I suppose my laughter had been just a little hysterical. As I have already told you, I myself stand only on the verge of this Case; but not so my friends, and Esdaile in particular. I remembered--and deep under that rather remarkable laughter it moved me more than a little to do so--the extraordinary range and sweep of emotions that had shaken Esdaile in the course of a single day. I remembered the bright strained tension of those first minutes after he had come up out of the cellar, the shock of that telephone message from the hospital that had told him what had happened to a friend. I remembered that black depression when Hubbard and I had found him waiting alone in his house for Monty. I remembered his ache on Joan Merrow's account, our later talk with Monty, his nascent and grim resolve that in the teeth of all the world the accident theory should be maintained, his dismay when he had realized what a post-mortem examination might disclose. I ran over again his whole day, from that merry breakfast-party to the appearance of Inspector Webster in our midst at ten o'clock at night.... Well, one peril was now safely past. In the absence of the Exhumation Order of which Mackwith spoke, there remained no tittle of material evidence save a battered bit of nickel-steel in Westbury's possession or in that of the police. If only for Esdaile's sake, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from me. And, on the top of all, Billy Mackwith's innocent complicity must have moved me to that inane outburst. "Well, for one thing, Esdaile isn't out of town at all," I said, wiping my eyes. "Well, I thought he was. That isn't the joke, is it?" "Not altogether. You see----" "Do you mean that stupid _Roundabout_ thing?" "No.... I beg your pardon, Billy. It came over me all of a sudden. Now I think I can tell you----" And so another was added to our nicely-lengthening list of Principals in the Case. IV While I spoke Billy had risen, and was pretending to examine the prints on my walls. I continued to talk; talking was, in fact, my morning's work that day. I finished, and there was a long silence. I thought my barrister-friend would never have done looking at those prints. Then suddenly he crossed over to my table and stood leaning lightly on his fingertips. "Why wasn't I told this sooner?" he asked, his eyes brightly on mine. For a moment I thought he meant that our neglect to inform him had landed him into this equivocal position with regard to the coroner's jury, and was beginning to explain that, being everybody's business, it had also apparently been nobody's. But he cut me short. "Oh, I don't mean that. Leave the inquest out of it for the present. What I mean is that I could have saved our friend a good deal of mental pain if I'd known--and you too," he added, "from the way you laughed just now." "How?" I asked.