r, Mr. Narkom.
What followed? Did the father relent, or did he invite the pair of
them to clear out and hoe their own row in future?"

"He did neither; he simply ignored their existence. Young Drake
brought his wife down to Suffolk and took rooms at a village inn,
and then set out to interview his father. When he arrived at the
Hall he was told by the lodgekeeper that strangers weren't admitted,
and, on his asking to have his name sent in, was informed that
the lodgekeeper had 'never heard of no sich person as Mr. James
Drake--that there wasn't none, and that the master said there never
had been, neither'--and promptly double-locked the gates. What young
James Drake did after that it appears that nobody knows, for nobody
saw him again until this morning; and it was only yesterday, I
must tell you, that he made that unsuccessful attempt to get into the
place to see his father. _He_ says, however, that he spent the time
in going over to Ipswich and back in the hope of seeing a friend
there to whom he might apply for work. He says, too, that when he
got there he found that that friend--an American acquaintance--had
given up his rooms the day before, and rushed off to Italy in
answer to a cable from his sister; or so, at least, the landlady
told him."

"Which, of course, the landlady can be relied upon to corroborate if
there is any question regarding the matter? Is there?"

"Well, he seems to think that there may be. He's the client, you
must know. It was he that gave me the details over the telephone,
and asked me to put you on the case. As he says himself, it's
easy enough to prove about his having gone to Ipswich to see his
friend, but it isn't so easy to prove about his coming back in the
manner he did. It seems he was too late for any return train, that he
hadn't money enough left in the world to waste any by taking a
private conveyance, so he walked back; and that, as it's a goodish
stretch of country, and he didn't know the way, and couldn't at
night find anybody to ask, he lost himself more than once, with the
consequence that it was daylight when he got back to the inn, where
his frightened wife sat awaiting him, never having gone to bed nor
closed an eye all night, poor girl, fearing that some accident had
befallen him. But, be that as it may, Cleek, during those hours he
was absent his father was mysteriously murdered in a round box of
a room in which he had locked himself, and to which, owing to
structural