“Glad to see you’re on time, Morgan,” said the Inspector, as a stiff headwaiter conducted them to a corner-table. “I really must apologize for taking you away from your dinner at home. There was a time once—” He sighed and they sat down. “No apology necessary,” said Morgan with a wan smile. “I suppose you know that every married man relishes a bachelor dinner at times.... Just what is it, Inspector, you wanted to talk to me about?” The old man raised a warning finger. “No business now, Morgan,” he said. “I have an idea Louis has something up his sleeve in the way of solid refreshment—right, Louis?” The dinner was a culinary delight. The Inspector, who was quite indifferent to the nuances of the art, had left the details of the menu to his son. Ellery was fanatically interested in the delicate subject of foods and their preparation. Consequently the three men dined well. Morgan was at first inclined to taste his food abstractedly, but he became more and more alive to the delightful concoctions placed before him, until finally he forgot his troubles altogether and chatted and laughed with his hosts. With _café au lait_ and excellent cigars, which Ellery smoked cautiously, the Inspector diffidently, and Morgan with enjoyment, Queen came to the point. “Morgan, I’m not going to beat around the bush. I have an idea you know why I asked you here to-night. I’m going to be perfectly honest. I want the true explanation for your silence regarding the events of Sunday night, September the twenty-third—four nights ago.” Morgan had become grave immediately the Inspector began to speak. He put the cigar on the ash-tray and regarded the old man with an expression of ineffable weariness. “It was bound to come,” he said. “I might have known that you would find out sooner or later. I suppose Mrs. Russo told you out of spite.” “She did,” confessed Queen frankly. “As a gentleman I refuse to listen to tales; as a policeman it is my duty. Why have you kept this from me, Morgan?” Morgan traced a meaningless figure on the cloth with a spoon. “Because—well, because a man is always a fool until he is made to realize the extent of his folly,” he said quietly, looking up. “I hoped and prayed—it is a human failing, I suppose—that the incident would remain a secret between a dead man and myself. And to find that that prostitute was hiding in the bedroom—listening to every word I said—it rather took the wind out of my sails.” He gulped down a glass of water, rushing ahead. “The God’s honest truth, Inspector, is that I thought I was being drawn into a trap and I couldn’t bring myself to furnish contributory evidence. There I found myself in the theatre, not so far away from my worst enemy found murdered. I could not explain my presence except by an apparently silly and unsubstantiated story; and I remembered in a bitter flash that I had actually quarreled with the dead man the night before. It was a tight position, Inspector—take my word for it.”