"When I pass out of this room I shall have no further recollection of ever having seen any letters," he answered, again giving me his hand. "In this matter my desire is only to help you. If, as you believe, Ethelwynn is innocent, then no harm can be done in destroying the letters, whereas if she is actually the assassin she must, sooner or later, betray her guilt. A woman may be clever, but she can never successfully cover the crime of murder." "Then you are willing that I, as finder of those letters, shall burn them? And further, that no word shall pass regarding this discovery?" "Most willing," he replied. "Come," he added, commencing to gather them together. "Let us lose no time, or perhaps the constable on duty below or one of the plain-clothes men may come prying in here." Then at his direction and with his assistance I willingly tore up each letter in small pieces, placed the whole in the grate where dead cinders still remained, and with a vesta set a light to them. For a few moments they blazed fiercely up the chimney, then died out, leaving only black tinder. "We must make a feint of having tried to light the fire," said Jevons, taking an old newspaper, twisting it up, and setting light to it in the grate, afterwards stirring up the dead tinder with the tinder of the letters. "I'll remark incidentally to the constable that we've tried to get a fire, and didn't succeed. That will prevent Thorpe poking his nose into it." So when the whole of the letters had been destroyed, all traces of their remains effaced and the safe re-locked, we went downstairs--not, however, before my companion had made a satisfactory explanation to the constable and entirely misled him as to what we had been doing. CHAPTER XII. I RECEIVE A VISITOR. The adjourned inquest was resumed on the day appointed in the big room at the Star and Garter at Kew, and the public, eager as ever for sensational details, overflowed through the bar and out into the street, until the police were compelled to disperse the crowd. The evening papers had worked up all kinds of theories, some worthy of attention, others ridiculous; hence the excitement and interest had become intense. The extraordinary nature of the wound which caused Mr. Courtenay's death was the chief element of mystery. Our medical evidence had produced a sensation, for we had been agreed that to inflict such a wound with any instrument which could pass through the exterior orifice was an absolute impossibility. Sir Bernard and myself were still both bewildered. In the consulting room at Harley Street we had discussed it a dozen times, but could arrive at no definite conclusion as to how such a terrible wound could possibly have been caused.