ound that the driver's
statement was apparently true. The deceased was carried
into the police station and a doctor was sent for. The
chauffeur's statement was that about midnight he was
hailed in the Grove End Road, Hampstead, by four men, one
of whom, evidently the deceased, he imagined to be the
worse for drink. Two of them entered the taxicab, and one
of the others directed him to drive to Finchley. After
some distance, however, the driver happened to glance
inside, and saw that only one of his passengers was
there. He at once stopped the vehicle, looked in at the
window, and, finding that the man was unconscious, drove
on to the police station.

Later information seems to point to foul play, and there
is no doubt whatever that an outrage has been committed.
There was a wound upon the deceased's forehead, which the
doctor pronounces as the cause of death, and which had
evidently been dealt within the last hour or so with some
blunt instrument. The taxicab driver has been detained,
and a full description of the murdered man's companions
has been issued to the police. It is understood that
nothing was found upon the deceased likely to help
towards his identification.

Arnold looked up as he finished. Mr. Weatherley was still smoking.
He seemed, indeed, very little disturbed.

"A sensational story, that, Chetwode," he remarked. "You're not
supposing, are you, that it was the same man who broke into my house
last night?"

"I know that it was, sir," Arnold replied.

"You know that it was," Mr. Weatherley repeated, slowly. "Come, what
do you mean by that?"

"I mean that after I left your house last night, sir," Arnold
explained, "I realized the impossibility of that man having been
carried down your drive and out into the road, with a policeman on
duty directly opposite, and a cabstand within a few yards. I
happened to remember that there was an empty house next door, and it
struck me that it might be worth while examining the premises."

Mr. Weatherley withdrew the cigar from his mouth.

"You did that, eh?"

"I did," Arnold admitted. "I made my way to the back, and I found a
light in the room which presumably had been the kitchen. From a
chink in the boarded-up window I saw several men in the room,
including the man whom we discovered in your wife's boudoir, and who
had been s