts were given in evidence at the next hearing, but it was less due to them than to public feeling, I fancy, that a verdict of murder against Sir John Tavener was returned.

That night I went again to Chelsea.

"I see that you have arrested him, Wigan," was the professor's greeting.

"I don't believe he is guilty," I answered.

"Why not? Let us have the reasons. But tell me first, what was his demeanor when he heard the verdict? Was he astonished?"

"He seemed to be pitying a body of men who could make such a mistake."

"Ah, he will play to the gallery even when death knocks at his door. Why do you think he is not guilty, Wigan?"

"Intuition for one reason."

"Come, that is a woman's prerogative."

"That sixth sense, which is usually denied to men," corrected Zena.

"Then for tangible reasons," I said; "if he killed his wife he committed the crime between Twickenham and Richmond Green, knowing perfectly well that her death must be discovered at the end of her journey. He would know that suspicion would inevitably fall upon him."

"That seems a good argument, Wigan, but, as a fact, suspicion did not immediately fall upon him. He has only been arrested to-day, and even now you think he has been wrongly arrested. The very daring of the crime was in his favor."

"My second reason is this," I went on. "If he were guilty, would he deliberately have closed the door of escape open for him by the doctors and declare that he did not believe his wife committed suicide? Would he not have jumped at the idea?"

"That also sounds a good argument," said Quarles, "but is it? He could not deny that he and his wife quarreled rather badly at times, but he wanted to justify his position, and he felt confident the opinion of the doctors would stand, no matter what he might say. If no other facts come to light, suicide will be the line of defense, Wigan, and it will be exceedingly hard to get any judge and jury to convict him. Nothing carries greater weight than medical evidence, and you will find the doctors sticking to their opinion no matter what happens. No, Wigan, your reasons do not prove that he is not an exceedingly clever and calculating rascal. On the present evidence I think he would escape the hangman, but the public will continue to think him guilty unless some one else stands in the dock in his place."

"I wonder whether the Folliotts have told the truth," said Zena.

"Intuition, Wigan," laughed Quarles, "jumps to the end of the journey and wants to argue backwards."