“The case of Mrs. Croyle.”

and looked at his work and thought it good.

“It looks quite like a cause celebre, doesn’t it?” he said buoyantly.  But he caught Martin Hillyard’s eye, and recovered his more becoming despondency.  Harry Luttrell came in as the baronet settled once more to his task.  He laid a shining key upon the table and said: 

“I found this upon the lawn.  It looked as if it might be the key of Mrs. Croyle’s room.”

It was undoubtedly the key of a door.  “We’ll find out,” said the baronet.  Harper was sent for and commissioned to inquire.  He returned in a few minutes.

“Yes, sir, it is the key of Mrs. Croyle’s room.”  He laid it upon the table and went out of the room.

“I suppose it is then,” said Harry Luttrell.  “But I am a little puzzled.”

“Oh?”

“It wasn’t lying beneath Mrs. Croyle’s window as one might have expected.  But at the east side of the house, below the corridor, and almost in front of the glass door of the library.”

Both of his hearers were disturbed.  Sir Chichester took up the key, and twisted it this way and that, till it flashed like a point of fire in the sunlight; as though under such giddy work it would yield up its secret for the sake of peace.  He flung it on the table again, where it rattled and lay still.

“I can’t make head or tail of it,” Sir Chichester cried.  Martin Hillyard opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it.  He could not falter in his belief that Stella had destroyed herself.  The picture of her that morning in Surrey, with the lamps burning in her room and the bed untouched, was too vivid in his memory.  What she had tried to do two years ago, she had found the courage to do to-day.

That was sure.  But it was not all.  There was some one in the shadows who meant harm, more harm than was already accomplished.  There was malevolence at work.  The discovery of the key in that position far from Stella’s window assured him of it.  The aspect of the key itself as it lay upon the table made the assurance still more sure.  But whom was this malevolence to hurt?  And how?  At what moment would the hand behind the curtain strike?  And whose hand would it be?  These were questions which locked his lips tight.  It was for him to watch and discover, for he alone overlooked the battle-field, and if he failed, God help his friends at Rackham Park.  Mario Escobar?  Mario Escobar could at all events do no harm now.

Sir Chichester explained to Harry Luttrell Dr. McKerrel’s suggestion.

“Just a clear, succinct statement of the facts.  The witnesses, and what each one knows and is ready to depose.  I shall put the statement before the coroner, who is a very good fellow, and we shall escape with as little scandal as possible.  Now, let me see——­” Sir Chichester put on his glasses.  “The most important witness, of course, will be Stella’s maid.”