"I don't know," the Old Man in the Corner went on glibly, "whether you remember all the circumstances which made that case such a puzzling one. Indeed, it well deserved the popular name that the evening papers bestowed on it--'The Fulton Gardens Mystery'--for it was, indeed, a mystery, and to most people it has so remained to this day." "Not to you," I put in, with a smile, just to humour him, as I could see he was waiting to be buttered-up before he would proceed with his narrative. "No, not to me," he admitted, with his fatuous smile. "If the members of the police force who had the case in hand had been psychologists, they would not have been puzzled, either. But they were satisfied with their own investigations and with all that was revealed at the inquest, and they looked no further, with the result that when the edifice of their deductions collapsed, they had nowhere to turn. Time had gone on, evidences had become blurred, witnesses were less sure of themselves and less reliable, and a certain blackguard, on whom I for one could lay my fingers at this moment, is going through the world scot-free. "But let me begin by telling you the facts as they were revealed at the inquest. You can then form your own conclusions, and I dare say that these will be quite as erroneous as those arrived at by the public and the police. "The drama began to unfold itself when Mr. Ernest Jessup, the younger son of the deceased gentleman, was called. He began by explaining that he was junior clerk in his father's office, and that he, along with all the other employés had remarked on the sixteenth that the guv'nor did not seem at all like himself. He was irritable with everybody, and just before luncheon he called Arthur Leighton into his office and apparently some very hot words passed between the two. Witness happened to be in the hall at the moment, getting his hat and coat, and the housemaid was standing by. They both heard very loud voices coming from the office. The guv'nor was storming away at the top of his voice. "'That's poor Leighton getting it in the neck,' witness remarked to Ann Weber. "But the girl only giggled and shrugged her shoulders. Then she said: 'Do you think so?' "'Yes,' witness replied, 'aren't you sorry to see your devoted admirer in such hot water?' "Again the girl giggled and then ran away upstairs. Mr. Leighton was not at the office the whole of that afternoon, but witness understood, either from his father or from his brother--he couldn't remember which--that Leighton was to come in late that night to interview the guv'nor.