On the day before the funeral Mr. Cowl had telegraphed from some place in Devonshire that he should represent the National Reformation Society at the funeral, and asked for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from Devonshire to Moze in time for the funeral if he postponed his departure until the next morning.  The telegram was quite costly.  He arrived for dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight, with chestnut hair, a low, alluring voice, and a small handbag for luggage.  Miss Ingate thought him very interesting, and he was.  He said little about the National Reformation Society, but a great deal about the late Mr. Moze, of whom he appeared to be an intimate friend; presumably the friendship had developed at meetings of the Society.  After dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the sideboard and opened a box of the deceased’s cigars, and suggested that, as he was well acquainted with the brand, having often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Moze’s cigar-case, he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the departed.  Miss Ingate then began to feel alarmed.  He smoked four cigars to the memory of the departed, and on retiring ventured to take four more for consumption during the night, as he seldom slept.

In the morning he went into the bathroom at eight o’clock and remained there till noon, reading and smoking in continually renewed hot water.  He descended blandly, begged Miss Moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and gently assumed a certain control of the funeral.  After the funeral he announced that he should leave on the morrow; but the mystery of the safe held him to the house.  When he heard of the existence of the second key he organised and took command of a complete search of the study, and in the course of the search he inspected every document in the study.  He said he knew that the deceased had left a legacy to the Society, and he should not feel justified in quitting Moze until the will was found.

Now in these circumstances Audrey ought certainly to have telegraphed to her father’s solicitor at Chelmsford at once.  In the alternative she ought to have hired a safe-opening expert or a burglar from Colchester.  She had accomplished neither of these downright things.  With absolute power, she had done nothing but postpone.  She wondered at herself, for up to her father’s death she had been a great critic of absolute power.

* * * * *

The heavy policemanish step of Mr. Cowl was heard on the landing.

“He’s coming down on us!” exclaimed Miss Ingate, partly afraid, and partly ironic at her own fear.  “I’m sure he’s coming down on us.  Audrey, I liked that man at first, but now I tremble before him.  And I’m sure his moustache is dyed.  Can’t you ask him to leave?”

“Is his moustache dyed, Winnie?  Oh, what fun!”

Miss Ingate’s apprehension was justified.  There was a knock at the study door, discreet, insistent, menacing, and it was Mr. Cowl’s knock.  He entered, smiling gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly.  His easy bigness, florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the artless and pure simplicity of Audrey in her new black robe, and even with Miss Ingate’s pallid maturity, which, after all, was passably innocent and ingenuous.  Mr. Cowl resembled a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and hunger.