"I have a photograph here," the Old Man in the Corner went on, and threw a bundle of newspaper cuttings down before me, "of Lady Peet-Jackson. As no doubt you will admit, she is very beautiful, but the face is hard; looking at it one feels instinctively that she is not a woman who would stand by a man in case of trouble or disgrace. But it is difficult to judge from these smudgy reproductions, and there is no doubt that Philip Ashley was madly in love with her. That she had enemies, especially amongst those of her own sex, was only natural in view of the fact that she was exceptionally beautiful, had made one brilliant marriage, and was on the point of making another. "But the two romantic lovers were not the sole food of the gossip-mongers. There was the position of Charles Ashley to be discussed and talked over. What was going to become of him? How would he take this change in his fortune? If rumour, chiefly based on Mr. Oldwall's indiscretions, was correct, he would be losing that reputed quarter of a million if Philip's marriage came off. But in this case gossip had to rest satisfied with conjectures. No one ever saw Charles, and Philip, when questioned about him, had apparently very little to say. "'Charles is a queer fish,' he would reply. 'I don't profess to know what goes on inside him. He seems delighted at the prospect of my marriage, but he doesn't say much. He is very shy and very sensitive about his deformity, and he won't see any one now, not even Muriel.' "And thus the stage was set," the funny creature continued with a fatuous grin, "for the mysterious tragedy which has puzzled the public and the police as much as the friends of the chief actors in the drama. It was set for the scene of Philip Ashley's marriage to Muriel Lady Peet-Jackson, which was to take place very quietly at St. Saviour's, Warwick Road, early in the following year. "On the twenty-seventh of August old Thornton Ashley died, that is to say he was found dead in his bed by his son Charles, who had returned that morning from his fortnightly week-end holiday. The cause of death was not in question at first, though Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg was out of town at the moment, his _locum tenens_ knew all about the case, and had seen the invalid on the Thursday preceding his death. In accordance with the amazing laws of this country, he gave the necessary certificate without taking a last look at the dead man, and Thornton Ashley would no doubt have been buried then and there, without either fuss or ceremony, but for the amazing events which thereupon followed one another in quick succession.