“My theory isn't very clearly formed,” he said cautiously, “but so far as it goes, it is that Kara was lying on the bed probably reading one of the books which were found by the bedside when his assailant suddenly came upon him. Kara seized the telephone to call for assistance and was promptly killed.” Again there was silence. “That is a theory,” said John Lexman, with his curious deliberation of speech, “but as I say I refuse to be definite--have you found the weapon?” T. X. shook his head. “Were there any peculiar features about the room which astonished you, and which you have not told me?” T. X. hesitated. “There were two candles,” he said, “one in the middle of the room and one under the bed. That in the middle of the room was a small Christmas candle, the one under the bed was the ordinary candle of commerce evidently roughly cut and probably cut in the room. We found traces of candle chips on the floor and it is evident to me that the portion which was cut off was thrown into the fire, for here again we have a trace of grease.” Lexman nodded. “Anything further?” he asked. “The smaller candle was twisted into a sort of corkscrew shape.” “The Clue of the Twisted Candle,” mused John Lexman “that's a very good title--Kara hated candles.” “Why?” Lexman leant back in his chair, selected a cigarette from a silver case. “In my wanderings,” he said, “I have been to many strange places. I have been to the country which you probably do not know, and which the traveller who writes books about countries seldom visits. There are queer little villages perched on the spurs of the bleakest hills you ever saw. I have lived with communities which acknowledge no king and no government. These have their laws handed down to them from father to son--it is a nation without a written language. They administer their laws rigidly and drastically. The punishments they award are cruel--inhuman. I have seen, the woman taken in adultery stoned to death as in the best Biblical traditions, and I have seen the thief blinded.” T. X. shivered. “I have seen the false witness stand up in a barbaric market place whilst his tongue was torn from him. Sometimes the Turks or the piebald governments of the state sent down a few gendarmes and tried a sort of sporadic administration of the country. It usually ended in the representative of the law lapsing into barbarism, or else disappearing from the face of the earth, with a whole community of murderers eager to testify, with singular unanimity, to the fact that he had either committed suicide or had gone off with the wife of one of the townsmen.