the better. His brother?"

"Yes; he mentioned him on our way from the station the other evening. At
any rate he will be able to see the situation for himself."

"You will come with me?" Morriston suggested. "You might fetch your
friend, Gifford."

Kelson nodded, opened the drawing-room door and called Gifford out, while
Morriston waited in the hall.

"The brother has turned up," he said as the two men joined him. "No doubt
to make inquiries. What are we to say to him?"

"There is nothing to be said but the bare, inevitable truth," Gifford
answered. "You can't now break it to him by degrees."

Morriston led the way to the library. By the fire stood a keen-featured,
sharp-eyed man of middle height and lithe figure, whose manner and first
movements as the door opened showed alertness and energy of character.
There was a certain likeness to his brother in the features and dark
complexion as well as in a suggestion of unpleasant aggressiveness in the
expression of his face, but where the dead man's personality had
suggested determination overlaid with an easy-going, indulgent spirit of
hedonism this man seemed to bristle with a restless mental activity, to
be all brain; one whose pleasures lay manifestly on the intellectual
side. One thing Gifford quickly noted, as he looked at the man with a
painful curiosity, was that the face before him lacked much of the
suggestion of evil which in the brother he had found so repellent. This
man could surely be hard enough on occasion, the strong jaw and a
certain hardness in the eyes told that, but except perhaps for an
uncomfortable excess of sharpness, there was none of his brother's rather
brutally scoffing cast of expression.

Henshaw seemed to regard the two men following Morriston into the room
with a certain apprehensive surprise.

"I hope you will pardon my troubling you like this," he said to
Morriston, speaking in a quick, decided tone, "but I have been rather
anxious as to what has become of my brother, of whom I can get no news.
He came down to the Cumberbatch Hunt Ball, which I understand was held in
this house, and from that evening seems to have mysteriously disappeared.
He had an important business engagement for the next day, Wednesday,
which he failed to keep, and this may mean a considerable loss to him.
Can you throw any light on his movements down here?"

Morriston, dreading to break the news abruptly, had not interrupted his
questions.

"I am sorry to