their blindness have not the
faintest doubt. Under the unshakable belief that Errington is guilty
they have spent the last few months in unceasing labour to try and find
further and stronger proofs of his guilt. But they won't find them,
because there are none. There are no positive proofs against the actual
murderer, for he was one of those clever blackguards who think of
everything, foresee every eventuality, who know human nature well, and
can foretell exactly what evidence will be brought against them, and act
accordingly.

"This blackguard from the first kept the figure, the personality, of
Frank Errington before his mind. Frank Errington was the dust which the
scoundrel threw metaphorically in the eyes of the police, and you must
admit that he succeeded in blinding them--to the extent even of making
them entirely forget the one simple little sentence, overheard by Mr.
Andrew Campbell, and which was, of course, the clue to the whole
thing--the only slip the cunning rogue made--'_Au revoir_! Don't be late
to-night.' Mrs. Hazeldene was going that night to the opera with her
husband--

"You are astonished?" he added with a shrug of the shoulders, "you do
not see the tragedy yet, as I have seen it before me all along. The
frivolous young wife, the flirtation with the friend?--all a blind, all
pretence. I took the trouble which the police should have taken
immediately, of finding out something about the finances of the
Hazeldene _menage_. Money is in nine cases out of ten the keynote to a
crime.

"I found that the will of Mary Beatrice Hazeldene had been proved by
the husband, her sole executor, the estate being sworn at L15,000. I
found out, moreover, that Mr. Edward Sholto Hazeldene was a poor
shipper's clerk when he married the daughter of a wealthy builder in
Kensington--and then I made note of the fact that the disconsolate
widower had allowed his beard to grow since the death of his wife.

"There's no doubt that he was a clever rogue," added the strange
creature, leaning excitedly over the table, and peering into Polly's
face. "Do you know how that deadly poison was injected into the poor
woman's system? By the simplest of all means, one known to every
scoundrel in Southern Europe. A ring--yes! a ring, which has a tiny
hollow needle capable of holding a sufficient quantity of prussic acid
to have killed two persons instead of one. The man in the tweed suit
shook hands with his fair companion--probably she ha