was sleepy before you came. I am quite wakeful now."

"I will compress the story as far as may be done without omitting
anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you may even have
read some account of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel
Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I am investigating."

"I have heard nothing of it."

"It has not excited much attention yet, except locally. The facts are
only two days old. Briefly they are these:

"The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the most famous Irish
regiments in the British army. It did wonders both in the Crimea and the
Mutiny, and has since that time distinguished itself upon every possible
occasion. It was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay,
a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised to
commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so
lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a musket.

"Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a sergeant, and
his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of a
former color-sergeant in the same corps. There was, therefore, as can
be imagined, some little social friction when the young couple (for
they were still young) found themselves in their new surroundings. They
appear, however, to have quickly adapted themselves, and Mrs. Barclay
has always, I understand, been as popular with the ladies of the
regiment as her husband was with his brother officers. I may add that
she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now, when she has been
married for upwards of thirty years, she is still of a striking and
queenly appearance.

"Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a uniformly happy
one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that he
has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole,
he thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater than his
wife's to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if he were absent from her for
a day. She, on the other hand, though devoted and faithful, was less
obtrusively affectionate. But they were regarded in the regiment as
the very model of a middle-aged couple. There was absolutely nothing in
their mutual relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was to
follow.

"Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some singular traits in his
character. He was a dashing, jovial old soldier in his usual mood,
but th