comfortable, for Delavoye had not confined his hints to an excuse for entry, made the more convincing by the evil record of the asbestos stove. We had done some more whispering while the constable was locking up, and the impulsive Coysh had lent himself to our final counsels. The upshot was that I said nothing about my own farewell to Royle, though I dwelt upon my genuine belief that he had actually gone abroad. And I did say I was convinced that the whole affair had been an accident, due to the same loose gas-stove tap which had caused an escape six weeks before.

That was my only actual lie, and on later consideration I began to wonder whether even it was not the truth.

This was in Delavoye's sanctum, on the first-floor-back at No. 7, and after midnight; for I had returned to find him in the clutches of excited neighbours, and had waited about till they all deserted him to witness the immediate removal of the remains.

"What is there, after all," I asked, "to show that it really was a suicide? He might have come back for something he'd forgotten, and kicked against the tap by accident, as somebody did in June. Why make a point of doing the deed at home?"

"Because he didn't want his wife to know."

"But she was bound to know."

"Sooner or later, of course; but the later the better from his point of view, and their own shut-up house was the one place where he might not have been found for weeks. And that would have made all the difference--in the circumstances."

"But what do you know about the circumstances, Uvo?" I could not help asking a bit grimly; for his air of omniscience always prepared me for some specious creation of his own fancy. But for once I was misled, and I knew it from his altered face before I heard his unnatural voice.

"What do I know?" repeated Uvo Delavoye. "Only that one of the neighbours has just had a wire from Mrs. Royle's people to say that she's got a son! That's all," he added, seizing a pipe, "but if you think a minute you'll see that it explains every other blessed thing."

And I saw that so it did, as far as the unfortunate Royle was concerned; and there was silence between us while I ran through my brief relations with the dead man and Delavoye filled his pipe.

"I never took to the fellow," he continued, in a callous tone that almost imposed upon me. "I didn't like his eternal buttonhole, or the hat 

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