The late Sir Richard Crespie, having become involved in serious monetary difficulties, employed such methods of drowning his sorrows as were far from conducive to domestic felicity; and after a certain unusually violent outburst the home was broken up. His son, Roland, was the first to go; and he took little with him but his mother’s blessing and his father’s curses. Then Lady Crespie went away to her sister in London, only surviving her departure from the Hall by two years. Alone, and deserted, first by son and then by wife, the debauched old baronet continued on his course of heavy drinking for some years longer. The servants left him, one by one, so that in the end, save for faithful old Ryder, the butler, whose family had served the Crespies for time immemorial, he had the huge mansion to himself. Apoplexy closed his unfortunate career; and, since nothing had been heard of him for years, it was generally supposed that the son had met his death in Africa, whither he had gone on leaving home. With the passing of Sir Richard came Mr. Isaac Heidelberger, and he wasted no time in impressing his noxious personality upon the folks of Cresping. He was a German Jew, large and oily, with huge coarse features and a little black moustache that had been assiduously trained in a futile attempt to hide a mouth that had well befitted Nero. A week after Sir Richard’s burial, Mr. Heidelberger took possession of the Hall. The new occupant brought with him one Heimer, a kind of confidential clerk, and, old Ryder the butler having been sent about his business, the two Jewish gentlemen proceeded to make themselves comfortable. The nature of their business was soon public property; the grand old Hall was to be turned into a “country mansion for paying guests.” Very strained relations existed between the big Jew and the ex-butler, who, having a little money saved, had settled down in Cresping. One night, at the Goblets--the historic village inn--Heidelberger having swaggered into the place, there arose an open quarrel. Said Ryder: “Sir Richard, with all his faults, was once a good English gentleman, and, but for such as you, a good English gentleman he might have died!” It was exactly a week later that the tragedy occurred. “We come to it now, eh?” interrupted Moris Klaw at this point. “So--we also come to the station! I will ask you to reserve us a first-class carriage!” Grimsby made arrangements to that end. And, as the train moved out of the station, resumed his story. “What I gather is this,” he said. [I condense his statement and append it in my own words.] The Goblets was just closing its doors, and the villagers who nightly met there were standing in a group under the swinging sign, when a man came running down the street from the direction of the Hall, and, observing the gathering, ran up. It was Heimer, Isaac Heidelberger’s secretary. He was hatless and his flabby face, in the dim light, was ghastly.