suddenly. It was evident that I had renewed
an old train of thought.

"For instance?" I suggested, but he was on guard again.

"You forget one thing, Knox," he said, after a moment. "There was nobody
else who could have shot him: the room was empty."

"Nonsense," I replied. "Don't forget the warehouse."

"The warehouse!"

"There is no doubt in my mind that he was shot from there. He was facing
the open window, sitting directly under the light, writing. A shot fired
through a broken pane of one of the warehouse windows would meet every
requirement of the case: the empty room, the absence of powder
marks--even the fact that no shot was heard. There was a report, of
course, but the noise in the club-house and the thunder-storm outside
covered it."

"By George!" he exclaimed. "The warehouse, of course. I never thought of
it." He was relieved, for some reason.

"It's a question now of how many people knew he was at the club, and
which of them hated him enough to kill him."

"Clarkson knew it," Wardrop said, "but he didn't do it."

"Why?"

"Because it was he who came to the door of the room while the detective
and you and I were inside, and called Fleming."

I pulled out my pocket-book and took out the scrap of paper which
Margery had found pinned to the pillow in her father's bedroom. "Do you
know what that means?" I asked, watching Wardrop's face. "That was found
in Mr. Fleming's room two days after he left home. A similar scrap was
found in Miss Jane Maitland's room when she disappeared. When Fleming
was murdered, he was writing a letter; he said: 'The figures have
followed me here.' When we know what those figures mean, Wardrop, we
know why he was killed and who did it."

He shook his head hopelessly.

"I do not know," he said, and I believed him. He had got up and taken
his hat, but I stopped him inside the door.

"You can help this thing in two ways," I told him. "I am going to give
you something to do: you will have less time to be morbid. Find out, if
you can, all about Fleming's private life in the last dozen years,
especially the last three. See if there are any women mixed up in it,
and try to find out something about this eleven twenty-two."

"Eleven twenty-two," he repeated, but I had not missed his change of
expression when I said women.

"Also," I went on, "I want you to tell me who was with you the night you
tried to break into the house at Bellwood."

He was taken completely by surprise