his arms, "it is a piece of evidence sufficient to hang the most
innocent man breathing."

He eyed me in a significant manner and I felt my heart beginning to
beat more rapidly.

"May I know the particulars?"

"Certainly. I asked you to come along for the purpose of telling you.
Sir Eric Coverly's refusal to answer the questions put to him had
necessitated his being watched, as you know. I mean to say, it's
sheerly automatic; the Commissioner himself couldn't make an
exception. Well, last night he left his chambers and started for Miss
Merlin's flat. He came out of a back door and went along a narrow
passage, instead of going out at the front. He evidently thought he
had got away unobserved. He was carrying--that."

"Good heavens!" I said. "The young fool seems determined to put a rope
around his own neck."

"As a matter of fact," continued Gatton, "he was _not_ unobserved. He
was followed right across St. James's Park. By the lake he lingered
for some time; and the man tracking him kept carefully out of sight,
of course. There was nobody else about at the moment, and presently,
thinking himself safe, Coverly dropped his bag in the water!
Immediately he set off walking rapidly again, and he was followed
right to Miss Merlin's door. But the spot where he had dropped the bag
had been marked, of course, and when I came in here to-day it had been
fished, up--and placed there for my inspection."

With ever-growing misgivings:

"What does it contain?" I asked.

Inspector Gatton walked across to the chair and threw the bag open.
First he took out several lumps of wet coal.

"To weight it, of course," he said.

Then one by one he withdrew from the clammy interior a series of
ragged garments, the garments of a tramp. A pair of heavy boots there
were, a pair of patched trousers and an old shabby coat, a greasy cap,
and finally a threadbare red muffler!

Gatton looked hard at me.

"He will have to break his obstinate silence now," he said. "Failing
our discovery of new clews pointing in another direction, this is
hanging evidence!"

"It is maddening!" I cried. "Can nothing be done, Gatton? Is there no
possible line of inquiry hitherto neglected which might lead to the
discovery of the truth? For whatever your own ideas may be, personally
I am certain that Coverly is innocent."

Gatton replaced the sodden garments one by one in the bag, frowning as
he did so, and:

"It occurred to me this morning," he replied