probably well known to you all, and we must all therefore regret that he should have come to such a sudden and tragic end. You may, of course, come to a verdict today if you wish, but I would strongly urge an adjournment--until, say, this day week." The jury conferred for a few moments, and after some whispering the foreman, a grocer at Kew Bridge, announced that his fellow jurymen acquiesced in the coroner's suggestion, and the public rose and slowly left, more puzzled than ever. Ambler Jevons had been present, sitting at the back of the room, and in order to avoid the others we lunched together at an obscure public-house in Brentford, on the opposite side of the Thames to Kew Gardens. It was the only place we could discover, save the hotel where the inquest had been held, and we had no desire to be interrupted, for during the inquiry he had passed me a scrap of paper upon which he had written an earnest request to see me alone afterwards. Therefore when I had put Ethelwynn into a cab, and had bade farewell to Sir Bernard and received certain private instructions from him, we walked together into the narrow, rather dirty High Street of Brentford, the county town of Middlesex. The inn we entered was close to a soap works, the odour from which was not conducive to a good appetite, but we obtained a room to ourselves and ate our meal of cold beef almost in silence. "I was up early this morning," Ambler observed at last. "I was at Kew at eight o'clock." "Why?" "In the night an idea struck me, and when such ideas occur I always seek to put them promptly into action." "What was the idea?" I asked. "I thought about that safe in the old man's bedroom," he replied, laying down his knife and fork and looking at me. "What about it? There's surely nothing extraordinary in a man having a safe in his room?" "No. But there's something extraordinary in the key of that safe being missing," he said. "Thorpe has apparently overlooked the point; therefore this morning I went down to Kew, and finding only a constable in charge, I made a thorough search through the place. In the dead man's room I naturally expected to find it, and after nearly a couple of hours searching in every nook and every crack I succeeded. It was hidden in the mould of a small pot-fern, standing in the corridor outside the room.""You examined the safe, then?"
"No, I didn't. There might be money and valuables within, and I had no right to open it without the presence of a witness. I've waited for you to accompany me. We'll go there after luncheon and examine its contents."
"But the executors might have something to say regarding such an action," I remarked.
"Executors be hanged! I saw them this morning, a couple of dry-as-dust old fossils--city men, I believe, who only think of house property 

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