Meanwhile Mr. Pargent had stood for an instant upon the refuge in the middle of Praed Street, a puzzled expression on his face. An approaching taxi-driver noticed his swaying form and swerved sharply, just in time to avoid him as he crashed forward into the road-way. The taxi-driver’s action caused a sudden check to the traffic, and for an instant there was a chaos of skidding vehicles, screeching brakes, and blasphemous language. Then the nearest drivers jumped from their seats and clustered round the prone form. A majestic policeman, setting a calm and undeviating course through the tumult, knelt down and turned the body over. Mr. Pargent was dead. The newspaper which Mr. Ludgrove bought at Wokingham station and read carefully during his journey to Waterloo contained nothing more than a bare statement that the famous poet, Richard Pargent, had fallen dead in Praed Street, and that, upon the body being conveyed to the mortuary, a blade was found in it, with the point entering the heart. Round these facts a formidable structure of conjecture and reminiscence was built up. There was an obituary notice, in which Mr. Pargent’s Christian names and the titles of his published works were incorrectly stated. There was a résumé of the case of Mr. Tovey, and a photograph of Praed Street, with heavy black crosses marking the places where the murders had taken place. Finally there was a leading article, in which the responsibility for the murders was ingeniously fixed upon the Government, which in consequence came in for severe criticism. In fact, the murder of Mr. Pargent was evidently the topic of the day. Mr. Ludgrove sat with his haversack beside him on the carriage seat, even his beloved plants unheeded. He read every bit of the paper over and over again, seeking for some clue which might account for the crime. The description ended with the words “the police are, however, in possession of a clue, the nature of which they are not at present prepared to divulge, but which, they are confident, will lead to startling developments in the near future.” Mr. Ludgrove smiled rather cynically as he read them. They seemed to him to have a somewhat familiar ring. He had the paper in his hand as he walked into Mr. Copperdock’s shop to get his key, and his friend caught sight of it. “So you’ve seen the news, then?” he said excitedly. Mr. Ludgrove nodded gravely. “I have been reading the account as I came up in the train,” he replied.