. I should think he
has stopped on the way to get his lunch."

The speaker glanced impatiently at his watch and I went to speak to
the man on duty.

"You have orders to admit no one, constable?" I asked.

"That's so, sir," he replied. "We're waiting for Detective-Inspector
Gatton, who has been put in charge of the case."

"Ah! Gatton," I muttered, and, stepping aside from the expectant
group, I filled and lighted my pipe, convinced that anything to be
learned I should learn from Inspector Gatton, for he and I were old
friends, having been mutually concerned in several interesting cases.

A few minutes later the Inspector arrived--a thick-set, clean-shaven,
very bronzed man, his dark hair streaked with gray, and with all the
appearance of a retired naval officer, in his well-cut blue serge suit
and soft felt hat; a very reserved man whose innocent-looking blue
eyes gave him that frank and open expression which is more often
associated with a seaman than with a detective. He nodded to several
acquaintances in the group, and then, observing me where I stood, came
over and shook hands.

"Open the door, constable," he ordered quietly.

The constable produced a key and unlocked the door of the small stone
building. Immediately there was a forward movement of the whole
waiting group, but:

"If you please, gentlemen," said Gatton, raising his hand. "I must
make my examination first; and Mr. Addison," he added, seeing the
resentment written upon the faces of my disappointed confreres, "has
special information which I am going to ask him to place at my
disposal."

The constable stood aside and I followed Inspector Gatton into the
stone shed.

"Lock the door again, constable," he ordered; "no one is to be
admitted."

Thereupon I looked about me, and the scene which I beheld was so
strange and gruesome that its every detail remains imprinted upon my
memory.

The building then was lighted by four barred windows set so high in
the walls that no one could look in from the outside. Blazing sunlight
poured in at the two southerly windows and drew a sharp black pattern
of the bars across the paved floor. Kneeling beside a stretcher, fully
in this path of light, so that he presented a curious striped
appearance, was a man who presently proved to be the divisional
surgeon, and two paces beyond stood a police inspector who was engaged
at the moment of our entrance in making entries in his note-book.

On the stretcher, so