"I am still theorizing," said Quarles. "There are no portraits at Clarence Lodge; you noticed a lack of portraits in Bush's flat, and you conclude by external evidence that his temperament is artistic. The dead man's hands were curiously capable and artistic. It struck me the moment I looked at them." "I am not convinced, Professor." "Nor was I," said Quarles, "so I mentioned the rheumatic specialist who had cured me." "You, grandfather!" Zena exclaimed. "Ah, you have evidently forgotten how I used to suffer," was the smiling answer. "I allowed Morrison to make a mistake on purpose and go to Clarence Lodge, his one idea to get an interview with Mrs. Crosland." "And you have seen him since?" I asked. "Came home with him from Grange Park," answered Quarles. "He was roundly abused to begin with, but, as you were told, he saw Mrs. Crosland. It was an interesting interview. The first thing that struck him was that the old lady was totally unlike her children, a different type altogether. She is a hard, masculine kind of woman, not at all of the nervous temperament he had been led to expect; and he was convinced that she had only consented to see him to make sure that he was no more than he had proclaimed himself--a specialist in rheumatism. My friend Morrison came to the conclusion that the nurse, as a nurse, was incompetent, and that the room he entered would not have been the one constantly occupied by the invalid. He was exceedingly interested in Mrs. Crosland, seeing in her a woman of extraordinary force of character and intellectual capacity, and he came to the conclusion that there was nothing whatever the matter with her." "No rheumatism?" said Zena. "About as much as I suffer from," said Quarles. "In short, Morrison was rather glad to get safely out of the house. He was certain that the old lady had a revolver under her pillow, and would certainly have shot him had she suspected that he was any one else but a specialist in rheumatism." I was looking at Quarles as he turned to me. "What do you make of my theory now, Wigan?" "Were you Morrison?" I asked. "Of course, and it was a trying ordeal. Do you think we have enough facts to go on?" "Not facts, exactly, but evidence," I admitted. "I think we shall find that the dead man is Bush," said the professor. "Inquiry will probably show that he has a record for quackery and has probably sailed fairly close to the wind at times. His connection with the Crosland family was not professional, but had other aims, and his profession was used merely as a reason for not having a doctor for Mrs. Crosland, who found it convenient to pose as an invalid. A quarrel resulted in Bush's being shot that night. I hazard a guess that it was the old lady who shot him, and that it was her brain which conceived the way out of the difficulty." "That is guessing with a vengeance," I said.