the library.

"Now," began Bisset, "I'll just explain to you the haill situation. Here
where I'm laying this sofie cushion was the corp. Here where I'm
standing the now was the wee table, and yon's the table itself."

To the disquisition that followed, Mr. Carrington listened with the most
intelligent air. Bisset had by this time evolved quite a number of new
theories, but the one feature common to them all was the hypothesis that
the murderer must have come in by the window and was certainly not an
inmate of the household. His visitor said little till he had finished,
and then he remarked:

"Well, Bisset, you don't seem to put much faith in the current theory, I
see."

"Meaning that Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned?" said Bisset
indignantly. "That's just the ignorance of the uneducated masses, sir!
The thing's physically impossible, as I've just been demonstrating!"

Carrington smiled and gently shook his head.

"I don't know much about these things," said he, "but I'm afraid I can't
see the physical impossibility. It was very easy for any one in the
house to come downstairs and open that door, and if Sir Reginald knew
him, it would account for his silence and the absence of any kind of a
struggle."

"But yon table and the windie being unfastened! And the mud I picked up
myself--and the hearth brush!"

"They scarcely make it impossible," said Carrington.

"Well, sir," demanded the butler, "what's your own theory?"

Carrington said nothing for several minutes. He strolled up and down the
room, looked at the table and the window, and at last asked:

"Do you remember quite distinctly what Sir Reginald looked like when you
found him--the position of the body--condition of the clothes--and
everything else?"

"I see him lying there every night o' my life, just as plain as I see
you now!"

"The feet were towards the door, just as though he had been facing the
door when he was struck down?"

"Aye, but then my view is the body was moved----"

He was interrupted by a curious performance on Mr. Carrington's part.
His visitor was in fact stretching himself out on the floor on the spot
where Sir Reginald was found.

"He lay like this?" he asked.

"Aye, practically just like that, sir."

"Now, Bisset," said the recumbent visitor, "just have a very good look
at me and tell me if you notice any difference between me and the body
of Sir Reginald."

Bisset looked for a few seconds and then exclaimed: