nce
it is the business of a client--and in course of it I came upon the
other affair."

"Then before I ask what you know of that mysterious event, Mr. Hewitt,
I will tell you my story, so that you may judge whether you are able to
reveal anything, or to do anything. Of course, what I say is in the
strictest confidence."

"Of course."

"I have a parishioner, a Mr. Jacob Mason, of whom I have seen very
little of late years--scarcely anything at all, in fact, till a few days
ago. He is fairly well to do, I believe, living a somewhat retired life
in a house not far from my rectory. For many years he has laboured at
natural science--chemistry in particular--and he has a very excellently
fitted laboratory attached to his house. He is a widower, with no
children of his own, but his orphan niece, a Miss Creswick, lives under
his guardianship. Mr. Mason was never a very regular church-goer, but
years ago I saw much more of him than I have of late. I must be
perfectly frank with you, Mr. Hewitt, if you are to help me, and
therefore I must tell you that we disagreed on points of religion, in
such a way that I found it difficult to maintain my former regard for
Mr. Mason. He had a curiously fantastic mind, and he was constantly
being led to tamper with things that I think are best left alone--what
is called spiritualism, for instance, and that horrible form of modern
superstition which we hear whispers of at times from the Continent--the
alleged devil-propitiation or worship. It was not that he did anything I
thought morally wrong, you understand--except that he dabbled. And he
was always running after some new thing--animal magnetism, or telepathy,
or crystal-gazing, or theosophy, or some one of the score of such things
that have an attraction for a mind of that sort. And it was a
characteristic of each new enthusiasm with him that it prompted him to
try to convert _me_; and that in such terms--terms often applied to the
doctrines of that religion of which I am a humble minister--as I could
in nowise permit in my presence. So that our friendly intercourse,
though not interrupted by any definite breaking off, fell away to almost
nothing. For which reason I was a little surprised to receive a visit
from Mr. Mason on the afternoon of the day on which the newspapers
printed the report of the finding of the body of Denson. You may
remember that only one morning paper mentioned the matter, and that very
briefly; but there were full