worth, but at the time he was glad to find a new place

without troubling about an increase of wages. People
were fighting rather shy of him, and he had no friends in

this country. No; if anyone in the world was interested
in the prolonged life and unimpaired digestion of the

Canon it would certainly be Sebastien."
"People don't always weigh the consequences of their

rash acts," said Egbert, "otherwise there would be very
few murders committed. Sebastien is a man of hot

temper."
"He is a southerner," admitted Sir Lulworth; "to be

geographically exact I believe he hails from the French
slopes of the Pyrenees. I took that into consideration

when he nearly killed the gardener's boy the other day
for bringing him a spurious substitute for sorrel. One

must always make allowances for origin and locality and
early environment; `Tell me your longitude and I'll know

what latitude to allow you,' is my motto."
"There, you see," said Egbert, "he nearly killed the

gardener's boy."
"My dear Egbert, between nearly killing a gardener's

boy and altogether killing a Canon there is a wide
difference. No doubt you have often felt a temporary

desire to kill a gardener's boy; you have never given way
to it, and I respect you for your self-control. But I

don't suppose you have ever wanted to kill an
octogenarian Canon. Besides, as far as we know, there

had never been any quarrel or disagreement between the
two men. The evidence at the inquest brought that out

very clearly."
"Ah!" said Egbert, with the air of a man coming at

last into a deferred inheritance of conversational
importance, "that is precisely what I want to speak to

you about."
He pushed away his coffee cup and drew a pocket-book

from his inner breast-pocket. From the depths of the
pocket-book he produced an envelope, and from the

envelope he extracted a letter, closely written in a
small, neat handwriting.

"One of the Canon's numerous letters to Aunt
Adelaide," he explained, "written a few days before his

death. Her memory was already failing when she received
it, and I daresay she forgot the contents as soon as she

had read it; otherwise, in the light of what subsequently
happened, we should have heard something of this letter

before now. If it had been produced at the inquest I
fancy it would have made some difference in the course of

affairs. The evidence, as you remarked just now, choked
off suspicion against Sebastien by disclosing an utter

absence of anything that could be considered a motive or
provocation for the crime, if crime there was."

"Oh, read the letter," said Sir Lulworth
impatiently.

"It's a long rambling affair, like most of his
letters in his later years," said Egbert. "I'll read the

part that bears immediately on the mystery.
" 'I very much fear I shall have to get rid of

Sebastien. He cooks divinely, but he has the temper of a
fiend or an anthropoid ape, and I am really in bodily

fear of him. We had a dispute the other day as to the
correct sort of lunch to be served on Ash Wednesday, and

I got so irritated and annoyed at his conceit and
obstinacy that at last I threw a cupful of coffee in his

face and called him at the same time an impudent
jackanapes. Very little of the coffee went actually in

his face, but I have never seen a human being show such
deplorable lack of self-control. I laughed at the threat

of killing me that he spluttered out in his rage, and
thought the whole thing would blow over, but I have

several times since caught him scowling and muttering in
a highly unpleasant fashion, and lately I have fancied

that he was dogging my footsteps about the grounds,
particularly when I walk of an evening in the Italian

Garden.'
"It was on the steps in the Italian Garden that the

body was found," commented Egbert, and resumed reading.
" 'I daresay the danger is imaginary; but I shall

feel more at ease when he has quitted my service.' "
Egbert paused for a moment at the conclusion of the

extract; then, as his uncle made no remark, he added: "If
lack of motive was the only factor that saved Sebastien

from prosecution I fancy this letter will put a different
complexion on matters."

"Have you shown it to anyone else?" asked Sir
Lulworth, reaching out his hand for the incriminating

piece of paper.
"No," said Egbert, handing it across the table, "I

thought I would tell you about it first. Heavens, what
are you doing?"

Egbert's voice rose almost to a scream. Sir
Lulworth had flung the paper well and truly into the

glowing centre of the grate. The small, neat hand-
writing shrivelled into black flaky nothingness.

"What on earth did you do that for?" gasped Egbert.
"That letter was our one piece of evidence to connect

Sebastien with the crime."
"That is why I destroyed it," said Sir Lulworth.

"But why should you want to shield him?" cried
Egbert; "the man is a common murderer."

"A common murderer, possibly, but a very uncommon
cook."

DUSK
NORMAN GORTSBY sat on a bench in the Park, with his

back to a strip of bush-planted sward, fenced by the park
railings, and the Row fronting him across a wide stretch

of carriage drive. Hyde Park Corner, with its rattle and
hoot of traffic, lay immediately to his right. It was

some thirty minutes past six on an early March evening,
and dusk had fallen heavily over the scene, dusk

mitigated by some faint moonlight and many street lamps.
There was a wide emptiness over road and sidewalk, and

yet there were many unconsidered figures moving silently
through the half-light, or dotted unobtrusively on bench

and chair, scarcely to be distinguished from the shadowed
gloom in which they sat.

The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonised with his
present mood. Dusk, to his mind, was the hour of the

defeated. Men and women, who had fought and lost, who
hid their fallen fortunes and dead hopes as far as

possible from the scrutiny of the curious, came forth in
this hour of gloaming, when their shabby clothes and

bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes might pass unnoticed,
or, at any rate, unrecognised.

A king that is conquered must see strange looks,
So bitter a thing is the heart of man.

The wanderers in the dusk did not choose to have