to talk about
lasts, and finally it seems that I dined at the Trocadero and spent the
evening at the Empire and Murray's with the two very obvious-looking
young ladies who accosted me just now. I am beginning to believe that
Douglas' life was not above suspicion."

She smiled at him tolerantly. An unopened book lay by her side. She
seemed to have been spending the last quarter of an hour in thought.

"I am rather relieved to hear," she confessed, "that those two young
people are a heritage from the other Mr. Romilly. No, don't sit down,"
she went on. "I want you to do something for me. Go into the library, and
on the left-hand side as you enter you will see all the wireless news.
Read the bottom item and then come back to me."

He turned slowly away. All his new-found buoyancy of spirits had
suddenly left him. He cursed the imagination which lifted his feet from
the white decks and dragged his eyes from the sparkling blue sea to the
rain-soaked, smut-blackened fields riven by that long thread of bleak,
turgid water. The horrors of a murderous passion beat upon his brain.
He saw himself hastening, grim and blind, on his devil-sped mission. Then
the haze faded from before his eyes. Somehow or other he accomplished his
errand. He was in the library, standing in front of those many sheets of
typewritten messages, passing them all over, heedless of what their
message might be, until he came to the last and most insignificant.
Four lines, almost overlapped by another sheet--

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF A LONDON ART TEACHER

SUICIDE FEARED

Acting upon instructions received, the police
are investigating a somewhat curious case of
disappearance. Philip Romilly, a teacher of art in
a London school, visited Detton Magna on Friday
afternoon and apparently started for a walk along
the canal bank, towards dusk. Nothing has since
been heard of him or his movements, and
arrangements have been made to drag the canal
at a certain point.

The letters seemed to grow larger to him as he stood and read. He
remained in front of the message for an inordinately long time. Again his
imagination was at work. He saw the whole ghastly business, the police on
the canal banks, watching the slow progress of the men with their drags
bringing to the surface all the miserable refuse of the turgid waters,
the dripping black mud, perhaps at last....

He was back again on the deck, walking quite steadily yet seeing little.
H