be alone for five minutes in
order to investigate it!

The inspector, having dismissed the constable and sent him back to his
post to unlock the door for the detective to pass out, next turned his
attention to the servants and the remainder of the house. With that
object we all descended to the dining-room.

Ethelwynn met us at the foot of the stairs, still wearing the shawl
about her head and shoulders. She placed a trembling hand upon my arm
as I passed, asking in a low anxious voice:

"Have you found anything, Ralph? Tell me."

"No, nothing," I replied, and then passed into the dining-room, where
the nurse and domestics had been assembled.

The nurse, a plain matter-of-fact woman, was the first person to be
questioned. She explained to us how she had given her patient his last
dose of medicine at half-past eleven, just after Miss Mivart had
wished her good-night and retired to her room. Previously she had been
down in the drawing-room chatting with the young lady. The man Short
was then upstairs with his master.

"Was the deceased gentleman aware of his wife's absence?" the
inspector asked presently.

"Yes. He remarked to me that it was time she returned. I presume that
Short had told him."

"What time was this?"

"Oh! about half-past ten, I should think," replied Nurse Kate. "He
said something about it being a bad night to go out to a theatre, and
hoped she would not take cold."

"He was not angry?"

"Not in the least. He was never angry when she went to town. He used
to say to me, 'My wife's a young woman, nurse. She wants a little
amusement sometimes, and I'm sure I don't begrudge it to her.'"

This puzzled me quite as much as it puzzled the detective. I had
certainly been under the impression that husband and wife had
quarrelled over the latter's frequent absences from home. Indeed, in a
household where the wife is young and the husband elderly, quarrels of
that character are almost sure to occur sooner or later. As a doctor I
knew the causes of domestic infelicity in a good many homes. Men in my
profession see a good deal, and hear more. Every doctor could unfold
strange tales of queer households if he were not debarred by the bond
of professional secrecy.

"You heard no noise during the night?" inquired the inspector.

"None. I'm a light sleeper as a rule, and wake at the slightest
sound," the woman replied. "But I heard absolutely nothing."

"Anyone, in order to enter the dead man's room, m