tand it at all, even now. Mr.
Fynes always seemed to me such a harmless sort of person, so unlikely
to have enemies, or anything of that sort. Don't you think so, Mr.
Coulson?"

"Well," that gentleman answered, "to tell you the honest truth, Miss
Morse, I'm afraid I am going to disappoint you a little. I wasn't over
well acquainted with Mr. Fynes, although a good many people seemed
to fancy that we were kind of bosom friends. That newspaper man, for
instance, met me at the station and stuck to me like a leech; drove down
here with me, and was willing to stand all the liquor I could drink.
Then there was a gentleman from Scotland Yard, who was in such a hurry
that he came to see me in my bedroom. _He_ had a sort of an idea that I
had been brought up from infancy with Hamilton Fynes and could answer
a sheaf of questions a yard long. As soon as I got rid of him, up comes
that page boy and brings your card."

"It does seem too bad, Mr. Coulson," Penelope declared, raising her
wonderful eyes to his and smiling sympathetically. "You have really
brought it upon yourself, though, to some extent, haven't you, by
answering so many questions for this Comet man?"

"Those newspaper fellows," Mr. Coulson remarked, "are wonders. Before
that youngster had finished with me, I began to feel that poor old Fynes
and I had been like brothers all our lives. As a matter of fact, Miss
Morse, I expect you knew him at least as well as I did."

She nodded her head thoughtfully.

"Hamilton Fynes came from the village in Massachusetts where I was
brought up. I've known him all my life."

Mr. Coulson seemed a little startled.

"I didn't understand," he said thoughtfully, "that Fynes had any very
intimate friends over this side."

Penelope shook her head.

"I don't mean to imply that we have been intimate lately," she said.
"I came to Europe nine years ago, and since then, of course, I have not
seen him often. Perhaps it was the fact that he should have thought
of me, and that I was actually expecting to have lunch with him today,
which made me feel this thing so acutely."

"Why, that's quite natural," Mr. Coulson declared, leaning back a little
and crossing his legs. "Somehow we seem to read about these things in
the papers and they don't amount to such a lot, but when you know the
man and were expecting to see him, as you were, why, then it comes right
home to you. There's something about a murder," Mr. Coulson concluded,
"which kind o