and 'is coat collar up to 'is ears."

"Had he his stick--or umbrella--with him then?"

"Yes. With 'is 'ands in 'is pockets, and the tip pointing upward, like
a soldier's bayonet."

"You saw that and not his face?" once more insisted the coroner,
making a final effort to draw some more definite statement out of the
man. It would help justice so much if only this witness were less
obstinate! No one would believe that he really saw nothing of the face
of the man who had twice spoken to him. He may not have seen it
clearly, not the upper part of the face perhaps, but surely he saw the
mouth that had actually framed the words!

But the chauffeur was obstinate. He was not going to swear away the
life of a man whom he had not rightly seen, only through a fog as
thick as pea soup: this was the fortress behind which after awhile he
entrenched himself.

In vain did the coroner, pleased at having gained this slight
advantage, try to draw him further, explaining to him with the quiet
patience of a man moved by official ambition that, far from
jeopardizing the life of any man, he might be saving that of an
innocent one, falsely accused through circumstantial evidence. In vain
did he press and argue, the man was obstinate. After a very long while
only, and when the coroner had almost given up arguing and
cross-examining, he admitted that he did think that the gentleman who
directed him to No. 1 Cromwell Road had a moustache.

"But, mind," he added hurriedly, "I won't swear to it, for I didn't
rightly see--the fog was that dense in the park. And 'e wasn't the
same as the one 'oo told me to go along Piccadilly until 'e stopped
me. The dead man done that."

"How do you know," came as a quick retort from the coroner, "since you
declare you could not see the faces?"

"The first gent 'oo spoke to me," replied the chauffeur somewhat
sullenly now, "'ad no 'air on 'is face; the second one I think
'ad--but I can't rightly say. I wouldn't swear to neither. And I won't
swear," he reiterated with gruff emphasis.

A sigh went round the room, a tremor of excitement, the palpitation of
many hearts, and in-drawing of many breaths. No one spoke. No one
framed the thought that was uppermost in the mind of every one of the
interested spectators of this strange and un-understandable drama. The
dead man who lay in the mortuary chamber was clean-shaved, but Luke de
Mountford wore a moustache.

Lady Ducies' feathers nodded in the direction of