t,
passing storm of temper has often destroyed a life with no more evil
intent than a flash of lightning. In this case, only such a storm
seems to be the explanation. But how a man of the Pendean type could
have provoked such a storm I have yet to learn. So far the testimony
of Mrs. Pendean and the assurances of Inspector Halfyard at
Princetown indicate an amiable and quiet person, slow to anger.
Inspector Halfyard knew him quite well at the Moss Depot, where he
worked through two years of the war. He was apparently not a man to
have infuriated Captain Redmayne or anybody else."

Mark then related his own brief personal experience of Redmayne on
the occasion of their meeting by the quarry pools. For some reason
this personal anecdote touched Flora Reed and the detective observed
that she was genuinely moved by it.

Indeed she began to weep and presently rose and left them. Her
parents were able to speak more freely upon her departure.

Mr. Reed indeed, from being somewhat silent and indifferent, grew
voluble.

"I think it right to tell you," he said, "that my wife and I never
cared much for this engagement. Redmayne meant well and had a good
heart I believe. He was free-handed and exceedingly enamoured of
Flora. He made violent love from the first and his affection was
returned. But I never could see him a steady, married man. He was a
rover and the war had made him--not exactly inhuman, but apparently
unconscious of his own obligations to society and his own duty, as a
reasonable being, to help build up the broken organization of social
life. He only lived for pleasure and sport or spending money; and
though I do not suggest he would have been a bad husband, I did not
see the makings of a stable home in his ideas of the future. He had
inherited some forty thousand pounds, but he was very ignorant of
the value of money and he showed no particular good sense on the
subject of his coming responsibilities."

Mark Brendon thanked them for their information and repeated his
growing conviction that the subject of their speech had probably
committed suicide.

"Every hour which fails to account for him increases my fear," he
said. "Indeed it may be a good thing to happen; for the alternative
can at best be Broadmoor; and it is a hateful thought that a man who
has fought for his country, and fought well, should end his days in
a criminal lunatic asylum."

For two days the detective remained at Paignton and devoted all