ed the rather gruff voice of Dr.
Lambert. "Yes, I'm glad you're here."

The captain was on the point of asking why, when Dr. Lambert motioned
to him to step into a little reception room off the main hall. Somewhat
wonderingly, Captain Poland obeyed, and when the door had closed,
shutting him in with the two doctors, he turned to the older physician
and asked:

"Is anything the matter?"

"Well, we have completed the autopsy," said Dr. Lambert.

"That's good. Then you are ready to sign a certificate, or at least get
Dr. Rowland to, so that we can proceed with the arrangements. Miss Mary
Carwell is anxious to have--"

"Well, I suppose the funeral will have to be held," said Dr. Lambert
slowly. "That can't be held up very long, even if it was worse than it
is."

"Worse than it is! What do you mean?" cried Captain Poland sharply. "Is
there any suspicion--"

"There is more than suspicion, my dear sir," went on Dr. Lambert, as
he sank into a chair as though very, very tired. "There is, I regret to
say, certainty."

"Certainty of what?"

"Certainty that my old friend, Horace Carwell, committed suicide!"

"Suicide!"

"By poisoning," added Dr. Baird, who had been anxious to get in a word.
"We found very plain evidences of it when we examined the stomach and
viscera."

"Poison!" cried Captain Poland. "A suicide? I don't believe it! Why
should Horace Carwell kill himself? He hadn't a reason in the world for
it! There must be some mistake! Why did he do it? Why? Why?"

And then suddenly he became strangely thoughtful.

CHAPTER IV. VIOLA'S DECISION

"That is the very question we have been asking ourselves, my dear
Captain," said Dr. Lambert wearily. "And we are no nearer an answer now
than, apparently, you are. Why did he do it?"

The three men, two gravely professional, one, the younger, more so than
his elder colleague, and the third plainly upset over the surprising
news, looked at one another behind the closed door of the little room
off the imposing reception hall at The Haven. They were in the house of
death, and they had to do with more than death, for there was, in the
reputed action of Horace Carwell, the hint of disgrace which suicide
always engenders.

"I suppose," began Captain Poland, rather weakly, "that there can be no
chance of error He looked from one medical man to the other.

"Not the least in the world!" quickly exclaimed Baird. "We made a most
careful examination of the deceased's o