was, I think, rather surprised to find another man's clothes among my kit. But fortunately he's used to my idiosyncrasies, and regards them as mere eccentricities on the part of his master. But he is always discreet. He's been with me these ten years."

"How long have you lived here, Mr--er--"

"Shaw here," he interrupted quickly.

"Mr Shaw. How long have you lived here? I thought the place belonged to Lord Wyville?"

"So it does--at least to the late lord's executors. I've rented it for the past three years. So in the county I'm highly respectable, and I believe highly respected."

"The situation is unusual--to say the least," I declared.

"Perhaps I'm a rather unusual man, Mr Kemball," he said, rising and crossing the room. I saw that in his dark green cravat he wore a fine diamond, and that his manner and bearing were those of a well-born country gentleman. Truly, he was an unusual person.

"I hope," he went on, halting suddenly before me, "that as you have associated yourself with my very dear and intimate friend, Melvill Arnold, you will now become my friend also. It is for that reason I venture to approach you as I have done to-day."

"Well," I said, my natural sense of caution exerting itself as I recollected the dead man's written injunction, "I must admit, Mr Shaw, that I am sorely puzzled to fathom the mystery of the situation. Ever since my meeting with poor Mr Arnold I seem to have been living in a perfect maze of inexplicable circumstances."

"I have no doubt. But all will be explained in due course. Did Arnold make no explanation?"

"None. Indeed, in his letter to me, which I opened after his burial, he admitted to me that he was not what he had pretended to be."

"Few of us are, I fear," he laughed. "We are all more or less hypocrites and humbugs. To-day, in this age of criminality and self-advertisement, the art of evading exposure is the art of industry. Alas! the copy-book proverb that honesty is the best policy seems no longer true. To be dishonest is to get rich quick; to remain honest is to face the Official Receiver in the Bankruptcy Court. A dishonest man amasses money and becomes great and honoured owing to the effort of his press agent. The honest man struggles against the trickery of the unscrupulous, and sooner 

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