police whistle shrieked, and P. C. Habit broke into a
run in the direction of the sound, blowing his own whistle as he ran.

He arrived to find three men, two undoubtedly dead on the ground, and
the third, Mr. Farrington's unpicturesque figure, standing shivering in
the doorway of his house, a police whistle at his lips, and his grey
velvet dressing-gown flapping in a chill eastern wind.

Ten minutes later T. B. Smith arrived on the scene from his house, to
find a crowd of respectable size, half the bedroom windows of Brakely
Square occupied by the morbid and the curious, and the police ambulance
already on the spot.

"Dead, sir," reported the constable.

T. B. looked at the men on the ground. They were obviously foreigners.
One was well, almost richly dressed; the other wore the shabby evening
dress of a waiter, under the long ulster which covered him from neck to
foot.

The men lay almost head to head. One flat on his face (he had been in
this position when the constable found him, and had been restored to
that position when the methodical P. C. Habit found that he was beyond
human assistance) and the other huddled on his side.

The police kept the crowd at a distance whilst the head of the secret
police (T. B. Smith's special department merited that description) made
a careful examination. He found a pistol on the ground, and another
under the figure of the huddled man, then as the police ambulance was
backed to the pavement, he interviewed the shivering Mr. Farrington.

"If you will come upstairs," said that chilled millionaire, "I will tell
you all I know."

T. B. sniffed the hall as he entered, but said nothing. He had his
olfactory sense developed to an abnormal degree, but he was a tactful
and a silent man.

He knew Mr. Farrington--who did not?--both as a new neighbour and as the
possessor of great wealth.

"Your daughter----" he began.

"My ward," corrected Mr. Farrington, as he switched on all the lights of
his sitting-room, "she is out--in fact she is staying the night with my
friend Lady Constance Dex--do you know her?"

T. B. nodded.

"I can only give you the most meagre information," said Mr. Farrington.
He was white and shaky, a natural state for a law-abiding man who had
witnessed wilful murder. "I heard voices and went down to the door,
thinking I would find a policeman--then I heard two shots almost
simultaneously, and opened the door and found the two men as they were
found by the pol