ck of fools. For him, there were only two
classes of humanity--fools and rogues. The respectable portion of the
population constituted the former, and criminals the latter. He had the
lowest possible opinion of humanity as a whole, and his favourite
expression, in professional conversation, was: "human nature being what
it is...." He was still a mighty force in Scotland Yard, although he had
passed his usefulness and reached the ornamental stage of his career,
rarely condescending to investigate a case personally.

His present visit to the moat-house was one of those rare occasions, and
was due to the action of Captain Stanhill, the Chief Constable of
Sussex, who was seated near him. Captain Stanhill was a short stout man,
with a round, fresh-coloured face, and short sturdy legs and arms. He
wore a tweed coat of the kind known to tailors as "a sporting lounge,"
and his little legs were encased in knickerbockers and leather gaiters,
which were spattered with mud, as though he had ridden some distance
that morning. He was a very different type from Superintendent
Merrington--a gentleman by birth and education, a churchman, and a
county magnate. He never did anything so dangerous as to think, but
accepted the traditions and rules of his race and class as his safe
guide through life. Like most Englishmen of his station of life, he was
endowed with just sufficient intelligence to permit him to slide along
his little groove of life with some measure of satisfaction to himself
and pleasure to his neighbours. He was a sound judge of cattle and
horses, but of human nature he knew nothing whatever, and his first act,
on being informed of the murder at the moat-house, was to ring up
Scotland Yard and request it to send down one of its most trusted
officials to investigate the circumstances. In reply to this call for
assistance, Superintendent Merrington, not unmindful of the county
standing and influence of the Herediths, had decided to investigate the
case himself, and had brought with him two satellites--a finger-print
expert who was at that moment paring his own finger-nails with a
pocket-knife as he stared vacantly out of the library window, and an
official photographer, who was upstairs taking photographs in the death
chamber.

Seated near the finger-print expert was a police official of middle-age,
Inspector Weyling, of the Sussex County Police. He was a saturnine sort
of man, with a hooked nose, a skin like parchment, and