, etc.

By slow degrees the details came to light, but the case still remained
a mystery. The chief witness at the inquest was the deceased's valet,
who said that the night before his death Lord Argentine had dined with
a lady of good position, whose named was suppressed in the newspaper
reports. At about eleven o'clock Lord Argentine had returned, and
informed his man that he should not require his services till the next
morning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and
was somewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out
at the front door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was
dressed in a Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat.
The valet had no reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him,
and though his master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the
occurrence till the next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door
at a quarter to nine as usual. He received no answer, and, after
knocking two or three times, entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine's
body leaning forward at an angle from the bottom of the bed. He found
that his master had tied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts,
and, after making a running noose and slipping it round his neck, the
unfortunate man must have resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow
strangulation. He was dressed in the light suit in which the valet had
seen him go out, and the doctor who was summoned pronounced that life
had been extinct for more than four hours. All papers, letters, and so
forth seemed in perfect order, and nothing was discovered which pointed
in the most remote way to any scandal either great or small. Here the
evidence ended; nothing more could be discovered. Several persons had
been present at the dinner-party at which Lord Augustine had assisted,
and to all these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet,
indeed, said he thought his master appeared a little excited when he
came home, but confessed that the alteration in his manner was very
slight, hardly noticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any
clue, and the suggestion that Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked
by acute suicidal mania was generally accepted.

It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more
gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good
position and ample means, perished miserably in the almost precisely
the same manner. Lord Swanleigh was