"And I knew you'd done it!" he was quick to cry. "I knew it hours back, though you did frighten me again just now. I found the hose-pipe in the bathroom with your gloves, and their rotten message rubbed out on the wall! I knew the hose was yours, because I'd just been told there wasn't such a thing in the house. But I was looking for something of the kind. I knew there was something to be found, that the whole thing wasn't what it seemed. And ever since it's been the happiest night of my life, on top of my most miserable hour!" "I'll motor you back to town for that," said Lady Vera, with another poor little laugh. "I--I'm sorry I didn't tell you this afternoon." "I'm not!" "Somehow it didn't seem quite the game by the others, though of course I hoped you would guess that I had only come in after them as a kind of scarecrow. Of course I don't know if it will make you the least bit less miserable----" But there she stuck. "If what will?" And now it was she who held his hands the faster--only across a gulf of darkness like a solid wall--only with a kindness that reminded him it was nothing else--only with a glow more dear than an embrace. "If it makes you the very least bit happier," she whispered, "why, of course it was only just your own game, doctor, that I was trying to play!" VIII THE SECOND MURDERER It was yet another Lady Vera who brought her own sunshine out of the weeping dusk of that October morning. To veil embarrassment on either side, Dollar had switched off the light by which he had just read the line scribbled on her card; but there was no sanction for his nervous sensibility in the little picture he beheld next moment. An audacious study in Venetian red--a tripping fashion-plate with a practical waist--it was only Vera by virtue of the radiant face between the donkey-eared toque and the modish modicum of fur. And though the radiance was lovely as ever in his eyes, and lovelier still as a surprise, this frivolous modernity was pain and puzzledom to Dollar until their hands met, and the one in the tight glove trembled. "It's no use beating about the bush," said Vera Moyle, and there was no sort of tremor in her voice. "Do you mind telling me exactly what you know of a Mr. Mostyn Scarth?" "Mostyn Scarth!" cried Dollar. "Do _you_ know him?" "Only too well!" "I was afraid of it." "But I want your opinion and experience of him first. I believe you saw something of each other in Switzerland?" "We did," replied Dollar weightily. "He was supposed to be looking after a young temporary lunatic, who was of age, rich, and not irresponsible in the eye of the law. Scarth induced the boy to leave him vast sums of money in a will, and then made two distinct attempts to murder him." "No!"