d Clyne; "always thought the world was against
him, and folks wanted to get quit of him."

"He said he had enemies," hinted Lucian.

"You bet! He no doubt made out that all Europe was against him," said
Clyne. "That was my son-in-law all over. Lyddy and he had a tiff, just
like other married couples, and he clears out to lie low in an
out-of-the-way shanty in Pimlico. I tell you, gentlemen, that Vrain had
a chip out of his head. He fancied things, he did; but no one wanted to
harm him that I know of."

"Yet he died a violent death," said Denzil gravely.

"That's a frozen fact, sir," cried Clyne, "and both Lyddy and I want to
lynch the reptile as did it; but we neither of us know who laid him
out."

"I'm sure I don't," said Mrs. Vrain in a weeping voice. "Every one that
I knew was civil to him; he had no one who wanted to kill him when he
left Berwin Manor. Why he went away, or how he died, I can't say."

"If you want to know how he died," explained Link, "I can tell you. He
was stabbed."

"So the journals said; with a bowie!"

"No, not with a bowie," corrected Lucian, "but with some long, sharp
instrument."

"A dagger?" suggested Clyne.

"I should be even more precise," said Denzil slowly. "I should say a
stiletto--an Italian stiletto."

"A stiletto!" gasped Mrs. Vrain, whose delicate pink colour had faded to
a chalky white. "Oh!--oh! I--I--" and she fainted forthwith.

CHAPTER VII

THE ASSURANCE MONEY

Mrs. Vrain's fainting fit was of no great duration, and she shortly
recovered her senses, but not her sprightliness. Her excuse was that the
long discussion of her husband's murder, and the too precise details
related to her by Link before Denzil's arrival, had so wrought on her
nerves as to occasion her temporary indisposition.

This reason, which was a trifle weak, since she seemed to bear her
husband's loss with great stoicism, awakened suspicions in Lucian's mind
as to her truthfulness. However, these were too vague and confused to be
put into words, so the young man remained silent until Mrs. Vrain and
her father departed. This they did almost immediately, after the widow
had given her London and country addresses to the detective, in case he
should require her in the conduct of the case.

This matter being attended to, she left the room, with a parting smile
and especial bow to Lucian.

Link smiled in his turn as he observed this Parthian shaft, the shooting
of which was certainly out