“It is altogether a most mysterious affair,” he observed sagely, being free, now that his late guest’s perplexing disappearance was accounted for, even in that tragic fashion, to regard the business and to moralize over it without much personal feeling in the matter.  “I fancy Mr. Gervase Henshaw means to work the police up to getting to the bottom of it.  For I don’t fancy that he is by any means satisfied that his unfortunate brother took his own life.  And I must say,” he added in a pronouncement evidently the fruit of careful deliberation, “I don’t know how it strikes you, gentlemen, but from what I saw of the deceased it is hard to imagine him as making away with himself.”

“Yes,” Gifford replied.  “But before any other conclusion can be fairly arrived at the police will have to account for the locked door.”

Evidently Mr. Dipper’s lucubrations had not, so far, reached a satisfactory explanation of that puzzle; he could only wag his head and respond generally, “Ah, yes.  That will be a hard nut for them to crack, I’m thinking.”

The dinner at Wynford Place was made as cheerful as, with the gloom of a tragedy over the house, could be possible.

“We had the police with a couple of detectives here all this morning,” Morriston said, “and a great upset it has been.  After having made the most minute scrutiny of the room in the tower they had every one of the servants in one by one and put them through a most searching examination.  But, I imagine, without result.  No one in the house, and I have questioned most of them casually myself, seems to be able to throw the smallest light on the affair.”

“Have the police arrived at any theory?” Gifford inquired.

“Apparently they have come to no definite conclusion,” Morriston answered.  “They seemed to have an idea, though—­to account for the problem of the locked door—­that thieves might have got into the house with the object of making a haul in the bedrooms while every one’s attention was engaged down below, have secreted themselves in the tower, been surprised by Henshaw, and, to save themselves, have taken the only effectual means of silencing him, poor fellow.”

“Then how, with the door locked on the inside did they make their escape?” Miss Morriston asked.

“That can so far be only a matter of conjecture,” her brother answered, with a shrug.  “Of course they might have provided themselves with some sort of ladder, but there are no signs of it.  And the height of the window in that top room is decidedly against the theory.”

“We hear at the Lion” Kelson remarked, “that the brother, Gervase Henshaw, is returning to-morrow or next day.”

Morriston did not receive the news with any appearance of satisfaction.  “I hope he won’t come fussing about here,” he said, with a touch of protest.  “Making every allowance for the sudden shock under which he was labouring I thought his attitude the other day most objectionable, didn’t you?”