m to
the _Golden Lion_ in the town, where they all put up."

Henshaw's sharp scrutiny was immediately transferred from Morriston to
his companions.

"Can you, gentlemen, throw any light on the matter?" he asked sharply.

"None at all, I am sorry to say," Kelson answered readily. "I may as well
tell you how our very slight acquaintance with him came about."

"If you please," Henshaw responded, in a tone more of command than
request.

Kelson, naturally ignoring his questioner's slightly offensive manner,
thereupon related the circumstances of the encounter at the station-yard
and of the subsequent drive to the town, merely softening the detail of
their preliminary altercation. Henshaw listened alertly intent, it
seemed, to seize upon any point which did not satisfy him.

"That was all you saw of my unfortunate brother?" he demanded at the end.

"We saw him for a few moments in the hall of the hotel just as we were
starting," Kelson answered.

"You drove here together? No?"

"No; your brother took an hotel carriage, and I drove in my own trap."

"With Mr. ----?" he indicated Gifford, who up to this point had
not spoken.

"No," Gifford answered. "I came on later. A suit-case with my evening
things had gone astray--been carried on in the train, and I had to wait
till it was returned."

Henshaw stared at him for a moment sharply as though the statement had
about it something vaguely suspicious, seemed about to put another
question, checked himself, and turned about with a gesture of perplexity.

"I don't understand it at all," he muttered. Then suddenly facing round
again he said sharply to Gifford, "Have you anything to add, sir, to what
your friend has told me?"

"I can say nothing more," Gifford answered.

Henshaw turned away again, and seemed as though but half satisfied.

"The facts," he said in a lawyer-like tone, "don't appear to lead us far.
But when ascertained facts stop short they may be supplemented. Apart
from what is actually known--I ask this as the dead man's only
brother--have either of you gentlemen formed any idea as to how he came
by his death?"

He was looking at Morriston, his cross-examining manner now softened by
the human touch.

"It has not occurred to me to look beyond what seems the obvious
explanation of suicide," Morriston answered frankly.

Henshaw turned to Kelson. "And you, sir; have you any idea beyond the
known facts?"

"None," was the answer, "except that he took h