“There’s two gentlemen to see you, sir,” said George’s elderly daily maid. (She had rabbit teeth, very little hair, puce elbows, and a very large before-and-after effect; when entering a doorway she contrived both to precede and to follow herself. She was not even a maid; she was a cook, and her name was Mrs. Bagsworthy. We shall never meet her again.) The two gentlemen followed her announcement. They did not insist upon the ceremony of awaiting George’s permission to enter. They had no intention of consulting George’s wishes on the matter. As before, the Colonel introduced his companion, who at once fixed George with his steely eye. George began to wish that some one was there to hold his hand. “Where were you last Saturday evening, Mr. Howard?” demanded the Superintendent, immediately after his introduction, not even pausing to make the usual inquiries as to George’s health. “Over at the N—— here!” said George. The Superintendent did not say: “You lie!” but George did not quite know why not. He might just as well have done. Instead he said: “Do you know that the Crown Prince of Bosnogovina was murdered at some place on the Thames between here and Oxford on Saturday night, and his body embarked on a large motor-boat out of which it was recovered this morning off Greenwich?” “Great Scott, no!” said George, with perfect truth. “You did not know that he was murdered in the next house, while you say you were sitting in here? You heard nothing—no shot, no cry, no shouting or confusion?” “No,” dithered George. “I—no, I—that is, no.” The Superintendent bored a neat hole in George’s forehead with his gimlet eyes. “Isn’t that very strange, Mr. Howard? Isn’t it exceedingly _strange_ that you heard nothing?” “Er—yes—I suppose it is. Er—frightfully strange. Must be, mustn’t it? Er—how extraordinary!” The Superintendent continued to bore holes in George in silence. George wished he wouldn’t. “I have a warrant to search this house, Mr. Howard,” he snapped suddenly. “Do you wish to see it?” “Good Lord, no,” said George, apparently much shocked at the suggestion. Fancy asking him if he wanted to _see_ a warrant to search his house! How frightfully indelicate! “Very well. Kindly go over to the library of the house next door, and wait there till I come.” “I say, you know,” George protested feebly in spite of his alarm. There was good sterling stuff in George. “I say, you know, what’s all this about? Searching my house and—and ordering me about and—and——” His words faded away under the menacing light in the Superintendent’s eyes. “I think you will find it better to do as I suggest, Mr. Howard,” said the Superintendent, oh, so gently. George did it. Guy and Mr. Doyle received him with effusive jocularity, in which, nevertheless, a somewhat forced note was detectable. On hearing his account of the interview, the jocularity disappeared altogether.