l be quite familiar to
you. He made himself so ill that his doctor naturally concluded that he
was dying. As a matter of fact, he was dying. Had he gone on in the same
way another day he would have been dead. Instead of this he drops the
dosing and, going to his doctor in disguise, says that he _is_ dead. He
gets a certificate of his own demise, and there you are. I am not
telling you fiction, but hard fact recorded in a high-class paper. The
doctor gave the certificate without viewing the body. Well, it struck me
that we had here the making of a good story, and I vaguely outlined it
for a certain editor. In my synopsis I suggested that it was a woman who
proposed to pretend to die thus so as to lull the suspicions of a
villain to sleep, and thus possess herself of certain vital documents.
My synopsis falls into certain hands. The owner of those hands asks me
how the thing was done. I tell her. In other words, the so-called murder
that you imagined you had discovered to-night was the result of design.
Walker will give his certificate, Reginald Henson will regard Miss
Christiana as dead and buried, and she will be free to act for the
honour of the family."

"But they might have employed somebody else."

"Who would have had to be told the history of the family dishonour. So
far I fancy I have made the ground quite clear. But the mystery of the
cigar-case and the notes and the poor fellow in the hospital is still as
much a mystery as ever. We are like two allied forces working together,
but at the same time under the disadvantage of working in the dark. You
can see, of course, that the awful danger I stand in is as terrible for
those poor girls."

"Of course I do. Still, we have a key to your trouble. It is a
dreadfully rusty one and will want a deal of oiling before it's used,
but there it is."

"Where, my dear fellow, where?" David asked.

"Why, in the Sussex County Hospital, of course. The man may die, in
which case everything must be sacrificed in order to save your good
name. On the other hand, he may get better, and then he will tell us all
about it."

"He might. On the other hand, he might plead ignorance. It is possible
for him to suggest that the whole affair was merely a coincidence, so far
as he was concerned."

"Yes, but he would have to explain how he burgled your house, and what
business he had to get himself half murdered in your conservatory. Let us
get out here and walk the rest of the way to your