"Have you found anything, Ralph? Tell me."

"No, nothing," I replied, and then passed into the dining-room, where the nurse and domestics had been assembled.

The nurse, a plain matter-of-fact woman, was the first person to be questioned. She explained to us how she had given her patient his last dose of medicine at half-past eleven, just after Miss Mivart had wished her good-night and retired to her room. Previously she had been down in the drawing-room chatting with the young lady. The man Short was then upstairs with his master.

"Was the deceased gentleman aware of his wife's absence?" the inspector asked presently."Yes. He remarked to me that it was time she returned. I presume that Short had told him."

"What time was this?"

"Oh! about half-past ten, I should think," replied Nurse Kate. "He said something about it being a bad night to go out to a theatre, and hoped she would not take cold."

"He was not angry?"

"Not in the least. He was never angry when she went to town. He used to say to me, 'My wife's a young woman, nurse. She wants a little amusement sometimes, and I'm sure I don't begrudge it to her.'"

This puzzled me quite as much as it puzzled the detective. I had certainly been under the impression that husband and wife had quarrelled over the latter's frequent absences from home. Indeed, in a household where the wife is young and the husband elderly, quarrels of that character are almost sure to occur sooner or later. As a doctor I knew the causes of domestic infelicity in a good many homes. Men in my profession see a good deal, and hear more. Every doctor could unfold strange tales of queer households if he were not debarred by the bond of professional secrecy.

"You heard no noise during the night?" inquired the inspector.

"None. I'm a light sleeper as a rule, and wake at the slightest sound," the woman replied. "But I heard absolutely nothing."

"Anyone, in order to enter the dead man's room, must have passed your door, I think?"

"Yes, and what's more, the light was burning and my door was ajar. I always kept it so in order to hear if my patient wanted anything."

"Then the murderer could see you as he stood on the landing?"

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