ng back into the tone which Langholm had resented on the shore; he
took no notice of it now.

"The first point," said Langholm, slowly, "is that he was in Chelsea, or
at least within a mile of the scene of the murder, on the night that it
took place."

"So were a good many people," remarked Steel, smiling as he dipped the
sculls in and out, and let his supple wrists fall for the feather, as
though he were really rowing.

"But he left his--he was out at the time!" declared Langholm, making his
amended statement with all the meaning it had for himself.

"Well, you can't hang him for that."

"He will have to prove where he was, then."

"I am afraid it will be for you to prove a little more first."

Langholm sat very dogged with his notes. There had been a pause on
Steel's part; there was a thin new note in his voice. Langholm was too
grimly engrossed to take immediate heed of either detail, or to watch
the swift changes in the face which was watching him. And there he lost
most of all.

"The next point is that he undoubtedly knew Minchin in Australia--"

"Aha!"

"That he was and is a rich man, whereas Minchin was then on the verge of
bankruptcy, and that Minchin only found out that he was in England
thirty-six hours before his own death, when he wrote to his old friend
for funds."

"And you have really established all that!"

Steel had abandoned all pretence of rowing; his tone was one of
admiration, in both senses of the word, and his dark eyes seemed to
penetrate to the back of Langholm's brain.

"I can establish it," was the reply.

"Well! I think you have done wonders; but you will have to do something
more before they will listen to you at Scotland Yard. What about a
motive?"

"I was coming to that; it is the last point with which I shall trouble
you for the present." Langholm took a final glance at his notes, then
shut the pocket-book and put it away. "The motive," he continued,
meeting Steel's eyes at last, with a new boldness in his own--"the
motive is self-defence! There can be no doubt about it; there cannot be
the slightest doubt that Minchin intended blackmailing this man, at
least to the extent of his own indebtedness in the City of London."

"Blackmailing him?"

There was a further change of voice and manner; and this time nothing
was lost upon Charles Langholm.

"There cannot be the slightest doubt," he reiterated, "that Minchin was
in possession of a secret concerning the man in my m