that's all.'

Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that
ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was
concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.

'I hope,' said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, 'I hope you'll call in
the police without any delay. It's getting late, and I don't like going
without my night's rest.'

'Where do you suppose you'll get a night's rest?' Racksole asked.

'In the cells, of course. Haven't I told you I know when I'm beaten. I'm
not so blind as not to be able to see that there's at any rate a prima
facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two's
imprisonment as accessory after the fact--I think that's what they call
it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated
in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.' He pointed, with a
strange, scornful gesture of his elbow, to the bed. 'And now, shall we
go? Everyone is asleep, but there will be a policeman within call of the
watchman in the portico. I am at your service. Let us go down together,
Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go quietly.'

'Stay a moment,' said Theodore Racksole curtly; 'there is no hurry. It
won't do you any harm to forego another hour's sleep, especially as you
will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to
put to you.'

'Well?' Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say,
'What must be must be.'

'Where has Dimmock's corpse been during the last three or four days,
since he--died?'

'Oh!' answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the
question. 'It's been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once
it went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a
case of Demerara sugar. I forgot where else it has been, but it's been
kept perfectly safe and treated with every consideration.'

'And who contrived all these manoeuvres?' asked Racksole as calmly as he
could.

'I did. That is to say, I invented them and I saw that they were
carried out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be
particularly spry.'

'And who carried them out?'

'Ah! that would be telling tales. But I don't mind assuring you that
my accomplices were innocent accomplices. It is absurdly easy for a man
like me to impose on underlings--absurdly easy.'

'What did you intend to do with the corpse ultimately?' Racksole pursued
his inqui