“Rather!” said the man. “An enormous great breakfast, too—with refined conversation and tears of recognition never dry. Will you get young Siegfried to lay a place for me while I go and wash? I shan’t be three minutes.” He disappeared into the hotel, and Mr. Cupples, after a moment’s thought, went to the telephone in the porter’s office. He returned to find his friend already seated, pouring out tea, and showing an unaffected interest in the choice of food. “I expect this to be a hard day for me,” he said, with the curious jerky utterance which seemed to be his habit. “I shan’t eat again till the evening, very likely. You guess why I’m here, don’t you?” “Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Cupples. “You have come down to write about the murder.” “That is rather a colourless way of stating it,” the man called Trent replied, as he dissected a sole. “I should prefer to put it that I have come down in the character of avenger of blood, to hunt down the guilty, and vindicate the honour of society. That is my line of business. Families waited on at their private residences. I say, Cupples, I have made a good beginning already. Wait a bit, and I’ll tell you.” There was a silence, during which the newcomer ate swiftly and abstractedly, while Mr. Cupples looked on happily. “Your manager here,” said the tall man at last, “is a fellow of remarkable judgement. He is an admirer of mine. He knows more about my best cases than I do myself. The _Record_ wired last night to say I was coming, and when I got out of the train at seven o’clock this morning, there he was waiting for me with a motor car the size of a haystack. He is beside himself with joy at having me here. It is fame.” He drank a cup of tea and continued: “Almost his first words were to ask me if I would like to see the body of the murdered man—if so, he thought he could manage it for me. He is as keen as a razor. The body lies in Dr Stock’s surgery, you know, down in the village, exactly as it was when found. It’s to be post-mortem’d this morning, by the way, so I was only just in time. Well, he ran me down here to the doctor’s, giving me full particulars about the case all the way. I was pretty well _au fait_ by the time we arrived. I suppose the manager of a place like this has some sort of a pull with the doctor. Anyhow, he made no difficulties, nor did the constable on duty, though he was careful to insist on my not giving him away in the paper.” “I saw the body before it was removed,” remarked Mr. Cupples. “I should not have said there was anything remarkable about it, except that the shot in the eye had scarcely disfigured the face at all, and caused scarcely any effusion of blood, apparently. The wrists were scratched and bruised. I expect that, with your trained faculties, you were able to remark other details of a suggestive nature.”