rible death.... Across the room the object of his
suspicions continued to sit calmly figuring in a notebook, never
glancing around. His attitude was a declaration of the fact that the
young man behind him was an excitable firebrand, whose behaviour was
scarcely worth troubling about. Let him alone, he will come to his
senses, that broad, imperturbable back seemed to say....

Suddenly a revulsion swept over Roger. He felt a bit of an ass. Of
course there could be no truth in this mad story, such things didn't
happen. Though of course if it was entirely fiction, it put Esther in
a queer light, however you looked at it. Either it was the result of
those "confusional attacks" the doctor had hinted at, or she was, as
both doctors now implied, a victim of morphia-mania.... Unthinkable!
Esther!

What was this noise outside the door? Confused voices reached him
speaking in French, together with the heavy tread of several men, who
apparently were tramping up the stairs. The following instant Chalmers
threw open the door, his face a study.

"The police, sir," he announced.

Roger sprang to his feet.

CHAPTER XXXV

"The police!"

"Yes, sir, three officers. They say someone telephoned for them, but I
can't for the life of me say who it could have been, sir. Who would
want to?"

In blank astonishment Roger stared as three men in uniform filed into
the room and stood at attention. Two wore the regulation dress of
sergents-de-ville, the third was clearly of superior rank. He was an
aggressive, youngish fellow with a sharp, sallow face and a black,
bristly moustache, cut very short. He began by eyeing Roger all over
with a sort of dark suspicion, then addressed him in French.

"I take it that you are Monsieur Clifford?" he interrogated accusingly,
keeping his smouldering black eyes fixed on Roger's face, while with
his right hand he brought a notebook out of his pocket.

"Certainly my name is Clifford, but perhaps you will be good enough to
inform me why you----"

"That can wait. You are English, monsieur?"

"Naturally. And I refuse to answer another question until you tell me
how in thunder you come to be here," replied Roger, rapidly losing his
temper.

"English, British subject," muttered the officer, writing busily with a
stump of a pencil and ignoring utterly Roger's statement. "Occupation,
monsieur?"

"Who sent for you to come here?" demanded Roger, more and more irate.

The question h