afterwards all that he did, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. For my own part, of course, I had to keep out of the way, and I spent most of my time in the spacious grounds surrounding the house. There was an old ruined summer-house at one corner, under a high wall; and there, fortified with a few of the doctor's cigars, I awaited quietly the turn of events. According to the doctor's description to me afterwards, what happened was this:

In the first place, the puzzle fitted so neatly together that there was no feeling of suspicion. A tall, well-built, dark-haired man, in the clothes of a convict, was roaming over the country; by a miracle a man answering that description, and dressed in those clothes, and having the necessary number upon him, had got to this house on the northern heights above London, and there, in despair of escaping further, had hanged himself. Dr. Bardolph Just was a man of standing in the scientific world—a man who had made discoveries; there was no thought of calling his word in question. This dead man was undoubtedly the escaped convict—Norton Hyde.

A very necessary inquest was held, and twelve good men and true settled that matter once and for all. There had been one curious point in the evidence, but even that was a point that had been miraculously explained. The doctor spoke of it airily, and I wondered a little why he did not explain the matter with more exactitude.

"It seems," he said, "that they discovered on the head of the unfortunate man the mark of a blow—a blow which had undoubtedly stunned him—or so, at least, they thought. It's impossible for me to say how the unfortunate Gregory Pennington came by such an injury, but at all events even that was accounted for in the case of Norton Hyde."

"How?" I asked.

Dr. Just laughed. "A certain motorist put in an appearance, and frankly explained that he had picked you up on the roadside near Penthouse Prison, and had given you a lift as far as this very house. Then there was an accident, and he and his passenger were both pitched out; he was convinced that in that way you got your injury. The thing was as simple as possible—you had recovered consciousness before he did, and had scrambled over the fence here."

"But did they swallow the story of my being in the house—of my breaking in?" I asked.

"I had thought of that," said the doctor. "So my tale was that you had hanged yourself from a beam in an outhouse—probably because you failed in 

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