"Yes, but even he would not have the nerve to cut a man's throat and then incriminate me, who had done him no harm." "A man will do much to get money and to save himself," said the doctor sententiously. "What do you think Mr. Kind?" The Cheap-jack who had been in a brown study, woke up at the direct question. "I have never met the man you call Gowrie," he said, after a thoughtful pause, "but he is as innocent as Mr. Herries here." "How can you be sure of that?" "Because, from what I discovered in the death-room, I am sure that Sir Simon was murdered by the man who passed out in his fur coat, and who masqueraded as him to get away." "What did you discover?" asked Herries, quickly. "Several things. The window was open----" "Mrs. Narby might have done that, to air the room," said Herries. "People don't generally air the room, with a dead body within it," said Kind dryly, "and certainly a close-fisted woman like Mrs. Narby would not risk her furniture being spoilt by the incoming mist. No! that window was opened by the man who climbed up to murder Sir Simon, and as the dressing-table was before it, no one looked until I did." "How do you know that a man climbed up?" "How else did the man who escaped in the fur coat--the true assassin--enter?" questioned Kind, sharply. "Sir Simon expected him. He might have gone down to the front door of the inn, and let him enter, after all were in bed." "No. Sir Simon had his own reasons for keeping the appointment with this man dark, and knew also that this man Gowrie--as I learned from Trent--slept in the tap-room. To have admitted his friend in that way, would have aroused the suspicions of Gowrie, and there might have been trouble." "Gowrie might have seen the admission of the stranger, and have been bribed to go away," suggested the doctor, who still held to the belief that his old tutor was implicated in some way. "No," said Kind again, "and I'll tell you why. I found a red silk handkerchief pinned across the window of Sir Simon's bedroom." "As a sort of signal. Eh?" "Yes. From what I have gathered, this is what happened. Sir Simon came to the 'Marsh Inn' from Tarhaven to meet someone, who was blackmailing him." "But, Kind," said Herries, quickly, "I knew very little of my uncle and did not get on well with him, but he was an honest man, and not the kind of person to be blackmailed." "And I, who knew Sir Simon intimately, as his doctor," added Browne, "can add my protest to that assumption. Sir Simon was a straightforward man, if a trifle close-fisted. He certainly would not lay himself open to blackmail." "Sir Simon was a millionaire," said Kind in his driest manner, "and those sort of people do not invariably make their money honestly." "My uncle was perfectly honest," insisted Herries resolutely.