Sir Andrew, "I find it much too
interesting as it is." He glanced ruefully at the clock and turned his
eyes quickly from it.

"Tell the driver of that hansom," he called to the servant, "that I take
him by the hour."

"For the last three days," began young Mr. Chudleigh, "as you have
probably read in the daily papers, the Marquis of Edam has been at the
point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every hour
he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is apparently
leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and active. Late
yesterday evening word was received at our office that he wished my
father to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with him certain
papers. What these papers were is not essential; I mention them only
to explain how it was that last night I happened to be at Lord Edam's
bed-side. I accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at the time we
reached there Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians refused to have
him awakened. My father urged that he should be allowed to receive Lord
Edam's instructions concerning the documents, but the physicians would
not disturb him, and we all gathered in the library to wait until he
should awake of his own accord. It was about one o'clock in the morning,
while we were still there, that Inspector Lyle and the officers from
Scotland Yard came to arrest Lord Arthur on the charge of murdering his
brother. You can imagine our dismay and distress. Like every one else,
I had learned from the afternoon papers that Lord Chetney was not dead,
but that he had returned to England, and on arriving at Chetney House
I had been told that Lord Arthur had gone to the Bath Hotel to look
for his brother and to inform him that if he wished to see their father
alive he must come to him at once. Although it was now past one o'clock,
Arthur had not returned. None of us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we
could not go to recover Lord Chetney's body. We spent a most miserable
night, hastening to the window whenever a cab came into the square, in
the hope that it was Arthur returning, and endeavoring to explain
away the facts that pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of
Arthur's, I was with him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to
believe for an instant that he was capable of such a crime; but as a
lawyer I could not help but see that the circumstantial evidence was
strongly against him.

"Toward early morning Lord Edam awoke, an