ng mouth told of little
sleep, of nerves ready to snap. He was untidy, too, and a three days'
beard hardly improved him.

"I'm glad it's you," he said, by way of greeting. "I was afraid you'd
have gone to bed."

"It's the top of the evening yet," I replied perfunctorily, as I led the
way into the library. Once inside, Wardrop closed the door and looked
around him like an animal at bay.

"I came here," he said nervously, looking at the windows, "because I had
an idea you'd keep your head. Mine's gone; I'm either crazy, or I'm on
my way there."

"Sit down, man," I pushed a chair to him. "You don't look as if you have
been in bed for a couple of nights."

He went to each of the windows and examined the closed shutters before
he answered me.

"I haven't. You wouldn't go to bed either, if you thought you would
never wake up."

"Nonsense."

"Well, it's true enough. Knox, there are people following me wherever I
go; they eat where I eat; if I doze in my chair they come into my
dreams!" He stopped there, then he laughed a little wildly. "That last
isn't sane, but it's true. There's a man across the street now, eating
an apple under a lamppost."

"Suppose you _are_ under surveillance," I said. "It's annoying to have a
detective following you around, but it's hardly serious. The police say
now that Mr. Fleming killed himself; that was your own contention."

He leaned forward in his chair and, resting his hands on his knees,
gazed at me somberly.

"Suppose I say he didn't kill himself?" slowly. "Suppose I say he was
murdered? Suppose--good God--suppose I killed him myself?"

I drew back in stupefaction, but he hurried on.

"For the last two days I've been wondering--if I did it! He hadn't any
weapon; I had one, his. I hated him that day; I had tried to save him,
and couldn't. My God, Knox, I might have gone off my head and done
it--and not remember it. There have been cases like that."

His condition was pitiable. I looked around for some whisky, but the
best I could do was a little port on the sideboard. When I came back he
was sitting with bent head, his forehead on his palms.

"I've thought it all out," he said painfully. "My mother had spells of
emotional insanity. Perhaps I went there, without knowing it, and killed
him. I can see him, in the night, when I daren't sleep, toppling over on
to that table, with a bullet wound in his head, and I am in the room,
and I have his revolver in my pocket!"

"You giv