This case that Fate had tossed so unexpectedly into his lap was beginning to worry him a trifle. It was so much bigger than anything he had previously handled. Once again the conviction was borne upon him that in all likelihood it would prove eventually to be too much for him. However, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” might have been his uppermost thought as he squared his ponderous shoulders and walked across the room. As you entered, the desk stood on the left with its back to the left-hand wall. The leathern arm-chair in which the dead man sat was drawn up to the desk in the usual way. A person seated in this arm-chair would therefore show the left-hand side of his face to anybody entering by the door. Facing the door stood a bookcase—sectional. It was of many more sections than is usual. Stewart was evidently a lover of books—the “standard” authors jostled each other and Coventry Patmore rubbed shoulders with Renan, Baudelaire and Verlaine. On the right were French windows commanding the garden. No part of it, however, brought Sergeant Clegg his badly needed “inspiration.” Nothing in the room seemed to him to tell any story other than its natural one. He walked back to the door. That door worried him. “Key in the lock on the inside,” he muttered—“bolts on the French doors shot—top and bottom—and a dead man inside the room.” He made his disconsolate way to the fireplace—on the bookcase’s right. Bending down, he stepped into the hearth and attempted to look up the chimney. The attempt proved completely unsuccessful as a source of inspiration. It was speedily made plain to the Sergeant that the murderer of Laurence P. Stewart had not escaped in that direction. Then an idea struck him. “Have you communicated with your father’s solicitors, Mr. Stewart?” Stewart shook his head. “No, my father’s solicitors are Crake and Ferguson—New York. I’m going to get Mr. Llewellyn to cable them as soon as possible.” “New York’s a long way away. It’s a pity you haven’t somebody nearer.” “I may be able to get into touch with somebody who may assist me—till Crake and Ferguson move in the matter. I had considered that possibility myself.” Clegg concurred with a heavy shake of the head. “Good. Now I must get a move on, too. I had better have an interview with some of these others.” He consulted his note-book with judicial gravity. “Ring for this Mr. Llewellyn—will you, Mr. Stewart—please?” Within a few minutes the summons was answered. The secretary was a man somewhere in the early thirties. Of good height and slim, with the hair thinning considerably on the front of his head, his general appearance, aided by the pince-nez that he wore, suggested what may be termed not unkindly an academic superciliousness. His eyes were a rather unusual shade of reddish-brown and gave an acute observer an impression of brooding watchfulness. He entered the room quietly, yet perhaps warily. “You wished to see me, I believe?”