"Yes; the police surgeon, Doctor Douglas. He declared that the poor Colonel had been murdered, and had been dead several hours." "Is there no suspicion of the assassin?" I inquired, as the thought of the man whom I had watched in the Park dashed through my brain. "None whatever," he answered. "The Colonel was very popular everywhere, and was always good to the poor. It's his wife who isn't liked; she's a rum un', they say." "Where was the body found?" I inquired, when I had seated myself at the table while he had taken up a position before the empty fireplace to continue gossiping. "Ah!" he said, "you wouldn't, of course, know the spot, for you've never been in the park. There's a path which leads across the grass at the back of the house through some thickets, and, skirting the lake, crosses the brook by a little bridge. It was just by that bridge that the poor fellow was found. They think that just as he had crossed the bridge he was struck down, and then fell backwards into the lake." "Ah! I understand," I said. "Let's hope that the detectives will discover something when they arrive. It was evidently a most dastardly bit of work." The man's remark that I had no knowledge of the spot where the body was found aroused me to a sense of my own position. If it were known that I had entered the park that night, might not a serious suspicion fall upon me? I recollected how, as I had crossed the bridge, I had heard distinctly a short cough. The murderer was, without doubt, lurking there when I had passed. "Every one is talking of it. Lots of people are going down to see the spot. I shall go down presently. Do you care to come?" the landlord asked. I acceded willingly, for I wished to see the place in daylight, and, as one of a crowd of sightseers, I should escape observation. While I ate my breakfast, the man, full of the mystery, continued discussing it in all its phases. I allowed him to run on, for every word he spoke was, to me, of intense interest. "The poor Colonel was the very last man to have an enemy who would take his life," he said. "But his second wife?" "Ah!" he said with a knowing air, "he was never quite the same after he married again. They say that she flirted indiscriminately with every man she came across, no matter who he was." "As bad as that--eh?" "Of course I don't know for certain. I only tell you what I've 'eard." "Of course, of course," I said. "People will always talk. But do you really think it's true that she is as giddy as reported?" "I really don't know," he responded, raising his eyebrows. "These women of the upper ten are a queer lot sometimes." "Well, the Colonel's death is a very mysterious affair, at any rate," I observed. "Very," he said. "And one or two evil-tongued people are already suggesting that she might have had a hand in it."