his nervousness, and his peculiar actions of the evening before.  I believe I exclaimed, ‘It was a suicide!’ almost without realising that I was doing so.  The commissioner looked at me sharply and said that suicide was out of the question, that it was an evident case of murder.  He questioned me as to Siders’ affairs, of which I told only what every one here in the village knew.  I did not consider it incumbent upon me to disclose to the police the disgrace of the man’s early life.  I had been obliged to hurt him cruelly enough because of that, and I saw no necessity for blackening his name, now that he was dead.  Also, as according to what the commissioner said, it was a case of murder for robbery, I did not wish to go into any details of our connection with Siders that would cause the name of my ward to be mentioned.  After a few more questions the commissioner left me.  I was busy all the afternoon, and did not return to my home until later than usual.  I found my aunt somewhat worried because Miss Roemer had left the house immediately after our early dinner, and had not yet returned.  We both knew the girl to be still grieving over her broken engagement, and we dreaded the effect this last dreadful news might have on her.  We supposed, however, that she had gone to spend the afternoon with a friend, and were rather glad to be spared the necessity of telling her at once what had happened.  I had scarcely finished my supper, when the door bell rang, and to my astonishment the Mayor of Grunau was announced, accompanied by the same Police Commissioner who had visited me in my office that morning.  The Mayor was an old friend of mine and his deeply grave face showed me that something serious had occurred.  It was indeed serious! and for some minutes I could not grasp the meaning of the commissioner’s questions.  Finally I realised with a tremendous shock that I—­I myself was under suspicion of the murder of John Siders.  The description given by the old servant of the man who had visited Siders the evening before, the very clothes that I wore, my hat and the trousers spotted by the purple ink, led to my identification as this mysterious visitor.  The servant had let me in but she had not seen me go out.

“Then I discovered—­when confronted suddenly with my own revolver which had been found on the floor of the room, some distance from the body of the dead man, that this same revolver had been identified as mine by my ward, Eleonora Roemer, who had been to the police station at G—­ in the early afternoon hours.  Some impulse of loyalty to her dead lover, some foolish feminine fear that I might have spoken against him in my earlier interviews with the commissioner had driven the girl to this step.  A few questions sufficed to draw from her the story of her secret engagement, of its ending, and of my quarrel with John.  I will say for her that I am certain she did not realise that all these things were calculated to cast suspicion on me.  The poor girl is too