ll on
his mind when he walked into the Club veranda and joined a group of men
in the bar. Joicey, the banker, was with them, silent, morose, and moody
according to his wont, taking no particular notice of anything or
anybody. Fitzgibbon, a young Irish barrister-at-law, was talking, and
laughing and doing his best to keep the company amused, but he could get
no response out of Joicey. Hartley was received with acclamations suited
to his general reputation for popularity, and he stood talking for a
little, glad to shake off his feeling of depression. When he saw Mr.
Heath come in and go up the staircase to an upstairs room, he followed
him with his eyes and decided to take the opportunity to speak to him.

"What's the matter, Joicey?" he asked, speaking to the banker. "You look
as if you had fever."

"I'm all right," Joicey spoke absently. "It's this infernally stuffy
weather, and the evenings."

"I'm glad it's that," laughed Fitzgibbon, "I thought that it might be
me. I'm so broke that even my tea at _Chota haziri_ is getting badly
overdrawn."

"Dine with me on Saturday," suggested Hartley, "I've seen very little of
you just lately."

Joicey looked up and nodded.

"I'll come," he said, laconically, and Hartley, finishing his drink,
went up the staircase.

The reading-room of the Club was usually empty at that hour, and the
great tables littered with papers, free to any studious reader. When
Hartley came in, the Rev. Francis Heath had the place entirely to
himself, and was sitting with a copy of the _Saturday Review_ in his
hands. He did not hear Hartley come in, and he started as his name was
spoken, and putting down the _Review_, looked at the Head of the Police
with questioning eyes.

"I've come to talk over something with you, Heath," Hartley began,
drawing a chair close to the table. "Can you remember anything at all of
what you were doing on the evening of July the twenty-ninth?"

The Rev. Francis Heath dropped his paper, and stooped to pick it up;
certainly he found the evening hot, for his face ran with trickles of
perspiration.

"July the twenty-ninth?"

"Yes, that's the date. I am particularly anxious to know if you remember
it."

Mr. Heath wiped his neck with his handkerchief.

"I held service as usual at five o'clock."

Hartley looked at him; there was something undeniably strained in the
clergyman's eyes and voice.

"Ah, but what I am after took place later."

The Rev. Francis Heath moi