ney, a pocket-book, a cigar-case--that's all. One matter I should have
expected to find, we didn't find."

"What's that?" asked Barthorpe quickly.

"Keys," answered the inspector. "We found no keys on him--not even a
latch-key. Yet he must have let himself in here, and I understand from
the caretaker that he must have unlocked this door after he'd entered by
the outer one."

Barthorpe made no immediate answer beyond a murmur of perplexity.

"Strange," he said after a pause, during which he bent over the open
drawer. "However, that's one of the things to be gone into. Close that
drawer, lock it up, and for the present keep the key yourself--you and I
will examine the contents later. Now for these immediate inquiries. Mr.
Selwood, will you please telephone at once to Portman Square and tell
Kitteridge to send Mountain, the coachman, here--instantly. Tell
Kitteridge to come with him. Inspector, will you see to this arrangement
we spoke of, and also tell the caretaker that we shall want him
presently? Now I will go to my cousin."

He strode off, still alert, composed, almost bustling in his demeanour,
to the waiting-room in which they had left Peggie--a moment later,
Selwood, following him down the corridor, saw him enter and close the
door. And Selwood cursed himself for a fool for hating to think that
these two should be closeted together, for disliking the notion that
Barthorpe Herapath was Peggie Wynne's cousin--and now, probably, her
guardian protector. For during those three weeks in which he had been
Jacob Herapath's secretary, Selwood had seen a good deal of his
employer's niece, and he was already well over the verge of falling in
love with her, and was furious with himself for daring to think of a
girl who was surely one of the richest heiresses in London. He was angry
with himself, too, for disliking Barthorpe, for he was inclined to
cultivate common-sense, and common-sense coldly reminded him that he did
not know Barthorpe Herapath well enough to either like or dislike him.

Half an hour passed--affairs suggestive of the tragedy of the night went
on in the Herapath Estate Office. Two women in the garb of professional
nurses came quietly, and passed into the room where Herapath lay dead. A
man arrayed in dismal black came after them, summoned by the police who
were busy at the telephone as soon as Selwood had finished with it.
Selwood himself, having summoned Kitteridge and Mountain, hung about,
waiting. He