to fasten a charge of murder on to Sebastien? He had
nothing to gain, in fact, a good deal to lose, from the death of his
employer. The Canon was paying him quite as good wages as I was able to
offer him when I took him over into my service. I have since raised them
to something a little more in accordance with his real worth, but at the
time he was glad to find a new place without troubling about an increase
of wages. People were fighting rather shy of him, and he had no friends
in this country. No; if anyone in the world was interested in the
prolonged life and unimpaired digestion of the Canon it would certainly
be Sebastien."

"People don't always weigh the consequences of their rash acts," said
Egbert, "otherwise there would be very few murders committed. Sebastien
is a man of hot temper."

"He is a southerner," admitted Sir Lulworth; "to be geographically exact
I believe he hails from the French slopes of the Pyrenees. I took that
into consideration when he nearly killed the gardener's boy the other day
for bringing him a spurious substitute for sorrel. One must always make
allowances for origin and locality and early environment; 'Tell me your
longitude and I'll know what latitude to allow you,' is my motto."

"There, you see," said Egbert, "he nearly killed the gardener's boy."

"My dear Egbert, between nearly killing a gardener's boy and altogether
killing a Canon there is a wide difference. No doubt you have often felt
a temporary desire to kill a gardener's boy; you have never given way to
it, and I respect you for your self-control. But I don't suppose you
have ever wanted to kill an octogenarian Canon. Besides, as far as we
know, there had never been any quarrel or disagreement between the two
men. The evidence at the inquest brought that out very clearly."

"Ah!" said Egbert, with the air of a man coming at last into a deferred
inheritance of conversational importance, "that is precisely what I want
to speak to you about."

He pushed away his coffee cup and drew a pocket-book from his inner
breast-pocket. From the depths of the pocket-book he produced an
envelope, and from the envelope he extracted a letter, closely written in
a small, neat handwriting.

"One of the Canon's numerous letters to Aunt Adelaide," he explained,
"written a few days before his death. Her memory was already failing
when she received it, and I daresay she forgot the contents as soon as
she had read it; otherwi