"And allow the local constables to bungle a very difficult and delicate inquiry! Scarcely, I think," I replied, with a smile, still looking about me, and wondering what had really happened in that long, old-world room during the silent watches of that fatal night. "Nothing has been touched here," Cardew remarked. "I picked up the newspaper, but everything is left just as I found it when I rushed down at hearing the housemaid's horrified cry." The room was certainly in no disorder. On the big square table, covered by a green plush cloth, were a number of new books, and in the centre a great silver bowl filled with roses. The writing-table--an old-fashioned mahogany one--was, I noticed, littered with letters, bills, and receipts, the neglected correspondence of a careless man, and as I stood there I noted that the great easy-chair wherein he had sat was placed exactly opposite the window, while within reach, upon a small neat shaft affixed to the wall, was the telephone instrument. Strange that, if he felt himself suddenly ill, and had been unable to summon assistance, he did not ring up on the telephone. "The hammering you heard--was it quite distinct?" I inquired. "Quite. It seems entirely feasible now that he was striving to get out of this locked room." The point that the door had been locked from the outside puzzled me considerably. But a fresh suggestion arose within me--namely, that after every one had retired, a servant, remembering that the window was open and the door unlocked, had gone down and seen to them. Yet she would in that case have found her master in the room, with the light still burning. No: the only explanation was that the key had been turned by one of the servants while passing along the corridor after her master's return there, and while on her way to bed. Yet, however one viewed the tragic affair, it was full of most remarkable features. There was mystery--a great and inexplicable mystery--somewhere. And that mystery I now intended, at all hazards, to solve. With that object in view, I interviewed the housemaid who found the body of her young master, and listened to her story from her own lips. Probably the whole household considered me to be highly inquisitive; nevertheless, I pointed out to them the earnest necessity of clearing up the matter to everybody's satisfaction, and both to the housekeeper, a witty woman, and to the other servants, I declared that the facts were full of grave suspicion. The inspector of County Constabulary was not highly intelligent, and as soon as the medical men had given their opinion he ceased to take any further professional interest in the affair. It was a sudden death, and with such occurrences the police have only to attend the inquest and formally report.