how you find things out. I didn't tell you, and I
should have thought that I was the only person awake in the front part of
the Castle. I suppose that some one saw him getting his cigarettes from
the butler's pantry."

"So that was the reason he gave you for being in the Castle," said Mr.
Flexen. "Well, was it after or before you spoke to him that you heard
Lord Loudwater snore?"

Mr. Manley hesitated, thinking; then he said: "I can't remember at the
moment. You see, I was downstairs some little time. I found an evening
paper in the dining-room and looked through it there. I might have heard
him from there."

"You can't remember?" said Mr. Flexen in a tone of disappointment.

"Not at the moment," said Mr. Manley. "Is it important?"

"Yes; very important. It would probably help me to fix the time of Lord
Loudwater's death."

"I see. A lot may turn on that," said Mr. Manley thoughtfully.

"Yes. You can see how immensely it helps to have a fact like that fixed,"
said Mr. Flexen.

"Yes: of course," said Mr. Manley. "Well, I must try to remember. I
daresay I shall, if I keep the fact in my mind gently, and do not try to
wrench the recollection out of it. You know how hard it is to remember a
thing, if it hasn't caught your attention fairly when it happened."

"Yes," said Mr. Flexen. "But I hope to goodness you'll remember it
quickly. It may be of the greatest use to me."

"Ah, yes; I must," said Mr. Manley, giving him a queer look.

"I was forgetting," said Mr. Flexen, understanding the thought behind the
queer look. "You'd hardly believe it, Mr. Carrington, but Mr. Manley told
me at the very beginning of this business that he was not going to help
in any way to discover the murderer of Lord Loudwater, because he
considered that murderer a benefactor of society."

"But I never heard of such a thing!" cried the lawyer in a tone of
astonished disapproval. "Such a course might be possible in the case of
some minor crime, or in a person intimately connected with the criminal
in the case of a major crime. But for an outsider to pursue such a
course in the case of a murder is unheard of--absolutely unheard of."

"I daresay it isn't common," said Mr. Manley in a tone of modest
satisfaction. "But I am modern; I claim the right of private judgment in
all matters of morality."

"Oh, that won't do--that won't do at all!" cried the shocked lawyer.
"There would be hopeless confusion--in fact, if everybody did that, the
l