innkeeper. “He’s an utter stranger to me. I’ve certainly never seen him in Sibberton.”

“Neither have I,” was my response. “There’s some deep mystery here, depend upon it,” I added, recollecting all that Lolita had so strangely told me earlier in the evening.

“And my own opinion is that the fellow who called at my house this evening—Mr Richard Keene, as he said his name was—has had a hand in it,” Warr declared as he looked across at me, still kneeling by the young man’s body.

“Well, it certainly seems suspiciously like it. Both men are entire strangers, that’s evident.”

In order to ascertain whether there was not a spark of life still left, I undid the poor fellow’s vest and placed my hand upon his heart. There was, however, no movement. The blow had been struck with an unerring hand, while the weapon had been withdrawn and carried away by the assassin.

He was well-dressed, dark-haired, with an aquiline and somewhat refined countenance. He wore a slight, dark moustache, and I judged his age to be about twenty-three. His blue serge suit was of fine quality, but was evidently of foreign cut, and his boots were also of foreign shape and make. His hands, I felt, were soft, as though unused to work, yet where he lay, in that damp hollow, I was unable to search his clothes properly to discover a clue to his identity.

The spot where he had been attacked had certainly been chosen by some one well acquainted with the park. The hollow, once an old gravel-pit, but now overgrown with grass, was screened by the trees of the avenue, so that any one in it would be entirely hidden from view, even in broad daylight. Therefore it struck me that the unfortunate victim had been enticed there by the assassin, and foully done to death.

Yet after hearing those cries I had certainly detected no movement. The murderer must have crept silently out of the grassy hollow, and struck straight across the park to the woods half a mile away. Had any other direction been taken, I must certainly have heard his footsteps.

But the woman who had screamed. What of her?

I had, at the moment, little time for reflection. Acting upon the innkeeper’s suggestion I went off to fetch Knight, the constable, and my friend Pink, the doctor, while he remained with his lantern beside the victim of the tragedy.

As soon as 

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