this
is a more than usually serious case. There are certain elements both
extraordinary and mysterious, and that being so I would suggest an
adjournment, in order that the police should be enabled to make
further enquiries into the matter. The deceased was a gentleman whose
philanthropy was probably well known to you all, and we must all
therefore regret that he should have come to such a sudden and tragic
end. You may, of course, come to a verdict to-day if you wish, but I
would strongly urge an adjournment--until, say, this day week."

The jury conferred for a few moments, and after some whispering the
foreman, a grocer at Kew Bridge, announced that his fellow jurymen
acquiesced in the coroner's suggestion, and the public rose and slowly
left, more puzzled than ever.

Ambler Jevons had been present, sitting at the back of the room, and
in order to avoid the others we lunched together at an obscure
public-house in Brentford, on the opposite side of the Thames to Kew
Gardens. It was the only place we could discover, save the hotel where
the inquest had been held, and we had no desire to be interrupted, for
during the inquiry he had passed me a scrap of paper upon which he had
written an earnest request to see me alone afterwards.

Therefore when I had put Ethelwynn into a cab, and had bade farewell
to Sir Bernard and received certain private instructions from him, we
walked together into the narrow, rather dirty High Street of
Brentford, the county town of Middlesex.

The inn we entered was close to a soap works, the odour from which was
not conducive to a good appetite, but we obtained a room to ourselves
and ate our meal of cold beef almost in silence.

"I was up early this morning," Ambler observed at last. "I was at Kew
at eight o'clock."

"Why?"

"In the night an idea struck me, and when such ideas occur I always
seek to put them promptly into action."

"What was the idea?" I asked.

"I thought about that safe in the old man's bedroom," he replied,
laying down his knife and fork and looking at me.

"What about it? There's surely nothing extraordinary in a man having a
safe in his room?"

"No. But there's something extraordinary in the key of that safe being
missing," he said. "Thorpe has apparently overlooked the point;
therefore this morning I went down to Kew, and finding only a
constable in charge, I made a thorough search through the place. In
the dead man's room I naturally expected to find it,