“Pooh! pooh! Louisa Grison talks rubbish,” said Mr. Fuller sturdily. “She was always crazy about Baldwin, although he certainly had his good points, foolish as he was. Don’t let us talk any more about the matter. It upsets my wife, and is not a topic for Christmas Day.” “Oh, I don’t mind hearing of his death,” protested Mrs. Fuller, “I am only too anxious to know who killed him, poor creature.” “I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that he killed himself,” remarked Sorley in an abrupt way. “Oh, that’s impossible,” said Alan quickly; “the medical evidence proved conclusively that he was murdered, stabbed to the heart.” “Well, my boy, a man can stab himself to the heart, can’t he?” “Yes,” replied the young man dryly, “but he could scarcely hide the instrument with which he killed himself after his death, and that, as we know, is missing.” “What sort of instrument was it, Alan?” asked Mrs. Fuller. “A stiletto, it is thought, mother.” “That sounds as though an Italian had a hand in the crime,” remarked the vicar; “they generally use the stiletto!” “I can’t say who killed him, or of what nationality the assassin was, father, since nothing can be learned likely to cast light on the subject. But I am sure of one thing from what Latimer has told me, which is that Grison did not stab himself. He had no reason to.” “Mad people never do have any reason,” remarked Mr. Sorley pointedly. “But Grison was not mad.” “Indeed I have every reason to believe that he was,” insisted the other; “the father was an eccentric doctor who practised in Canterbury, and the mother of Louisa and Baldwin died in a lunatic asylum.” Mrs. Fuller nodded sadly. “Yes, Louisa told me as much,” she said, “and for that reason I excused her oddities and those of her brother. They certainly had queer ways, hadn’t they, John?” “Yes! yes! yes! But no worse than other people,” rejoined Fuller senior, in his vigorous fashion, “but Louisa certainly manages her boarding-house in a sane enough manner, as I found when I stayed there.” “Did you stay there, father?” asked Alan. “Twice or thrice when I went to town years and years ago, although I have not stayed there lately. I wanted to help Louisa, poor soul. But now she is doing so well that there is no need for me to assist her by becoming a few days’ boarder. Baldwin may have been a trifle mad,” added the vicar, addressing Sorley, “since he sank so low and displayed such weakness; but his sister is sane enough, I am sure of that.” “She did not speak very sanely the other day when attacking me, as Alan heard,” said Mr. Sorley significantly. “We were quietly having afternoon tea when Miss Grison rose and suddenly denounced me. She is mad.” “I don’t agree with you,” retorted the vicar. “What do you say, Alan?” The young man shook his head with an embarrassed laugh. “I have not seen sufficient of Miss Grison to pronounce an opinion,” he said, and turned to Marie, who was feeling rather neglected. “This is rather dull for you.”