"No; I never met him. Listen, Mr. Tracey. I came to England some five or six years ago very poor, as I am now. Here Bocaros looked round his study with a dreary air. I have heard my father talk of his sister who married a man called Calvert, and I had the address. I found my aunt dead, and her daughter Flora just preparing to move from the house where they had lived for a long time. She had very little money, and told me she was going to be married." "To a man called Brand?" "Yes. I never saw her husband. Flora told me of our other relatives. She gave me a little money, and then dismissed me. I did not see her again. But she wrote to me from Coleridge Lane asking me to give my name as a reference for her respectability. She wanted to take a house there----'Fairy Lodge' I think it is called." "That's the house," said Tracey, with a glance at the paper. "Well?" "Well, I sent the reference, and she never wrote again. Then over a month ago I received a letter from some lawyers. They stated that Mrs. Brand had come in for a large fortune, and that she intended next year to allow me an income." "So you've lost by her death?" Bocaros sprang to his feet with a wild look. "That's just where it is," he exclaimed. "I don't know that I haven't gained." "As how?" asked Tracey, looking puzzled. "When I got the lawyers' letter," proceeded Bocaros,--"the name of the firm is Laing and Merry--I wrote to Flora, thanking her. She asked me to call. I did so----" "Hallo!" interrupted Tracey; "you said just now you never saw her again after your interview years ago." "I meant at that time. Four or five years elapsed between the time I saw her. I am not good at dates, but I never saw her for years. All my life I have only had two interviews. One was when I came to this country; the other when, shortly before her death, I called to see her at Coleridge Lane. She received me very kindly, and stated that she intended to leave me the money. In fact that she had made a will in my favour." Tracey stared. Here was a motive for the murder, seeing that Bocaros was desperately poor. Yet he could not see how the professor came to be mixed up with the actual crime. "How much is the property?" he asked, after an awkward pause. "Ten thousand a year." "Great Scott! How lucky for you, professor--her death, I mean." "I would rather she had not died," burst out the man passionately. "It's horrible to think that she should have been murdered in so barbarous a fashion. You see my position. I live near the house where the crime was committed. I inherit ten thousand a year, and I am much in need of money. How do I know but what your police may accuse me of killing Flora?"