the front
door open and the lights burning. There was no answer to her ring and she
entered the house and crept upstairs. Opening the library door, she saw
your father lying on the floor. She endeavoured to raise him to a sitting
posture, but it was too late to do anything for him. With a convulsive
movement he grasped at the handkerchief she was holding in one hand, and
a corner of it was torn off and remained in his hand. When she saw he had
breathed his last she laid him down on the floor. Since she had been too
late to prevent the crime, the next best thing in the interests of Mrs.
Holymead was to remove traces of Holymead's guilt. She picked up the
revolver, which she thought belonged to Holymead, turned off the light in
the room, went downstairs, turned off the light in the hall, and closed
the hall door as she went out.

"She behaved with remarkable courage and coolness, but she overlooked the
glove in the room of the tragedy, and Holymead's stick in the hall-stand.
Later in the night we have Birchill's entry into the house, his alarm at
finding your father had been killed, and his return to the flat where
Hill was waiting for him."

When Crewe had finished he looked at the girl. She had followed his
statement with breathless interest.

"You have been wonderfully clever," she said. "It is perfectly
marvellous."

Crewe's eyes had wandered to the inlaid chess-table and the Japanese
chessmen set in prim rows on either side. Mechanically he began to
arrange a problem on the board. His interest in the famous murder mystery
seemed to have evaporated.

"I was very fortunate," he said absently, in reply to Miss Fewbanks.
"Everything seemed to come right for me."

"You made everything come right," she replied. "I do not know how to
thank you for giving so much of your time to unravelling the mystery."

"It was fascinating while it lasted," he replied, his fingers still busy
with the chessmen. "Of course, I am pleased with my success, but in a way
I am sorry the work has come to an end. I thought that the knowledge that
Holymead was the guilty man would come as a great shock to you. But I am
glad you are able to take it so well."

"A few minutes before you arrived I learned that it was Mr. Holymead. But
what has been more of a shock to me, Mr. Crewe, is the discovery that my
father had ruined his home. Oh, Mr. Crewe, it is terrible for me to have
to hold my dead father up to judgment, but it is more terrible stil