ord, "and there
he was--just as you've seen him--dead. And if you ask me, he was cold,
too--been dead some time, in my opinion."

"The surgeon said several hours--six or seven," remarked the inspector in
an aside to the chief. "Thought he'd been dead since four o'clock."

"No signs of anything in the room, I suppose?" asked the chief. "Nothing
disturbed, eh?"

"Nothing!" replied the landlord stolidly. "The room was as you'd expect
to find it; tidy enough. And nothing touched--as the police that were
called in at first can testify. They can swear as his money was all right
and his watch and chain all right--there'd been no robbery. And," he
added with resentful emphasis, "I don't care what you nor nobody
says!--'tain't no case of murder, this! It's suicide, that's what it is.
I don't want my house to get the name and character of a murder place! I
can't help it if a quiet-looking, apparently respectable young fellow
comes and suicides himself in my house--there's nobody can avoid that, as
I know of, but when it comes to murder--"

"No one has said anything about murder so far," interrupted the chief
quietly. "But since you suggest it, perhaps we'd better ask who you'd got
in the house last night." He opened the register at the page in which he
had kept his finger, and looked at the last entries. "I see that
three--no, four--people came in after this young man who called himself
Frank Herman. You booked them, I suppose?" he went on, turning to the
landlady. "Were they known to you?"

"Only one--that one, Mr. Peter Donaldson, Dundee," answered the
landlady. "He's the representative of a jute firm--he often comes here.
He's in the house now, or he was, an hour ago--he'll be here for two or
three days. Those two, Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen--they appeared to be
foreigners. They were here for the night, had breakfast early, and went
away by some boat--our porter carried their things to it. Quiet, elderly
folks, they were."

"And the fourth--John Barcombe, Manchester--you didn't know him?" asked
the chief, pointing to the last entry. "I see you gave him Number 29--two
doors from Herman."

"Yes," said the landlady. "No--I didn't know him. He came in about nine
o'clock and had some supper before he went up. He'd his breakfast at
eight o'clock this morning, and went away at once. Lots of our
customers do that--they're just in for bed and breakfast, and we
scarcely notice them."

"Did you notice this man--Barcombe?" asked the c