ide tablets which he slipped
into Predeaux's pocket. No, we can prove nothing."

"What is your theory in connection with the crime?"

"I have many theories," said Mr. Beale, rising and pacing the room, "and
one certainty. I am satisfied that Millinborn was killed by Doctor van
Heerden. He was killed because, during the absence of Mr. Kitson in the
village, the doctor forced from the dying man a secret which up till
then he had jealously preserved. When Kitson returned he found his
friend, as he thought, _in extremis_, and van Heerden also thought that
John Millinborn would not speak again. To his surprise Millinborn did
speak and van Heerden, fearful of having his villainy exposed, stabbed
him to the heart under the pretext of assisting him to lie down.

"Something different occurred at the Grand Alliance Hotel. A man swoons,
immediately he is picked up by the doctor, who gives him a harmless
drug--that is to say, harmless in small quantities. In five seconds the
man is dead. At the inquest we find he has been poisoned--cyanide is
found in his pocket. And who is this man? Obviously the identical person
who witnessed the murder of John Millinborn and whom we have been trying
to find ever since that crime."

"Van Heerden won't escape the third time. His presence will be a little
more than a coincidence," said the superintendent.

Beale laughed.

"There will be no third time," he said shortly, "van Heerden is not a
fool."

"Have you any idea what the secret was that he wanted to get from old
Millinborn?" asked the detective.

Beale nodded.

"Yes, I know pretty well," he said, "and in course of time you will
know, too."

The detective was glancing over the newspaper account.

"I see the jury returned a verdict of 'Suicide whilst of unsound mind!'"
he said. "This case ought to injure van Heerden, anyway."

"That is where you are wrong," said Beale, stopping in his stride, "van
Heerden has so manoeuvred the Pressmen that he comes out with an
enhanced reputation. You will probably find articles in the weekly
papers written and signed by him, giving his views on the indiscriminate
sale of poisons. He will move in a glamour of romance, and his
consulting-rooms will be thronged by new admirers."

"It's a rum case," said the superintendent, rising, "and if you don't
mind my saying so, Mr. Beale, you're one of the rummiest men that figure
in it. I can't quite make you out. You are not a policeman and yet we
have or