s he
would be to find an organ-grinder sitting on his doorstep.

"Have you come to any conclusions as to the means of death, Doctor?"
asked Cleek after he had been shown into the Stone Drum, where the
body of the dead man still lay and where the local coroner and
the local J. P. were conducting a sort of preliminary examination
prior to the regulation inquest, which must, of course, follow. "The
general appearance would suggest asphyxia, if asphyxia were possible."

"Which it is not," volunteered Doctor Hague, with the geniality of
a snowball. "You have probably observed that the many slits in the
wall permit of free ventilation; and asphyxia with free ventilation
is an impossibility."

"Quite so," agreed Cleek placidly. "But if by any chance those
slits could have been closed from the outside--I observe that at
some period and for some purpose Mr. Drake has made use of a charcoal
furnace"--indicating it by a wave of the hand--"and apparently with
no other vent to carry off the fumes than that supplied by the
slits. Now if they were closed and the charcoal left burning, the
result would be an atmosphere charged with carbon monoxide gas,
and a little more than one per cent. of that in the air of a room
deprived of ventilation would, in a short time, prove fatal to any
person breathing that air."

The doctor twitched round an inquiring eye, and looked him over from
head to foot.

"Yes," he said, remembering that, after all, there were Board
Schools, and even the humblest might sometimes learn, parrot-like,
to repeat the "things that are in books." "But we happen to know
that the slits were not closed and that neither carbon oxide nor
carbon monoxide was the cause of death."

"You have taken samples of the blood, of course, to establish that
fact beyond question, as one could so readily do?" ventured Cleek
suavely. "The test for carbon monoxide is so simple and so very
certain that error is impossible. It combines so tensely, if one
may put it that way, with the blood, that the colouring of the red
corpuscles is utterly overcome and destroyed."

"My good sir, those are elementary facts of which I do not stand in
need of a reminder."

"Quite so, quite so. But in my profession, Doctor, one stands in
constant need of 'reminders.' A speck, a spot, a pin-prick--each
and all are significant, and----But is this not a slight abrasion
on the temple here?" bending over and, with his glass, examining a
minute reddish spec