me. I only
hope to Heaven you are not going to discover a great crime."

"I share your hope. That is why I speak of two channels for inquiry,"
answered the detective. "Needless to say, we four men shall discuss the
new light thrown upon the situation very fully. At present the majority
of us are inclined to believe there is no crime, and the death of Mr.
May does not, to my mind, increase the likelihood of such a thing.
Indeed, it supports me, I should judge, in my present opinion. What that
is will appear without much delay. We'll get to our quarters now, and
ask to see the Grey Room later on."

"May I inquire concerning Mr. Hardcastle? I hope he had no wife or
family to mourn him."

"He was a bachelor, and lived with his mother, who keeps a shop. The
intention is to examine his body this morning, and submit it to certain
conclusive tests. Nobody expects much from them, but they're not going
to lose half a chance. He was a great man."

"You will hear at once from London if anything transpires to help you?"

"We shall hear by noon at latest."

Sir Walter left them then, and Masters took the four to their
accommodation. Their rooms were situated together in the corridor, as
near the east end of it as possible. But the four were not yet of one
mind, and when they met presently, and walked together in the garden for
an hour, it appeared that while two of them agreed with Inspector Frith,
under whom all acted, the fourth held to a contrary view, and desired to
take the second of the two channels his chief had mentioned.

Thus three men believed some extraordinary concatenation of
circumstances, probably mechanical in operation, was responsible for
all that had happened in the Grey Room; but the fourth, a man older than
Frith, and in some sort his rival for many years, held to it that the
reason of these things must be sought in an active and conscious agency.
He trusted in a living cause, but felt confident that it was not a sane
one. He had known a case when a madman, unsuspected of madness, had
operated with extraordinary skill to destroy innocent persons and
escape detection, and already he was disposed to believe that among the
household of Chadlands might hide such an insane criminal.

On a similar plane, it was in his personal experience that weak-minded
persons, possessed with a desire to do something out of the common, had
often planned and perpetrated apparent physical phenomena, and created
an appearance