erest you to know that my only sister
was his first wife. He led her a dog's life, poor girl, and death was a
merciful release to her. Twelve months ago he married a rich American
woman--widow of a man who made millions in hides and leather. That's
when Lambson-Bowles took up racing, and how he got the money to keep a
stud. Had the beastly bad taste, too, to come down to Suffolk--within a
gunshot of Wilding Hall--take Elmslie Manor, the biggest and grandest
place in the neighbourhood, and cut a dash under my very nose, as it
were."

"Oho!" said Cleek; "then the major is a neighbour as well as a rival for
the Derby plate. I see! I see!"

"No, you don't--altogether," said Sir Henry quickly. "Lambson-Bowles is
a brute and a bounder in many ways, but--well, I don't believe he is
low-down enough to do this sort of thing--and with murder attached to
it, too--although he did try to bribe poor Tolliver to leave me. Offered
my trainer double wages, too, to chuck me and take up his horses."

"Oh, he did that, did he? Sure of it, Sir Henry?"

"Absolutely. Saw the letter he wrote to Logan."

"Hum-m-m! Feel that you can rely on Logan, do you?"

"To the last gasp. He's as true to me as my own shadow. If you want
proof of it, Mr. Cleek, he's going to sit in the stable and keep guard
himself to-night--in the face of what happened to Murple and Tolliver."

"Murple is the groom who was paralysed, is he not?" said Cleek, after a
moment. "Singular thing, that. What paralysed him, do you think?"

"Heaven knows. He might just as well have been killed as poor Tolliver
was, for he'll never be any use again, the doctors say. Some injury to
the spinal column, and with it a curious affection of the throat and
tongue. He can neither swallow nor speak. Nourishment has to be
administered by tube, and the tongue is horribly swollen."

"I'm of the opinion, Cleek," put in Narkom, "that strangulation is
merely part of the procedure of the rascal who makes these diabolical
nocturnal visits. In other words, that he is armed with some
quick-acting infernal poison, which he forces into the mouths of his
victims. That paralysis of the muscles of the throat is one of the
symptoms of prussic acid poisoning, you must remember."

"I do remember, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek enigmatically. "My memory is
much stimulated by these details, I assure you. I gather from them that,
whatever is administered, Murple did not get quite so much of it as
Tolliver, or