rom the rector. "The man's dead," he
said, "and his confidence is at an end. Indeed, I never had it--the
case, so far as I am concerned, is over before I have even touched it. I
haven't had a chance, Plummer; and the thing is deep and dark, deep and
dark. Oh, if only the man had let me come to him in the daylight, spite
of all! This might all have been averted.... There has been a close
search here, too. See how everything is turned over. But, stay!"

A low fire smouldered in the grate, and on it lay ashes of many burnt
papers. Hewitt passed the shovel carefully under these ashes, lifted
them out and placed them gently on the table under the light of the
gas-pendant.

"I must leave you," said Plummer. "There'll be an inspector here from
the station in a moment--he won't interfere with you, and if anybody can
get information out of this room it's you. The next thing for me is
plain. I must make sure of Dr. Lawson, if he can be found."

"That is quite right, without a doubt," Hewitt responded. "I may find
anything or nothing in this room, and, meanwhile, he was the last
person known to have been here, and the only visitor, and he was not
heard to go out, unless we heard him go when we were outside the study
door. More, it was plainly some one familiar with the place who was able
to get away so quickly by the window and the garden."

"And his interest in getting rid of Mason, too--the girl of age in
a few months, and all obstacles to getting hold of her, and her money,
removed. And--and the surgical tourniquet, the Chinese colour and
everything!"

"Quite right, you must make sure of him, as you say. You will get his
address from the rector. Meanwhile I'll try to begin my little
contribution to the case--to begin it as best I can, after all the
chances have made it useless."

III

It was after nine when Plummer returned. The rector had just rejoined
Hewitt in the study, having left poor Miss Creswick, utterly broken
down, in her room, in charge of a scarcely less terrified servant.
Plummer tapped, and pushed the study door open.

"That's done clean and sure enough," he said, with professional
calmness. "And he's a cool hand, is that Dr. Lawson. But have you found
anything more? We shall want all we can get."

"We shall," Hewitt assented, "and we shall find more than we've got now,
or I'm grievously mistaken. But tell me first what you've done."

He removed the blotting pad, on which the paper ashes still