ng in his idea it was done to put
us off the scent."

"Possibly--but it strikes me as a derned feeble dodge. However, what's
your next conclusion?"

"My next conclusion is, sir, that Simon Rattar may not be so vera far
wrong either about Sir Reginald hearing some one at the door and
starting to see who it was. Then--bang!--the door would suddenly open,
and afore he'd time to speak, the man had given him a bat on the heid
that finished him."

"And where does the table come in?"

"Well, my explanation is just this, that Sir Reginald suspected
something and took the wee table as a kind of weapon."

"Rot!" said Ned ruthlessly. "You think he left the fireplace and went
round by the window to fetch such a useless weapon as that?"

James Bisset was not easily damped.

"That's only a possibility, sir. Excluding that, what must have
happened? For that's the way, Mr. Cromarty, to get at the fac's; you
just exclude what's not possible and what remains is the truth. If you'd
read----"

"Well, come on. What's your theory now?"

"Just that Sir Reginald backed away from the door with the man after
him, till he got to the table. And then down went him and the table
together."

"And why didn't he cry out or raise the alarm in some way while he was
backing away?"

"God, but that fits into my other deductions fine!" cried Bisset. "I
hadna thought of that. Just wait, sir, till you see how the case is
going to hang together in a minute."

"But how did Sir Reginald's body come to be lying near the door?"

The philosopher seemed to be inspired afresh.

"The man clearly meant to take it away and hide it somewhere--that'll be
just it! And then he found it ower heavy and decided to leave it after
all."

"And who was this man?"

"That's precisely where proper principles, Mr. Cromarty, lead to a
number of vera interesting and instructive discoveries, and I think
ye'll see, sir, that the noose is on the road to his neck already. I've
not got the actual man, mind! In fac' I've no idea who he is, but I can
tell you a good few things about him--enough, in fac', to make escape
practically impossible. In the first place, he was one well acquaint
with the ways of the house. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"

"Sure!" said Ned. "I've put my bottom dollar on that already."

"He came from inside this house and not outside it. How long he'd been
in the house, that I cannot say, but my own deductions are he'd been in
the house waitin