, heedless of
the overturned night light and the havoc it caused. That, of course,
is sheer guesswork, though the glass dish which held the light was
found later on the charred floor, which was protected, to some extent,
by a thick carpet.

At any rate, she had not long survived the husband who had given her a
pomp and circumstance for which she was ill fitted. They were buried
in the same grave, and Hertfordshire sent its thousands to the
funeral.

Soon after her fate became known, Winter wanted Furneaux, but his
colleague was not in the house. The telephone having broken down,
owing to the collapse of a standard, and the necessity of subduing the
fire having put a stop to any immediate search being made in the park,
Winter thought that the pair of them would be better employed if they
transferred their energies to the local police station.

He found Furneaux seated on the lowermost step at the entrance; the
Jerseyman was crying as if his heart would break, and Trenholme was
trying to comfort him, but in vain.

"What's up now?" inquired the Superintendent, thinking at the moment
that his friend and comrade was giving way to hysteria indirectly
owing to the blow he had received.

Furneaux looked up. It was the darkest hour of the night, and his
chief could not see the distraught features wrung with pain.

"James," he said, mastering his voice by a fierce effort, "my mad
antics killed that unfortunate woman! She was aroused by the shots.
She would cry for help, and none came. Heavens! I can hear her now!
Then she ran for refuge to the man who had been everything to her
since she was a barrack room kid in India. I'm done, old fellow. I
resign. I can never show my face in the Yard again."

"It'll do you a world of good if you talk," said Winter, meaning to
console, but unconsciously wounding by cruel sarcasm.

"I'll be dumb enough after this night's work," said Furneaux, in a
tone of such utter dejection that Winter began to take him seriously.

"If you fail me now, Charles," he said, and his utterance was thick
with anger at the crassness of things, "I'll consider the advisability
of sending in my own papers. Dash it!" He said something quite
different, but his friends may read this record, and they would
repudiate an exact version with scorn and disbelief. "Are we going to
admit ourselves beaten by a half-bred hound like Hilton Fenley? Not
if I know it, or I know you. We've got the noose 'round his neck, and