skers. "I
wonder, now--you've read the case, Chetwode?"

"Every word of it," Arnold admitted.

"Have you formed any idea yourself as to the motive?" Mr. Weatherley
asked nervously.

Arnold shook his head.

"At present there seems nothing to go on, sir," he remarked. "I did
hear it said that some one was trying to blackmail him and Mr.
Rosario wasn't having any."

Mr. Weatherley pushed his scant hair back with his hand. He appeared
to feel the heat of the office.

"You've heard that, too, eh?" he muttered. "It occurred to me from
the first, Chetwode. It certainly did occur to me. You will remember
that I mentioned it."

"What did your brother-in-law think of it, sir?" Arnold asked. "He
and Mr. Rosario seemed to be very great friends. They were talking
together for a long time that night at your house."

Mr. Weatherley jumped to his feet and threw open the window. The air
which entered the office from the murky street was none of the
best, but he seemed to find it welcome. Arnold was shocked to see
his face when he turned around.

"The Count Sabatini is a very extraordinary man," Mr. Weatherley
confessed. "He and his friends come to my house, but to tell you the
truth I don't know much about them. Mrs. Weatherley wishes to have
them there and that is quite enough for me. All the same, I don't
feel that they're exactly the sort of people I've been used to,
Chetwode, and that's a fact."

Mr. Weatherley had resumed his seat. He was leaning back in his
chair now, his hands drooping to his side, looking precisely what he
was--an ungraceful, commonplace little person, without taste or
culture, upon whom even a good tailor seemed to have wasted
his efforts. A certain pomposity which in a way became the
man--proclaimed his prosperity and redeemed him from complete
insignificance--had for a moment departed. He was like a pricked
bladder. Arnold could scarcely help feeling sorry for him.

"I shouldn't allow these things to worry me, if I were you, sir,"
Arnold suggested respectfully. "If there is anything which you don't
understand, I should ask for an explanation. Mrs. Weatherley is much
too kind and generous to wish you to be worried, I am sure."

Then the side of the man with which Arnold wholly sympathized showed
itself suddenly. At the mention of his wife's name an expression
partly fatuous, partly beatific, transformed his homely features. He
was looking at her picture which stood always opposite him. He had