for his habits were quiet and
his nature unemotional. Yet it was upon this easy-going young aristocrat
that death came in most strange and unexpected form between the hours of
ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1894.

Ronald Adair was fond of cards, playing continually, but never for such
stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin, the Cavendish,
and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that after dinner on the day
of his death he had played a rubber of whist at the latter club. He had
also played there in the afternoon. The evidence of those who had played
with him--Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran--showed that
the game was whist, and that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards.
Adair might have lost five pounds, but not more. His fortune was a
considerable one, and such a loss could not in any way affect him. He
had played nearly every day at one club or other, but he was a cautious
player, and usually rose a winner. It came out in evidence that in
partnership with Colonel Moran he had actually won as much as four
hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting some weeks before from Godfrey
Milner and Lord Balmoral. So much for his recent history, as it came out
at the inquest.

On the evening of the crime he returned from the club exactly at ten.
His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation. The
servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the second
floor, generally used as his sitting-room. She had lit a fire there, and
as it smoked she had opened the window. No sound was heard from the room
until eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of Lady Maynooth and her
daughter. Desiring to say good-night, she had attempted to enter her
son's room. The door was locked on the inside, and no answer could be
got to their cries and knocking. Help was obtained and the door forced.
The unfortunate young man was found lying near the table. His head had
been horribly mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon
of any sort was to be found in the room. On the table lay two bank-notes
for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the
money arranged in little piles of varying amount. There were some
figures also upon a sheet of paper with the names of some club friends
opposite to them, from which it was conjectured that before his death he
was endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at cards.

A minute examination of th