oon he returned, his arm locked in the arm of Wenham
Gardner. The latter had the look of a spoilt child who is in disgrace.
He sat sullenly upon a chair and glared at every one. Then he produced a
small crumpled doll, with a thread of black cotton around its neck, and
began swinging it in front of him, laughing at Elizabeth all the time.

"Tell us," Pritchard asked, "what has become of Mathers?"

He stopped swinging the doll, shivered for a moment, and then laughed.

"I don't mind," he declared. "I guess I don't mind telling. You see,
whatever I was when I did it, I am mad now--quite mad. My friend
Pritchard here says I am mad. I must have been mad or I shouldn't have
tried to hurt that dear beautiful lady over there."

He leered at Elizabeth, who shrank back.

"She ran away from me some time ago," he went on, "sick to death of me
she was. She thought she'd got all my money. She hadn't. There's plenty
more, plenty more. She ran away and left me with Mathers. She was paying
him so much a week to keep me quiet, not to let me go anywhere where I
should talk, to keep me away from her so that she could live up here and
see all her friends and spend my money. And at first I didn't mind, and
then I did mind, and I got angry with Mathers, and Mathers wouldn't let
me come away, and three nights ago I killed Mathers."

There was a little thrill of horror. He looked from one to the other. By
degrees their fear seemed to become communicated to him.

"What do you mean by looking like that, all of you?" he exclaimed.
"What does it matter? He was only my man-servant. I am Wenham Gardner,
millionaire. No one will put me in prison for that. Besides, he
shouldn't have tried to keep me away from my wife. Anyway, it don't
matter. I am quite mad. Mad people can do what they like. They have to
stop in an asylum for six months, and then they're quite cured and
they start again. I don't mind being mad for six months. Elizabeth,"
he whined, "come and be mad, too. You haven't been kind to me. There's
plenty more money--plenty more. Come back for a little time and I'll
show you."

"How did you kill Mathers?" Pritchard asked.

"I stabbed him when he was stooping down," Wenham Gardner explained.
"You see, when I left college my father thought it would be good for me
to do something. I dare say it would have been but I didn't want to. I
studied surgery for six months. The only thing I remember was just where
to kill a man behind the left sh