"Yes," he exclaimed, thoughtfully. "But to tell the truth, Ralph, old chap, the fact which is puzzling me most of all at this moment is that extraordinary foreboding of evil which you confessed to me the day before yesterday. You had your suspicions aroused, somehow. Cudgel your brains, and think what induced that very curious presage of evil." "I've tried and tried over again, but I can fix on nothing. Only yesterday afternoon, when Sir Bernard incidentally mentioned old Mr. Courtenay, it suddenly occurred to me that the curious excitement within me had some connection with him. Of course he was a patient, and I may have studied his case and given a lot of thought to it, but that wouldn't account for such an oppression as that from which I've been suffering." "You certainly did have the blues badly the night before last," he said frankly. "And by some unaccountable manner your curious feeling was an intuition of this tragic occurrence. Very odd and mysterious, to say the least." "Uncanny, I call it," I declared. "Yes, I agree with you," he answered. "It is an uncanny affair altogether. Tell me about the ladies. Where are they?" I explained how Mrs. Courtenay had been absent, and how she had been prostrated by the news of his death. He stroked his moustache slowly, deeply reflecting. "Then at present she doesn't know that he's been murdered? She thinks that he was taken ill, and expired suddenly?" "Exactly." And I went on to describe the wild scene which followed my admission that her husband was dead. I explained it to him in detail, for I saw that his thoughts were following in the same channel as my own. We both pitied the unfortunate woman. My friend knew her well, for he had often accompanied me there and had spent the evening with us. Ethelwynn liked him for his careless Bohemianism, and for the fund of stories always at his command. Sometimes he used to entertain us for hours together, relating details of mysteries upon which he had at one time or another been engaged. Women are always fond of mysteries, and he often held both of them breathless by his vivid narratives. Thorpe, the detective from Scotland Yard, a big, sturdily-built, middle-aged man, whose hair was tinged with grey, and whose round, rosy face made him appear the picture of good health, joined us a moment later. In a low, mysterious tone he explained to my friend the circumstance of Short having admitted possession of the knife hanging in the hall. In it Ambler Jevons at once scented a clue. "I never liked that fellow!" he exclaimed, turning to me. "My impression has always been that he was a sneak, and told old Courtenay everything that went on, either in drawing-room or kitchen." Thorpe, continuing, explained how the back door had been found unfastened, and how Short had admitted unfastening it in order to go forth to seek the assassin. "A ridiculous story--utterly absurd!" declared Jevons. "A man doesn't rush out to shed blood for blood like that!"