“Might he not have locked the door after the wound was given?” Henshaw suggested in a tone of cross-examination.

“Dr. Page was of opinion that death, or at any rate unconsciousness, must have been almost instantaneous,” Finch rejoined respectfully.

“Even supposing the autopsy bears out that view I shall not be satisfied,” Henshaw declared.

The inspector took up the argument.

“You see, sir, taking into consideration the position of the room it would be impossible for any second party who may have been here with the deceased to leave it undiscovered except by the door.  To drop from this window, which is the only one large enough to admit of an adult body passing through, would mean pretty certain death.  Anyhow the party would have been so injured that getting clear away would be out of the question.  Will you see for yourself, sir?”

He threw back the window and invited Henshaw to look down.  The argument seemed conclusive.

“Was the window found open or shut?”

“It was found unlatched, sir,” Finch answered.  “But the servants think that it was opened that morning and owing to the extra work in the house that day its fastening in the evening was overlooked.”

“Even if a second person had let himself down from the window,” the inspector argued, “the rope would have been here.”

Henshaw kept silence, seemingly indifferent to the officials’ arguments.  “I can only tell you I am far from satisfied with the suicide theory,” he said at length.  “My brother was not that sort of man.  He had nerves of iron; he was in love with life and all it meant to him, and he made it a rule never to let anything worry him.  Let the other fellow worry, was his motto.  Well, we shall see.”

He turned towards the door, and as he did so he caught sight of a cardboard box in which was a collection of various articles, jewellery, a watch and chain, money, a pocket-handkerchief, a letter, and a dance programme.

“The contents of deceased’s pockets,” the inspector observed, answering Henshaw’s glance of curiosity.  “We have collected and made a list of them, and they will in due course be handed to you, or to his heir, on the coroner’s order.”

“Is that a letter?  May I see it?”

As the official hesitated, Henshaw had snatched the paper, a folded note, and rapidly ran his eye through its contents.  Then he gave a curious laugh, as he turned over the paper as though seeking an address, and laid it back in the box.

“A note from my brother to an anonymous lady,” he observed quietly.  “Perhaps if we could find out whom it was meant for she would throw some light on the mystery.”

CHAPTER VIII

KELSON’S PERPLEXITY

“What do you think of Mr. Gervase Henshaw?” Kelson said, as, late in the afternoon, he and Gifford walked towards the town together.  Henshaw had left Wynford Place half an hour previously, having kept to the end his attitude of resentful incredulity.