r.

He paused, and slowly twisted his small dark moustache, at last
admitting----

"Yes, Ralph, I have."

"What have you discovered?" I cried, in fierce eagerness. "Tell me the
result of your inquiries regarding Ethelwynn. It is her connection
with the affair which occupies my chief thoughts."

"For the present, my dear fellow, we must leave her entirely out of
it," my friend said quietly. "To tell you the truth, after announcing
my intention to give up the affair as a mystery impenetrable, I set to
work and slowly formed a theory. Then I drew up a deliberate plan of
campaign, which I carried out in its entirety."

"And the result?"

"Its result--" he laughed. "Well, when I'd spent several anxious weeks
in making the most careful inquiries, I found, to my chagrin, that I
was upon an entirely wrong scent, and that the person I suspected of
being the assassin at Kew was innocent. There was no help for it but
to begin all over again, and I did so. My inquiries then led me in an
entirely opposite direction. I followed my new and somewhat startling
theory, and found to my satisfaction that I had at length struck the
right trail. Through a whole fortnight I worked on night and day,
often snatching a few hours of sleep in railway carriages, and
sometimes watching through the whole night--for when one pursues
inquiries alone it is frequently imperative to keep watchful vigil. To
Bath, to Hereford, to Edinburgh, to Birmingham, to Newcastle, and also
to several places far distant in the South of England I travelled in
rapid succession, until at last I found a clue, but one so
extraordinary that at first I could not give it credence. Ten days
have passed, and even now I refuse to believe that such a thing could
be. I'm absolutely bewildered by it."

"Then you believe that you've at last gained the key to the mystery?"
I said, eagerly drinking in his words.

"It seems as though I have. Yet my information is so very vague and
shadowy that I can really form no decisive opinion. It is this
mysterious death of Mrs. Courtenay that has utterly upset all my
theories. Tell me plainly, Ralph, what causes you to suspect foul
play? This is not a time for prevarication. We must be open and
straightforward to each other. Tell me the absolute truth."

Should I tell him frankly of the amazing discovery I had made? I
feared to do so, lest he should laugh me to scorn. The actual
existence of Courtenay seemed too incredible. And yet as h