tely mad for the time
being. I know him well enough to be sure of that."

"Yes--yes," said Mr. Flexen slowly. "It's a tenable theory, doubtless.
But about your quarrel with him."

"A few days before he died he talked about halving my allowance. And, of
course, I was frightfully annoyed about it. I wanted to have it out with
him--I meant to--but I knew that he'd never let me get near him, if he
could help it. But I knew, too, that he sat in the smoking-room every
evening after dinner, and generally went to sleep. You know everything
about every one in the country, you know. And I determined to take him by
surprise, and I did. We did have a row, for I was frightfully angry. It
seemed so mean. But he stopped it by telling me that he had instructed
his bankers--we have the same bankers--to pay twelve thousand pounds into
my account instead of allowing me six hundred a year."

There was just the faintest change in her voice as she spoke the last
sentence, and it did not escape Mr. Flexen's sensitive ear. He thought
that the whole story had been rehearsed; it sounded so. But she spoke the
last sentence just a little more quickly. The rest of the story rang
true, or, at any rate, truer.

"Twelve thousand pounds," he said slowly. "And did Lord Loudwater tell
you when he instructed his bankers?"

"No. But it must have been that very day. The letter must have been in
the post, in fact, for two mornings later I received a letter from the
bank telling me that they had credited me with that amount--the morning
after the inquest, I think it was."

"I see," said Mr. Flexen, and he paused, considering the story. Then he
said: "And were you surprised at all at his doing this?"

"Yes, I was," she said frankly. "It didn't seem like him. But since I've
wondered whether he had made up his mind to commit suicide and wished to
leave things quite straight."

It was a plausible theory, but Mr. Flexen did not believe that Lord
Loudwater had committed suicide.

"I suppose that your husband knows all about it?" he said at random.

"He may, and he may not. He hasn't said anything to me about it," she
said.

"Then we may take it that he did not write the letter of instruction to
the bankers," said Mr. Flexen.

"Oh, he might have done and still have said nothing about it. He has a
very sensitive delicacy and might have thought it my business and not
his. I haven't told him about the twelve thousand pounds yet. I don't
bother him about