a would
never have occurred to a man. The chain and padlock with which to
fasten them. She only could have known that such things were in the
house. It must have been she who had planned the exchange of clothes
in Hepworth's office, giving him the key. She it must have been who
had thought of the pond, holding open the door while the man had
staggered out under his ghastly burden; waited, keeping watch,
listening to hear the splash.

Evidently it had been her intention to go off with the murderer--to
live with him! That story about America. If all had gone well, it
would have accounted for everything. After leaving Laleham Gardens she
had taken lodgings in a small house in Kentish Town under the name of
Howard, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her husband being an
actor on tour. To make the thing plausible, she had obtained
employment in one of the pantomimes. Not for a moment had she lost her
head. No one had ever called at her lodgings, and there had come no
letters for her. Every hour of her day could be accounted for. Their
plans must have been worked out over the corpse of her murdered
husband. She was found guilty of being an "accessory after the fact,"
and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude.

That brought the story up to eleven years ago. After the trial,
interested in spite of himself, my friend had ferreted out some further
particulars. Inquiries at Liverpool had procured him the information
that Hepworth's father, a shipowner in a small way, had been well known
and highly respected. He was retired from business when he died, some
three years previous to the date of the murder. His wife had survived
him by only a few months. Besides Michael, the murdered son, there
were two other children--an elder brother, who was thought to have gone
abroad to one of the colonies, and a sister who had married a French
naval officer. Either they had not heard of the case or had not wished
to have their names dragged into it. Young Michael had started life as
an architect, and was supposed to have been doing well, but after the
death of his parents had disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, until
the trial, none of his acquaintances up North ever knew what had become
of him.

But a further item of knowledge that my friend's inquiries had elicited
had somewhat puzzled him. Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, had been the
confidential clerk of Hepworth's father! He had entered the service of
th