t of the police station so as to get
spotted for the jury by the sergeant."

Mr. Lazarus Lowch, Mrs. Beauchamp's nearest neighbour, was one of those
freaks of humanity intended by an all-wise Providence to be as a thorn
in the flesh of his fellow-men. His one idea of enjoying life was to
creep about endeavouring to catch people doing wrong. He was known to
carry a stop-watch for timing the speed of motor cars; he spent hours in
"shadowing" small boys whom he hoped to detect stealing apples; he
followed the municipal labourers about to see that they did not scamp
their work; he had a finger in every one's pie, always with the
intention of spoiling it; he was never really happy, but his nearest
approach to the beatific state was when he was doing his level best to
make some one else miserable.

A lean, cadaverous, lantern-jawed creature, more resembling the
galvanized corpse of a dyspeptic ourang-outang than a man, he stalked
the earth full of petty guile and mischief. His origin and reason for
settling in the place were veiled in obscurity, though naturally there
were many legends on the subject. Equally of course, he was not a
favourite locally, and he would have been sorry to have it so. A man
whose hand is raised against everybody neither courts nor expects
popularity.

One of the eccentricities of this peculiar being was a morbid love of
anything pertaining to the realm of the King of Terrors. He doted on
funerals, and was always present at the cemetery when these solemn
functions were being performed. Though somewhat stiff in the joints, he
would run a mile to see a drowned man taken out of the sea; he had been
heard to lament the fact that murderers were not hanged in public
nowadays, and that he was consequently deprived of a spectacle that
would have been as meat and drink to a starving man.

But his great opportunity came whenever it was necessary to hold an
inquest in the bright little resort. On these occasions he would thrust
himself under the notice of the police with a view to getting summoned
on the jury, and, as it saved trouble, his tactics were always
successful. Moreover, since he occupied a superior social position to
the general ruck of jurymen he was invariably chosen foreman, with the
result that he reaped a double joy--that of viewing the corpse and of
making himself disagreeable to every one concerned.

Reggie Beauchamp, therefore, on learning how their uncongenial neighbour
was occupied em