ges?"

"I can't say, sir. They would be in a drawer, or, more likely, in the
gun room."

"Where is this gun room?"

"Next to the harness room, sir--second door to the right in the
courtyard."

"Speaking absolutely in confidence, have you formed a theory as to
this murder?"

"No, sir. But if any sort of evidence is piled up against Mr. Robert I
shall not credit it. No power on earth could make me believe that he
would kill his father in cold blood. He respected his father, sir.
He's a bit wild, as young men with too much money are apt to be, but
he was good-hearted and genuine."

"Yet he did speak of blowing his own brains out, and his father's."

"That was his silly way of talking, sir. He would say, 'Tomlinson, if
you tell the pater what time I came home last night I'll stab you to
the heart.' When there was a bit of a family squabble he would
threaten to mix a gallon of weed-killer and drink every drop.
Everything was rotten, or beastly, or awfully ripping. He was not so
well educated as he ought to have been--Mrs. Fenley's fault entirely;
and he hadn't the--the words----"

"The vocabulary."

"That's it, sir. I see you understand."

"Tomlinson," interrupted Furneaux, "a famous American writer, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, described adjectives of that class as the blank checks
of intellectual bankruptcy. You have hit on the same great thought."

The butler smiled again. He was beginning to like Furneaux.

"You have never heard, I suppose, of Mr. Fenley receiving any
threatening letters?" continued Winter.

"No, sir. Some stupid postcards were sent when he tried to close a
right of way through the park; but they were merely ridiculous, and
that occurred years ago."

"So you, like the rest of us, feel utterly unable to assign a motive
for this crime?"

"Sir, it's like a thunderbolt from a clear sky."

"Were the brothers, or half brothers, on good terms with each other?"

Tomlinson started at those words, "or half brothers." He was not
prepared for the Superintendent's close acquaintance with the Fenley
records.

"They're as different as chalk and cheese, sir," he said, after a
pause to collect his wits. "Mr. Hilton is clever and well read, and
cares nothing about sport, though he has a wonderful steady nerve.
Yes, I mean that----" for Winter's prominent eyes showed surprise at
the statement. "He's a strange mixture, is Mr. Hilton. He's a fair
nailer with a revolver. I've seen him hit a penny three time