together, putting finger to
finger, with the gesture of one who is dealing with a youthful mind,
and has much to explain.

"Look here, Will," he resumed, "I have three men standing in my outer
office at the present moment. Two of them have come back after having
questioned the past servants of the Grosvenor Square household. There
was the butler Parker, and an elderly housekeeper, both of whom are in
service in the West End. The woman tried to screen Luke and to make
light of the many quarrels which broke out between the cousins on all
possible occasions; but she broke down under our fellows' sharp
questions. She had to admit that the arrogance of the one man often
drove the other to unguarded language, and that she had on more than
one occasion heard the men servants of the house say that they would
not be astonished if murder ensued one day. Well, we have these two
witnesses, and can easily get hold of the two or three footmen who
expressed those particular views. So much for the past six months. Now
for last night. The third man who is out there waiting for me to see
him is Frederick Power, hall porter at the Veterans' Club. The story
which he told to our Mr. Travers is so important in its minutest
detail, that I have decided to question him myself so that I may leave
no possible loop-hole to doubt or to inaccuracy in the retelling. I am
going to send for the man now. You come and sit round here, the other
side of my desk; from this position you will be able to watch the
man's face, as well as hear what he has got to say. Now, would you
like that?"

"Right you are, Tom," was Colonel Harris's brief method of
acknowledging his brother-in-law's kindness, in thus breaking a piece
of red tape, and setting aside a very strict official rule. He did as
Sir Thomas directed, and sat down in the recess behind the chief's
desk, in a comfortable arm-chair with his back to the curtained
window.

He would not acknowledge even to himself how deeply stirred he was by
all that he had heard, and now by the anticipation of what was yet to
come. Emotion--like he was experiencing now--had never come his way
before now. He had lost his only son on the Modder River--that had
been sorrow of an acute kind; he had laid a much loved wife to rest in
the village churchyard close to his stately home in Kent; and he had
escorted his late beloved sovereign to her last resting place on that
never-to-be-forgotten day close on five years ago now;