you would have asked her to marry you almost directly after Farrell's death had she not very plainly shown you her loathing of such a union. So you planned to be revenged when you threw down the challenge to me, and having failed, you now attempt to be wholesale in your destruction." "I end by cheating you," said Delverton. "Not me, but the hangman. I will warn your butler that the port is poisoned, and tell him to telephone for the doctor." "You can go to the devil," said Delverton. He died that night, and the following day the Delverton mystery filled columns of the papers. It was a dull season, and the press made the most of it. It is only right to say that Kellner was not generally believed to have known that Farrell had been done to death by his uncle. Quarles believes he was absolutely innocent in this respect. I am doubtful on the point, I admit. CHAPTER IV THE MYSTERIOUS HOUSE IN MANLEIGH ROAD The dramatic suicide of Martin Delverton, and the solution of a mystery which had been relegated to the list of undiscovered crimes produced a sensation. The public clamored for intimate particulars concerning Christopher Quarles, the house in Chelsea was besieged by hopeful interviewers, and the professor could only escape their attentions by going out of town. It was an excellent excuse for golf, he declared, and an opportunity to improve on his five handicap. I am bound to say that while I was with him he never went round in less than twenty over bogey, and when he only took twenty over he had luck. This sudden enthusiasm on the part of the public was the cause of some difficulty and not a little annoyance so far as I was personally concerned. As I have said elsewhere, I have constantly received the credit of unmasking a scoundrel simply because Quarles chose to remain in the background, but I have never claimed any credit to which I was not entitled. It was distinctly hard, therefore, when all the praise for bringing a series of crimes to light was given to him when justly it should have been accorded to me. I had been engaged on the work at the time the case of Eva Wilkinson had cropped up, my investigations had prevented my accompanying Quarles and Zena to Devonshire. He would be the first to deny that he had any part in solving these problems. I daresay I mentioned certain points about them to him, he may possibly have made a suggestion or two, but it is only because he had really nothing to do with them that they have found no place in his chronicle. I admit I was much annoyed, because I rather prided myself on the astuteness I had displayed. Curiously enough, it was not only the public who persisted in giving him the credit, but the victims of my ingenuity as well, and the mistake was destined to bring peril to both of us in a most unexpected manner.