r to tears. "I know you meant it for the best--to make up for
my bad night--you've been very kind to me, I know! But I was due in
Welbeck Street at twelve o'clock, and now I shall have to bolt to catch
the six-thirty from St. Pancras."

"You won't catch the six-thirty from St. Pancras," replied Baumgartner,
scarcely looking up from his paper.

"I will unless I'm in some outlandish part of London!" cried Pocket,
reflecting for the first time that he had no idea in what part of London
he was. "I must catch it. It's the last train back to school. I'll get
into an awful row if I don't!"

"You'll get into a worse one if you do," rejoined the doctor, looking over
his paper, and not unfeelingly, at the boy.

"What about?"

Pocket held his breath instinctively as their eyes met. Baumgartner
answered with increased compassion and restraint, a grey look on his grey
face:

"Something that happened this morning. I fear you will be wanted here in
town about it."

"Do tell me what, sir!"

"Can you face things, my young fellow?"

"Is it about my people--my mother?" the boy cried wildly, at her funeral in
a flash.

"No--yourself."

"Then I can!"

The doctor overcame his final hesitation.

"Do you remember a man we left behind us on the grass?"

"Perfectly; the grass looked as wet as it felt just now in my dream."

"Exactly. Didn't it strike you as strange that he should be lying there
in the wet grass?"

"I thought he was drunk."

"He was dead!"

Pocket was shocked; he was more than shocked, for he had never witnessed
death before; but next moment the shock was uncontrollably mitigated by a
sudden view of the tragic incident as yet another adventure of that
adventurous night. No doubt one to retail in reverential tones, but a
most thrilling adventure none the less. He only failed to see why it
should affect him as much as the doctor suggested. True, he might be
called as witness at the inquest; his very natural density was pierced
with the awkward possibility of that. But then he had not even known the
man was dead.

Had the doctor?

Yes.

Pocket wondered why he had not been told at the time, but asked another
question first.

"What did he die of?"

"A bullet!"

"Suicide?"

"No."

"Not murder?"

"This paper says so."

"Does it say who did it?"

"It cannot."

"Can you?"

"Yes!"

"Tell me."

The doctor threw out both hands in a despairing gesture.

"Have I to tell you outrigh