,' etc., etc.

By slow degrees the details came to light, but the case still remained a
mystery. The chief witness at the inquest was the dead nobleman's valet,
who said that the night before his death Lord Argentine had dined with a
lady of good position, whose name was suppressed in the newspaper
reports. At about eleven o'clock Lord Argentine had returned, and
informed his man that he should not require his services till the next
morning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and was
somewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out at the
front door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was dressed in a
Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat. The valet had
no reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him, and though his
master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the occurrence till the
next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door at a quarter to nine
as usual. He received no answer, and, after knocking two or three
times, entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine's body leaning forward
at an angle from the bottom of the bed. He found that his master had
tied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts, and, after making a
running noose and slipping it round his neck, the unfortunate man must
have resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow strangulation. He was
dressed in the light suit in which the valet had seen him go out, and
the doctor who was summoned pronounced that life had been extinct for
more than four hours. All papers, letters, and so forth seemed in
perfect order, and nothing was discovered which pointed in the most
remote way to any scandal either great or small. Here the evidence
ended; nothing more could be discovered. Several persons had been
present at the dinner-party at which Lord Argentine had assisted, and to
all these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet, indeed, said
he thought his master appeared a little excited when he came home, but
he confessed that the alteration in his manner was very slight, hardly
noticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any clue, and the
suggestion that Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked by acute
suicidal mania was generally accepted.

It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more
gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good
position and ample means, perished miserably in almost precisely the
same manner. Lord Swanleigh was fo