"Precisely. You have asked me what I found at Friar's Park and the Bell House, and I can answer you very briefly. Nothing! The latter place, had quite obviously been fired in a systematic and deliberate way. I suspect that the contents of the rooms had been soaked with petrol. It burned to a shell and then collapsed. At the present moment it is merely a mound of smoking ashes. "Of course, the local fire-brigade was hopelessly ill-equipped, but even with the most up-to-date appliances I doubt if the conflagration could have been extinguished. The men watching the house were thrown quite off their guard when flames began to leap out of the windows: hence, the escape of Damar Greefe." "You are sure he _did_ escape?" Gatton stared at me grimly. "To whom do you suppose you are indebted for the telephone trick?" he asked. "Besides--Blythe, the fool, actually heard the car at the moment that it came out on to the highroad! Oh, they bungled the thing villainously. My Marathon feat saved your life, Mr. Addison, but it looks like losing me the case! We have the Hawkins couple. But, although a graceless pair, they were more dupes than knaves. I am convinced, personally, that neither of them suspected that Lady Burnham Coverly was dead. Damar Greefe had represented to them that she had lost her reason." "Good heavens! what a scheme!" "What a scheme, indeed. Hawkins seems to have considered that his duty--which was merely to keep intruders out of the park--was dictated by necessity. He thought that if Lady Coverly's real condition became known she would be removed to a madhouse! He also thought that a _nurse_ was in attendance." "A nurse!" "Yes. He assured me that he had heard and seen her! Mrs. Hawkins also was certain on the point. Neither of them were ever allowed in the house, by the way. But Damar Greefe paid them well--and they were satisfied. The identity of the 'nurse' is evident, I think?" "Perfectly evident. But how was poor Lady Coverly disposed of--and why this elaborate secrecy?" "Well," replied Gatton slowly--"out of the multitude of notes which I have compiled upon the case, I have worked out a sort of summary, and it amounts to this: The whole series of outrages turns upon something in the financial arrangements of the late Sir Burnham of benefit to the Eurasian doctor. It may be that Damar Greefe had some secret locked up in the Bell House which he could not very well remove, and that the greatest peril he feared was the taking over of the Park property by an heir. I assume he had complete authority over the late Lady Burnham; and his object in concealing her death (for our investigations at Friar's Park have definitely established the fact that no one had resided there for twelve months at least) was clearly this: he hoped to carry on the pretense of attending upon the invalid until--" "Until there was no heir to the property remaining alive!" I interrupted excitedly. "Exactly, Gatton! That is my own theory, too!