r name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There's nothing
sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he's one. Anyhow,
apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn't find,
for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather
well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas
had made an enemy of him, for he's been giving evidence pretty freely to
the police--lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following
up the scent, tracking down the person he'd been hired by Dundas to hunt
for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there
he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and
the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold."

"What time was all that?" enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first
question she had asked.

"Between midnight and one o'clock, I think the papers said," answered
Lord Bob.

"Well, of course it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently.
"French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The
idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They
ought to know better. They'll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging
England's pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won't
they, Eric?"

"I'm afraid there's no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of
the authorities, or of eating humble-pie," Uncle Eric said. "The
evidence--entirely circumstantial so far, luckily--is dead against Ivor.
And as for his being a British subject, there's nothing in that. If an
Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he's left to the French
law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman."

"But Ivor hasn't committed murder!" cried Aunt Lilian, horrified.

"Of course not. But he's got to prove that he hasn't. And in that he's
worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a
man innocent until he's been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary,
presumes that he's guilty until he's proved innocent. In face of the
evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn't have done otherwise than
they have done."

For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian's husband. I
do hate that cold, stern "sense of justice" on which men pride
themselves so much, whether it's an affair of a friend or an enemy!

"Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an--an--don't you call
it an alibi?" asked Lis