him a resume of them.
And--listen! we can make use of the press. Mention two matters, which
seem to me to be of importance. Tell of the man who came out of the
House of Commons with my uncle last night--ask him if he'll come
forward. And, as my uncle must have returned to this office after he'd
been home, and as he certainly wouldn't walk here, ask for information
as to who drove him down to Kensington from Portman Square. Don't tell
this man too much--give him the bare outlines on how matters stand."

The reporter wrote at lightning speed while Selwood, who had some
experience of condensation, gave him the news he wanted. Finding that he
was getting a first-class story, Triffitt asked no questions and made no
interruptions. But when Selwood was through with the account, he looked
across the table with a queer glance of the eye.

"I say!" he said. "This is a strange case!"

"Why so strange?" asked Selwood.

"Why? Great Scott!--I reckon it's an uncommonly strange case," exclaimed
Triffitt. "It's about a dead certainty that Herapath was in his own
house at Portman Square at one o'clock, isn't it?"

"Well?" said Selwood.

"And yet according to the doctor who examined him at eight o'clock he'd
been dead quite eight hours!" said Triffitt. "That means he died at
twelve o'clock--an hour before he's supposed to have been at his house!
Queer! But all the queerer, all the better--for me! Now I'm off--for the
present. This'll be on the streets in an hour, Mr. Selwood. Nothing like
the press, sir!"

Therewith he fled, and the secretary suddenly found himself confronting
a new idea. If the doctor was right and Jacob Herapath had been shot
dead at midnight, how on earth could he possibly have been in Portman
Square at one o'clock, an hour later?

CHAPTER V

THE GLASS AND THE SANDWICH

Mr. Tertius, dismissed in such cavalier fashion by Barthorpe Herapath,
walked out of the estate office with downcast head--a superficial
observer might have said that he was thoroughly crestfallen and
brow-beaten. But by the time he had reached the road outside, the two
faint spots of colour which had flushed his cheeks when Barthorpe turned
him away had vanished, and he was calm and collected enough when, seeing
a disengaged taxi-cab passing by, he put up his hand and hailed it. The
voice which bade the driver go to Portman Square was calm enough,
too--Mr. Tertius had too much serious work immediately in prospect to
allow himself t