"This is really a most terrible thing, my dear Kemball," he exclaimed, his face pale. "I only knew of it late last night. The police and doctors seem to have kept the affair secret as long as they could." "I saw it in the paper, and came over at once," I said. "What is your opinion?" I asked eagerly. "Is foul play suspected?" "I really don't know," was his vague answer, as he stood in the wide, old-fashioned hall. "It's a terrible thing, however. Poor Asta! she is overcome with grief, poor girl." "Ah yes?" I sighed. "She was very fond of him; I realised that the other day." Together we walked into a handsomely furnished sitting-room--the morning-room I supposed it to be--and there I was introduced to a fussy elderly man in tweeds named Redwood, the local doctor from Corby. He was a bluff, red-faced, clean-shaven man, a good type of the fox-hunting doctor of the grass-country. "Well, Mr Shaw," he exclaimed briskly, "Doctor Petherbridge, from Northampton, and myself have made a post-mortem, and we have come to the conclusion that death was due to natural causes--inflammation of the brain. We have made most minute examination, but can discover no trace whatever of foul play." "Nor of suicide--by poison, for instance?" asked Shaw, leaning with his back against the table, while the sun shone brightly across the pale blue carpet. "Certainly not. We have had that in mind, but fail to find any trace whatsoever, though Petherbridge is taking the contents of the stomach into Northampton for analysis, in order to thoroughly satisfy ourselves. Our conclusions are, however, that probably while seated in his armchair in the library reading his paper, as was his habit before going to bed, he was suddenly attacked, shrieked with pain, and quickly collapsed. Such fatal seizures are by no means uncommon." "But, doctor, the papers say that a noise of hammering was heard," I remarked. "Captain Cardew, who heard the shriek, is not actually certain about the hammering, it seems," replied Shaw. "The poor fellow was in the best of spirits and quite well when Asta and I left him about a quarter-past eleven. We dined here with some people named Sweetman, the Vanes from Oundle, and Mr Justice Michelmore, who is staying with them. The judge was talking with him on the steps when we left." "Nobody who partook of the dinner felt any unusual symptoms, or one might suspect ptomaine poisoning," remarked the doctor from Northampton, a short, grey-headed little man, who had at that moment entered the room. "My distinct opinion is that, though the affair appears most mysterious, yet it is due to perfectly natural causes." "And I suppose that is the evidence you will give before the Coroner to-morrow, eh?" Shaw asked.