Morriston led the way to the library.  By the fire stood a keen-featured, sharp-eyed man of middle height and lithe figure, whose manner and first movements as the door opened showed alertness and energy of character.  There was a certain likeness to his brother in the features and dark complexion as well as in a suggestion of unpleasant aggressiveness in the expression of his face, but where the dead man’s personality had suggested determination overlaid with an easy-going, indulgent spirit of hedonism this man seemed to bristle with a restless mental activity, to be all brain; one whose pleasures lay manifestly on the intellectual side.  One thing Gifford quickly noted, as he looked at the man with a painful curiosity, was that the face before him lacked much of the suggestion of evil which in the brother he had found so repellent.  This man could surely be hard enough on occasion, the strong jaw and a certain hardness in the eyes told that, but except perhaps for an uncomfortable excess of sharpness, there was none of his brother’s rather brutally scoffing cast of expression.

Henshaw seemed to regard the two men following Morriston into the room with a certain apprehensive surprise.

“I hope you will pardon my troubling you like this,” he said to Morriston, speaking in a quick, decided tone, “but I have been rather anxious as to what has become of my brother, of whom I can get no news.  He came down to the Cumberbatch Hunt Ball, which I understand was held in this house, and from that evening seems to have mysteriously disappeared.  He had an important business engagement for the next day, Wednesday, which he failed to keep, and this may mean a considerable loss to him.  Can you throw any light on his movements down here?”

Morriston, dreading to break the news abruptly, had not interrupted his questions.

“I am sorry to say I can,” he now answered in a subdued tone.

“Sorry?” Henshaw caught up the word quickly.  “What do you mean?  Has he met with an accident?”

“Worse than that,” Morriston answered sympathetically.

Henshaw with a start fell back a step.

“Worse,” he repeated.  “You don’t mean to say—­”

“He is dead.”

“Dead!” Surprise and shock raised the word almost to a shout.  “You—­”

“We have,” Morriston said quietly, “only discovered the terrible truth within the last hour or so.”

“But dead?” Henshaw protested incredulously.  “How—­how can he be dead?  How did he die?  An accident?”

“I am afraid it looks as though by his own hand,” Morriston answered in a hushed voice.

The expression of incredulity on Henshaw’s face manifestly deepened.  “By his own hand?” he echoed.  “Suicide?  Clement commit suicide?  Impossible!  Inconceivable!”

“One would think so indeed,” Morriston replied with sympathy.  “May I tell you the facts, so far as we know them?”

“If you please,” The words were rapped out almost peremptorily.