"Because, my dear, he hoped the body would not be discovered until another troupe took possession of the tent. A dead pierrot would be discovered, and the troupe at Brighton would be communicated with. In the meanwhile Henley would have warned them, and the same tale would have been told, and the body been identified as Henley's. There would be no hue and cry after the murderer. Had it not been for Miss Day's pompon being torn off, I have no doubt this would have been the course of events. You will have to travel to Brighton, Wigan, and put one or two questions to our friend Watson." "And who was the man?" I asked. "Since no one seems to have missed him I should say he was a man not too anxious to have inquiries made about him, one careful to cover up his tracks, perhaps one not altogether unknown in criminal circles, a man of the type of your Beverley, for instance. By the way, have you ever seen Beverley?" "No." "How were you to know him, then?" "By the man in whose company he would be." "And you have good reasons for expecting to run him to earth at Fairtown?" "Excellent reasons," I answered. "Wigan, get some one who knows Beverley to go and look at the dead pierrot. The result might be interesting." It was. Quarles admitted that the idea was a leap in the dark, but he pointed out that the dead man was the type he imagined Beverley to be. The fact remains he was right. The dead man was Beverley. And, moreover, the professor's deduction was right throughout as far as we were able to verify it. Watson had been in prison, quite deservedly he admitted, but having paid the debt for his fall, he was facing the world bravely. Then came Beverley, who knew of the past, and Watson admitted that his death was a thing that he could not help rejoicing over. He had heard nothing from Henley, who had no doubt read of the discovery in the paper, and thought it wiser to obliterate himself altogether. CHAPTER VI THE TRAGEDY IN DUKE'S MANSIONS I believe Beverley's exit from this life was a relief to his family. Whether any very strenuous efforts were made to find Henley, I do not know. Possibly the "Classical P's" are interrogated concerning him from time to time, for they are still appearing at well-known watering places, though whether Miss Day is still of the company, I cannot say. I quickly forgot all about Henley, being absorbed in a new case, which created considerable attention. At the outset it brought me in contact with rather a fascinating character, a man whose personality sticks in your memory. He was an Italian by birth, cosmopolitan by circumstances, and by nature something of an artist. Fate had ordained that he should be man-servant to an English M.P.; he would have looked more at home in a Florentine studio or in a Tuscany vineyard, but then Fate is responsible for many incongruities. In well-chosen words, and in dramatic fashion, he drew the picture for me.