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 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 banknotes 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 the circumstances served only to make the case
more complex. In the first place, no reason could be given why the
young man should have fastened the door upon the i