“You have?” his sister replied, looking at him curiously.

“Yes; beyond all doubt.  The mystery is made clear.  Come and see.”

He led the way across the hall and up the first story of the tower.  “There’s the explanation,” he said, pointing to some dark red patches on the back of a sofa and on the carpet below.

“It is not a pleasant idea,” Morriston said; “but you see these marks are directly under the place where the dead man lay in the room above.  The blood from his wound evidently ran through the chinks of the flooring on to the beams of the ceiling here and so fell drop by drop on the couch and on any one sitting there.  Rather gruesome, but I am sure we must be all very glad to get the simple explanation.  The only wonder is that no one thought of it before.”

“Muriel was sitting just at that end of the sofa when I proposed to her,” Kelson said in a low voice to Gifford.

“I am delighted the matter is so completely accounted for,” his friend returned.  “What fools we were ever to have taken it so tragically.”

But his expression changed as he glanced at Edith Morriston; she had denied that she had been in the room.

“I have sent down to the police to tell them of the discovery,” Morriston was saying.  “The fact is that since the tragedy the servants appear to have rather shunned this part of the house, or at any rate to have devoted as little time to it as possible.  Otherwise this would have come to light sooner.  Anyhow it is a source of congratulation to Miss Tredworth and you, Edith.  Of course you must have been in here.”

“I remember sitting just there; ugh!” Miss Tredworth said with a shudder.

“I can swear to that,” Kelson corroborated with a knowing smile.

“You must have done the same or brushed against the sofa, Edith,” Morriston said cheerfully.  “Well, I’m glad that’s settled, although it brings us no nearer towards solving the mystery of what happened overhead.”

“No,” Kelson remarked.  “It looks as though that was going to remain a mystery.”

The butler came in.  “Major Freeman is here, sir,” he said, “with Mr. Henshaw, and would like to speak to you.”

Morriston looked surprised.  “Alfred has been very quick.  We sent him off only about a quarter of an hour ago.”

“Alfred met Major Freeman and Mr. Henshaw with the detective just beyond the lodge gates, sir.”

“Then they were coming up here independently of my message?”

“Yes, sir.  Alfred gave Major Freeman the message and came back.”

Morriston moved towards the door.  “I will see these gentlemen at once,” he said.

“In the library, sir.”

Involuntarily Gifford had glanced at Edith Morriston.  She was standing impassively with set face; and at his glance she turned away to the window.  But not before he had caught in her eyes a look which he hated to see, a look which seemed to confirm a suspicion already in his mind.