e hotly, "you are not going to let this
scoundrel cheat the gallows after all?"

"The best use you can make of the gallows is to cheat it, Louis,"
replied Carrados. "Have you ever reflected what human beings will
think of us a hundred years hence?"

"Oh, of course I'm not really in favour of hanging," admitted Mr.
Carlyle.

"Nobody really is. But we go on hanging. Mr. Drishna is a dangerous
animal who for the sake of pacific animals must cease to exist. Let
his barbarous exploit pass into oblivion with him. The disadvantages
of spreading it broadcast immeasurably outweigh the benefits."

"I have considered," announced Drishna. "I will do as you wish."

"Very well," said Carrados. "Here is some plain notepaper. You had
better write a letter to someone saying that the financial
difficulties in which you are involved make life unbearable."

"But there are no financial difficulties--now."

"That does not matter in the least. It will be put down to an
hallucination and taken as showing the state of your mind."

"But what guarantee have we that he will not escape?" whispered Mr.
Carlyle.

"He cannot escape," replied Carrados tranquilly. "His identity is too
clear."

"I have no intention of trying to escape," put in Drishna, as he
wrote. "You hardly imagine that I have not considered this
eventuality, do you?"

"All the same," murmured the ex-lawyer, "I should like to have a jury
behind me. It is one thing to execute a man morally; it is another to
do it almost literally."

"Is that all right?" asked Drishna, passing across the letter he had
written.

Carrados smiled at this tribute to his perception.

"Quite excellent," he replied courteously. "There is a train at
nine-forty. Will that suit you?"

Drishna nodded and stood up. Mr. Carlyle had a very uneasy feeling
that he ought to do something but could not suggest to himself what.

The next moment he heard his friend heartily thanking the visitor for
the assistance he had been in the matter of the Indo-Scythian
inscription, as they walked across the hall together. Then a door
closed.

"I believe that there is something positively uncanny about Max at
times," murmured the perturbed gentleman to himself.

THE TRAGEDY AT BROOKBEND COTTAGE

"Max," said Mr. Carlyle, when Parkinson had closed the door behind
him, "this is Lieutenant Hollyer, whom you consented to see."

"To hear," corrected Carrados, smiling straight into the healthy and
rather e