“Skipped with the boodle?”

“That’s so,” she said; “got clear away with all the money, and the son was found dead in his house, committed soocide it was thought.  Though there was some as said he couldn’t have stabbed himself and fallen in that position.  They said he was murdered.  The father died in prison.  They tried to fasten the murder on him, but there was no motive, or no evidence, or no somethin’.  I forget now.”

“Very pretty,” said Shorthouse.

“I’ll show you somethin’ mighty queer any-ways,” she drawled, “if you’ll come upstairs a minute.  I’ve heard the steps and voices lots of times; they don’t pheaze me any.  I’d just as lief hear so many dogs barkin’.  You’ll find the whole story in the newspapers if you look it up—­not what goes on here, but the story of the Germans.  My house would be ruined if they told all, and I’d sue for damages.”

They reached the bedroom, and the woman went in and pulled up the edge of the carpet where Shorthouse had seen the blood soaking in the previous night.

“Look thar, if you feel like it,” said the old hag.  Stooping down, he saw a dark, dull stain in the boards that corresponded exactly to the shape and position of the blood as he had seen it.

That night he slept in a hotel, and the following day sought new quarters.  In the newspapers on file in his office after a long search he found twenty years back the detailed story, substantially as the woman had said, of Steinhardt & Co.’s failure, the absconding and subsequent arrest of the senior partner, and the suicide, or murder, of his son Otto.  The landlady’s room-house had formerly been their private residence.

KEEPING HIS PROMISE

It was eleven o’clock at night, and young Marriott was locked into his room, cramming as hard as he could cram.  He was a “Fourth Year Man” at Edinburgh University and he had been ploughed for this particular examination so often that his parents had positively declared they could no longer supply the funds to keep him there.

His rooms were cheap and dingy, but it was the lecture fees that took the money.  So Marriott pulled himself together at last and definitely made up his mind that he would pass or die in the attempt, and for some weeks now he had been reading as hard as mortal man can read.  He was trying to make up for lost time and money in a way that showed conclusively he did not understand the value of either.  For no ordinary man—­and Marriott was in every sense an ordinary man—­can afford to drive the mind as he had lately been driving his, without sooner or later paying the cost.

Among the students he had few friends or acquaintances, and these few had promised not to disturb him at night, knowing he was at last reading in earnest.  It was, therefore, with feelings a good deal stronger than mere surprise that he heard his door-bell ring on this particular night and realised that he was to have a visitor.  Some men would simply have muffled the bell and gone on quietly with their work.  But Marriott was not this sort.  He was nervous.  It would have bothered and pecked at his mind all night long not to know who the visitor was and what he wanted.  The only thing to do, therefore, was to let him in—­and out again—­as quickly as possible.