One of Sir Horace's arms--the right
one--was thrust forward diagonally across his breast as if in
self-defence, and the hand was tightly clenched. Rolfe, who had last seen
His Honour presiding on the Bench in the full pomp and majesty of law,
felt a chill strike his heart at the fell power of death which did not
even respect the person of a High Court judge, and had stripped him of
every vestige of human dignity in the pangs of a violent end. The face he
had last seen on the Bench full of wisdom and austerity of the law was
now distorted into a livid mask in which it was hard to trace any
semblance of the features of the dead judge.

Rolfe's official alertness of mind in the face of a mysterious crime soon
reasserted itself, however, and he shook off the feeling of sentiment and
proceeded to make a closer examination of the dead body. As he turned
down the sheet to examine the wound which had ended the judge's life, it
slipped from his hand and fell on the floor, revealing that the judge had
been laid on the couch just as he had been killed, fully clothed. He had
been shot through the body near the heart, and a large patch of blood had
welled from the wound and congealed in his shirt. One trouser leg was
ruffled up, and had caught in the top of the boot.

The corpse presented a repellent spectacle, but Rolfe, who had seen
unpleasant sights of various kinds in his career, bent over the body
with keen interest, noting these details, with all his professional
instincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in the
police force, he had many of the qualities which make the good
detective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. The
extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravel
presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these
qualities to the utmost.

Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a picture
of it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bent
over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then looked
at his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then he
tried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.

As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form
some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had
heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to
him. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or t