tale far and wide. What good will I do by running away? Don't imagine I didn't hear what Walker said. He blurted out what you have hinted at. Some man was found dead in our house. It wasn't my father. Then, who was it?"

In her excitement she was hurrying Percy along at a rare pace, and Armathwaite saw, with a chill of foreboding, that the other was stepping out without protest, all an ear for impending revelations.

"From that point of view, Mr. Whittaker's presence is unquestionably advantageous," he said. "He is a friend in whom you can trust. He is acquainted with your relatives, I take it. His opinions will consequently be far weightier than mine."

"That's the way Bob talks when he's grumpy," said the girl, apparently for Whittaker's benefit alone. "He doesn't mean it really, but he thinks he ought to behave like a stage uncle and prevent an impulsive young thing from acting foolishly. Yet, all the time, he knows quite well that we could no more change the course of events now than hold back the tide."

"Will you kindly remember that if you were talking Greek, I'd have just about as much grasp of what you're saying as I have at this moment?" put in Whittaker.

Thus recalled to her task, Marguérite did not deviate from it any further. By the time Percy Whittaker had dropped into a chair in the dining-room, he had heard exactly what had happened since Armathwaite arrived in Elmdale. As he was hungry, a meal was improvised. He said little, only interpolating a fairly shrewd question now and again while Marguérite was amplifying some part of her recital. About this time he developed a new trait. He seemed rather to shirk comments which would draw Armathwaite into the conversation. When the girl appealed to the latter to verify some statement of fact, Whittaker remained silent. Even when it was necessary to refer directly to Armathwaite, he did so obliquely.

"You've spun a jolly queer yarn, Meg," he said, after she had retailed, for the second time, and with evident gusto, the discomfiture of James Walker. "I think it would be a good notion now if we found out what really did occur in this house after you and your mother went away. Didn't you say there was a newspaper report of the inquest handy?"

"Betty Jackson promised to give it to Mr. Armathwaite."

"Well, couldn't we see it?"

"I'll go and ask her for it," said Armathwaite, and he left the 

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