ichmond, in a
luxurious motor car, which was her's through the instrumentality of Mr.
Gluckstein.

She had found the house of George Copplestone plunged into the darkness
of a house of mourning. Every blind was drawn. Every particle of color
had been removed or draped. Black reigned supreme.

Copplestone was not pleased to see her, and made no attempt to assume
the contrary. He was sitting in his library, moody and melancholy, still
in the half-dazed condition into which the death of Christine Manderson
had cast him. His face was drawn, haggard, and sickly; his eyes were
bloodshot. He looked up at her with a forbidding frown, and did not
move from his chair.

"Well?" he said curtly.

She waved a hand round the black room.

"Isn't this ... a trifle theatrical?" she asked coolly.

He said nothing. She sat down opposite to him uninvited. She was
perfectly self-possessed.

"Inspector Fay was kind enough to call on me this morning," she remarked
pleasantly.

Again there was no reply.

"He may not be an example of dagger-like intelligence," she continued,
looking at him steadily--"but he is just a little too sharp to play
with."

He scowled at her.

"Have you come to tell me that?" he asked rudely.

"That--and other things," she returned unruffled.

"I don't want to hear them," he retorted.

"They concern you," she said--"rather closely."

"I don't want to hear them," he repeated.

Her lips tightened.

"It is scarcely pleasant to be such an obviously unwelcome visitor," she
said evenly. "But I am afraid you must listen."

"I am not in the humor to talk to you," he declared roughly. "I don't
want to talk to any one. I want to be left alone. Isn't it enough to be
pestered by the police and the papers, and all the damnable business for
the inquest? Don't you see that my house is in mourning? Can't you let
me be--even for a few days?"

"If I had let you be," she replied easily, "Inspector Fay would probably
be here in my place--with much less pleasant intentions."

His glance sharpened.

"What do you mean?" he growled.

"You were not wise," she proceeded tranquilly, "to treat his mental
capabilities with quite so much contempt. They are possibly not
startlingly brilliant, and he is perfectly easy to deceive. But even an
official detective can see through a clumsy lie."

Uneasiness flashed across his face. She smiled slightly.

"And I am afraid, my friend, that you are a clumsy liar."

"I don't k