demented. That’s what the doctor thought when he saw him at noon. He’s waiting to see his condition to-night.”

“Well, the description is exactly like him,” declared the sergeant, re-reading it. “When he was brought into the station the other night I took him to be intoxicated. Then when Doctor Maynard saw him, he ordered him here.”

“The doctor thinks he is suffering from drugs,” said the matron. “He has been unconscious ever since he was brought here, nearly a week ago, and now he certainly has not regained his senses. He talks wildly about a girl who was murdered in a wood and died in his arms. Apparently he is suffering from delusions.”

“In any case, miss, I think I ought to telegraph to Guildford that a young man answering the description is here, don’t you think so?”

“I should not be in too great a hurry if I were you, Edwards,” was the reply. “Wait until Doctor Maynard has seen him again. We shall probably know more to-night. I’ve ordered nurse to keep him quite quiet and listen to his stories as though she believes every word.”

“The young man is missing from a place called Little Farncombe, in Surrey,” said the sergeant. “I wonder how he came to be lying on the tow-path at the foot of Whitchurch Bridge? He must have been there all night, for one of the men working on the Thames Conservancy dredger found him when on his way to work at six o’clock on Tuesday morning.”

“All clues to his identity have been removed,” remarked the matron. “His name has been cut out of his shirt collar and underclothing, and the laundry marks removed—all deliberately done as if to efface his identity. Possibly he intended to commit suicide, and that’s why he was on the river bank.”

“But the doctor, when he saw him at the police station, gave his opinion that the man was drugged,” the police sergeant said. “I don’t think he had any intention of suicide.”

“Well, in any case, let us wait till this evening. I will telephone to you after the doctor has seen him,” the matron promised. And with that the sergeant left.

At six o’clock Doctor Maynard, a quiet elderly man who had practised in Pangbourne and district for fifteen years, called again and saw Roddy lying in the narrow little bed.

His face was pale and drawn, and his eyes sunken and weary:

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