ons, this
time loud enough to wake any ordinary sound sleeper. But no sound came
from within the room, and after a third and much louder thumping at the
door, Allerdyke grew impatient and suspicious.

"This is queer!" he growled. "My cousin's one of the lightest sleepers I
ever knew. If he's in there, there's something wrong. Look here! you'll
have to open that door. Haven't you got a key?"

"Key'll be inside, sir," replied the night-porter. "But there's a
master-key to all these doors in the office. Shall I fetch it, then?"

"Do!" said Allerdyke, curtly. He began to walk up and down the corridor
when the man had hurried away, wondering what this soundness of sleep
in his cousin meant. James Allerdyke was not a man who took either drink
or drugs, and Marshall's experience of him was that the least sound
awoke him.

"Queer!" he repeated as he marched up and down. "Perhaps he's not--"

The quiet opening of a door close by made him lift his eyes from the
carpet. In the dim light he saw a man looking out upon him--a man of an
unusually thick crop of hair and with a huge beard. He stared at
Allerdyke half angrily, half sulkily; then he closed his door as quietly
as he had opened it. And Allerdyke, turning back to his cousin's room,
mechanically laid his hand on the knob and screwed it round.

The door was open.

Allerdyke drew a sharp breath as he crossed the threshold. He had stayed
in that hotel often, and he knew where the switch of the electric light
should be. He lifted a hand, found the switch, and turned the light on.
And as it flooded the room, he pulled himself up to a tense rigidity.
There, sitting fully dressed in an easy chair, against which his head was
thrown back, was his cousin--unmistakably dead.

CHAPTER II

THE DEAD MAN

For a full minute Marshall Allerdyke stood fixed--staring at the set
features before him. Then, with a quick catching of his breath, he made
one step to his cousin's side and laid his hand on the unyielding
shoulder. The affectionate, familiar terms in which they had always
addressed each other sprang involuntarily to his lips.

"Why, James, my lad!" he exclaimed. "James, lad! James!"

Even as he spoke, he knew that James would never hear word or sound again
in this world. It needed no more than one glance at the rigid features,
one touch of the already fixed and statue-like body, to know that James
Allerdyke was not only dead, but had been dead some time. And, with a