.

"Do you suspect anybody? You needn't fear the libel law in confiding your
secret thought to me, and I assume that Mr. Hart is trustworthy--where
his friends are concerned?"

"Why that unkind differentiating clause, my pocket Vidocq?" put in Hart.

"Because two Kings and a baker's dozen of Presidents have, at various
times, sent most unflattering reports to this country about you."

"I must have annoyed 'em most damnably."

"You had. I congratulate you, but Heaven only knows where I may convoy
you some day on an extradition warrant....Proceed, Mr. Grant."

"I assure you, on my honor, that the only reasonable suggestion I can
make is that put forward by my gardener to-day," said Grant. "He thinks
that the murder must have been committed by a lunatic. I can offer no
other hypothesis."

"Your gardener may be right. But what lunatic, barring yourself and the
horse-coper, Elkin, is in love with Doris Martin?"

Like Elkin the previous night, Grant struck the table till things
rattled.

"Keep her name out of it," he cried fiercely. "You are a man of the
world, not a suspicious idiot of the Robinson type. You heard to-day the
full and true explanation of her presence here on Monday night. It was a
sheer accident. Why harp on Doris Martin rather than any member of the
Bates family?"

"Who, may I ask, is Doris Martin?" put in Hart.

"The Steynholme postmaster's daughter," said Furneaux. "A remarkably
pretty and intelligent girl. If her father was a peer she would be the
belle of a London season. As it is, her good looks seem to have put a
maggot in more than one nut in this village."

Hart waved the negro's head in the air.

"The lunatic theory for mine," he declared. "If one woman's lovely face
could bring a thousand ships to Ilion, why should not another's drive men
to madness in Steynholme?"

"Well phrased, sir," cackled Furneaux delightedly. "I'll wangle that in
on a respected colleague of mine, who is a whale at deducing a
proposition from given premises, but cannot induce a general fact from
particular instances to save his life ... Now, stifle your romantic
frenzy, Mr. Grant, and listen to me. If you were minded to instruct me in
the art of writing good English, I would sit at your feet an attentive
disciple. When I, Furneaux, of the 'Yard,' lay down a first principle in
the investigation of crime, I expect deference on your part. I tell you
unhesitatingly that if Doris Martin didn't exist, Adelaide Melh