ectives tried to trace down these rumours
to some solid foundation of fact, but could not get hold of anything.
People shook their heads and raised their eyebrows and thought the
Herberts rather 'queer,' 'would rather not be seen going into their
house,' and so on, but there was nothing tangible. The authorities
were morally certain the man met his death in some way or another in
the house and was thrown out by the kitchen door, but they couldn't
prove it, and the absence of any indications of violence or poisoning
left them helpless. An odd case, wasn't it? But curiously enough,
there's something more that I haven't told you. I happened to know one
of the doctors who was consulted as to the cause of death, and some
time after the inquest I met him, and asked him about it. 'Do you
really mean to tell me,' I said, 'that you were baffled by the case,
that you actually don't know what the man died of?' 'Pardon me,' he
replied, 'I know perfectly well what caused death. Blank died of
fright, of sheer, awful terror; I never saw features so hideously
contorted in the entire course of my practice, and I have seen the
faces of a whole host of dead.' The doctor was usually a cool customer
enough, and a certain vehemence in his manner struck me, but I couldn't
get anything more out of him. I suppose the Treasury didn't see their
way to prosecuting the Herberts for frightening a man to death; at any
rate, nothing was done, and the case dropped out of men's minds. Do
you happen to know anything of Herbert?"

"Well," replied Villiers, "he was an old college friend of mine."

"You don't say so? Have you ever seen his wife?"

"No, I haven't. I have lost sight of Herbert for many years."

"It's queer, isn't it, parting with a man at the college gate or at
Paddington, seeing nothing of him for years, and then finding him pop
up his head in such an odd place. But I should like to have seen Mrs.
Herbert; people said extraordinary things about her."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, I hardly know how to tell you. Everyone who saw her at the
police court said she was at once the most beautiful woman and the most
repulsive they had ever set eyes on. I have spoken to a man who saw
her, and I assure you he positively shuddered as he tried to describe
the woman, but he couldn't tell why. She seems to have been a sort of
enigma; and I expect if that one dead man could have told tales, he
would have told some uncommonly queer one