t lens. Then he filled a drinking-glass with
warm boiled water and added a few pinches of table salt. With a piece
of sterilised gauze from Doctor Putnam's medicine-chest, he carefully
washed off a few portions of the coat and set the glass and the gauze
soaking in it aside. Then he returned the coat to the closet where
he had found it. Next, as silently, he stole into Junior's room and
repeated the process with his hunting-jacket, using another glass and
piece of gauze.

"While I am out of the room, Walter," he said, "I want you to take these
two glasses, cover them, and number them and on a slip of paper which
you must retain, place the names of the owners of the respective coats.
I don't like this part of it--I hate to play spy and would much rather
come out in the open, but there is nothing else to do, and it is much
better for all concerned that I should play the game secretly just
now. There may be no cause for suspicion at all. In that case I'd never
forgive myself for starting a family row. And then again but we shall
see."

After I had numbered and recorded the glasses Kennedy returned, and we
went down-stairs again.

"Curious about the will, isn't it?" I remarked as we stood on the wide
verandah a moment.

"Yes," he replied. "It may be necessary to go back to New York to delve
into that part of it before we get through, but I hope not. We'll wait."

At this point the groom interrupted us to say that he had caught the
rabbits. Kennedy at once hurried to the stable. There he rolled up his
sleeves, pricked a vein in his arm, and injected a small quantity of his
own blood into one of the rabbits. The other he did not touch.

It was late in the afternoon when Tom returned from town with his uncle
and cousin. He seemed even more agitated than usual. Without a word he
hurried up from the landing and sought us out.

"What do you think of that?" he cried, opening a copy of the Record, and
laying it flat on the library table.

There on the front page was Lewis Langley's picture with a huge
scare-head:

MYSTERIOUS CASE OF SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

"It's all out," groaned Tom, as we bent over to read the account. "And
such a story!"

Under the date of the day previous, a Saranac despatch ran:

Lewis Langley, well known as sporting man and club member in New York,
and eldest son of the late Lewis Langley, the banker, was discovered
dead under the most mysterious circumstances this morning at Camp
Hangout,