wenty pounds in a sitting some weeks before from

godfrey milner and lord balmoral. so much for his recent

history, as it came out at the inquest.

on the evening of the crime he returned from the club

exactly at ten. his mother and sister were out spending

the evening with a relation. the servant deposed that

she heard him enter the front room on the second floor,

generally used as his sitting-room. she had lit a fire

there, and as it smoked she had opened the window. no

sound was heard from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour

of the return of lady maynooth and her daughter. desiring

to say good-night, she had attempted to enter her son's

room. the door was locked on the inside, and no answer

could be got to their cries and knocking. help was

obtained and the door forced. the unfortunate young man

was found lying near the table. his head had been horribly

mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of

any sort was to be found in the room. on the table lay two

bank-notes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in

silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of

varying amount. there were some figures also upon a sheet

of paper with the names of some club friends opposite to

them, from which it was conjectured that before his death

he was endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at

cards.

a minute examination of the circumstances served only to

make the case more complex. in the first place, no reason

could be given why the young man should have fastened the

door upon the inside. there was the possibility that the

murderer had done this and had afterwards escaped by the

window. the drop was at least twenty feet, however, and a

bed of crocuses in full bloom lay beneath. neither the

flowers nor the earth showed any sign of having been

disturbed, nor were there any marks upon the narrow strip

of grass which separated the house from the road.

apparently, therefore, it was the young man himself who had

fastened the door. but how did he come by his death? no

one could have climbed up to the window without leaving

traces. suppose a man had fired through the window, it

would indeed be a remarkable shot who could with a revolver

inflict so deadly a wound. again, park lane is a

frequented thoroughfare, and there is a cab-stand within

a hundred yards of the house. no one had heard a shot.

and yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver bullet,

which had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and

so inflicted a wound which must have caused instantaneous

death. such were the circumstances of the park lane

mystery, which were further complicated by entire absence

of motive, since, as i have said, young adair was not known

to have any enemy, and no attempt had been made to remove

the money or valuables in the room.

all day i turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring

to hit upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and

to find that line of least resistance which my poor friend

had declared to be the starting-point of every investigation.

i confess that i made little progress. in the evening i

strolled across the park, and found myself about six o'clock

at the oxford street end of park lane. a group of loafers

upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window,

directed me to the house which i had come to see. a tall,

thin man with coloured glasses, whom i strongly suspected

of being a plain-clothes detective, was pointing out some

theory of his own, while the others crowded round to listen

to what he said. i got as near him as i could, but his

observations seemed to me to be absurd, so i withdrew again

in some disgust. as i did so i struck against an elderly

deformed man, who had been behind me, and i knocked down

several books which he was carrying. i remember that as i

picked them up i observed the title of one of them,

"the origin of tree worship," and it struck me that the

fellow must be some poor bibliophile who, either as a trade

or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes.

i endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was

evident that these books which i had so unfortunately

maltreated were very precious objects in the eyes of their

owner. with a snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel,

and i saw his curved back and white side-whiskers disappear

among the throng.

my observations of no. 427, park lane, did little to clear

up the problem in which i was interested. the house was

separated from the street by a low wall and railing, the

whole not more than five feet high. it was perfectly easy,

therefore, for anyone to get into the garden, but the

window was entirely inaccessible, since there was no

water-pipe or anything which could help the most active man

to climb it. more puzzled than ever i retraced my steps to

kensington. i had not been in my study five m