“I don’t understand it at all,” he muttered.  Then suddenly facing round again he said sharply to Gifford, “Have you anything to add, sir, to what your friend has told me?”

“I can say nothing more,” Gifford answered.

Henshaw turned away again, and seemed as though but half satisfied.

“The facts,” he said in a lawyer-like tone, “don’t appear to lead us far.  But when ascertained facts stop short they may be supplemented.  Apart from what is actually known—­I ask this as the dead man’s only brother—­have either of you gentlemen formed any idea as to how he came by his death?”

He was looking at Morriston, his cross-examining manner now softened by the human touch.

“It has not occurred to me to look beyond what seems the obvious explanation of suicide,” Morriston answered frankly.

Henshaw turned to Kelson.  “And you, sir; have you any idea beyond the known facts?”

“None,” was the answer, “except that he took his own life.  The door locked on—­”

Henshaw interrupted him sharply.  “Now you are getting back to the facts, Captain Kelson.  I tell you the idea of my brother Clement taking his own life is to me absolutely inconceivable.  Have you any idea, however far-fetched, as to what really may have happened?”

Kelson shook his head.  “None.  Except I must say he looked to me the last man who would do such an act.”

“I should think so,” Henshaw returned decidedly.  Then he addressed himself to Gifford.  “I must ask you, sir, the same question.”

“And I can give you no more satisfactory answer,” Gifford said.

“As a man with knowledge of the world as I take you to be?” Henshaw urged keenly.

“No.”

“At least you agree with your friend here, that my poor brother did not strike one as being a man liable to make away with himself?”

“Certainly.  But one can never tell.  I knew nothing of him or his affairs.”

“But I did,” Henshaw retorted vehemently.  “And I tell you, gentlemen, the thing is utterly impossible.  But we shall see.  The body—­is it here?”

“The police have charge of it in the room where he was found.  It is to be removed at nightfall.  You will wish to see it?” Morriston answered.

“Yes.”

Morriston led the way to the tower, explaining as he went the arrangements on the night of the ball.  Henshaw spoke little, his mood seemed dissatisfied and resentful, but his sharp eyes seemed to take everything in.  Once he asked, “Did my brother dance much?”

“He was introduced to a partner,” Morriston replied.  “But after that no one seems to have noticed him in the ball-room.”

“You mean he disappeared quite early in the evening?”

“Yes; so far as we have been able to ascertain,” Morriston answered.  “Naturally, before this awful discovery we had been much exercised by his mysterious disappearance and failure to return to the hotel.”