yet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and I
thought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, and
I'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping in
his dressing room. Give me another drink!"

Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.

"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on the
glass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinned
at him and he let me in, and then----" He broke off and fell forward in
his chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!"
he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"

Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by the
arm.

"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary.
You can't touch him now."

Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.

"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to the
superintendent.

They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.

XL

THE LAST CHAPTER

On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and that
was to exclaim:

"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me more
before I went in?"

"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish
undiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."

They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sitting
room and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed away
an empty tumbler.

"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tell
me how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupid
I've been!"

"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at this
game, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as good
guidance that put me on to the truth at last."

"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were up
against it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying at
the start. Well, that was pretty smart of you to begin with. Then, what
next? How did things come?"

"Well," said Carrington, "I picked up a little something on my first
visit to Keldale. From Bisset's description I gathered that the body
must have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why?
Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, the
broken table, the mu