She did not raise her face, but remained with it buried on her arm in an attitude of profound prostration. Soon a shudder ran through her frame. She began to moan and sob. An impulse of pity brought him to her side. “If I can be of any help to you, Minna, you only have to command me.” But she did not heed him, only waved him away with her free hand. “Go--leave me,” she said, scarce audibly. “If you want me, send for me and I will come,” he said. He left her, went into the hall, where he found the Inspector. To the latter’s questions he gave what formal answers lay in his power. A news agency representative joined them soon afterwards. Gradually Hugh acquainted himself with all the meagre facts in the possession of the police. Mr. Hart had been killed outright by one blow of a blunt, heavy instrument. Death must have occurred during the small hours. The safe in the study was found open. The only article apparently missing from it was a black deed-box, which Mr. Hart’s confidential clerk, who had been summoned immediately, stated to have contained bonds. There were no other signs of robbery. A thorough inspection of the premises had discovered no traces of burglarious entry, the only possibility of which was by means of a window that had been left unsecured. Footprints there were none, owing to the slight fall of snow. For the present the police were entirely at a loss. “Do you know if Mr. Hart had any enemies?” asked the Inspector. “A man in his profession comes into intimate relations with many people whom he could not call his friends,” replied Hugh. “But I am not acquainted with any of his clients. As a private friend I always found him kind and generous.” “Could you supply me with any details concerning his private life?” asked the pressman. “I am scarcely in a position to do so,” replied Hugh, in a manner that precluded importunity. He felt sick at heart, unhinged, and longed to be free from the sordid horror of the house. His own hidden yet intimate connection with the tragedy of the night oppressed him like an incubus. It was he who had started the poor old man upon a train of thought and emotion that had kept him from his bed, where the murderer, if safe-robbery had been his only aim, might not have sought him. It was he who was responsible for the unguarded window by which the murderer had entered. And, then, the fact that he had been beneath the same roof discussing with the daughter her inheritance, while the father was being done to death downstairs, loomed grotesquely hideous before his eyes. It was like a situation in some vulgar melodrama where simultaneous action is represented in two separate and adjacent interiors.