CYRIL B. THURLOW, accredited Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary from the United States to the Court of St. James, might or might not be a guilty, but he was certainly a most angry, man.

The French have a reputation for being more excitable than the people of his own land, but in this instance the contrast was of a contrary kind. Mr. Thurlow's explosive indignation found itself unable to disturb the calm, or deflect the course, of an investigation which, while treating him with extreme courtesy was yet of a coldly probing implacability.

M. Samuel's colleagues said that he had no imagination, and that self-confidence born of invincible stupidity, had established him in the high position he held - which would, indeed, have been too high to have permitted him to give his time to the details of this investigation, but for the national humiliations or international complications which might arise from any major blunder.

M. Samuel would himself have accepted (with important qualifications) the character which his enemies attributed to him. He would have said that his success was due to the fact that he preferred the obvious and commonplace to the bizarre or recondite explanation of any problem with which he might have to deal. In the result, he had had few spectacular triumphs of which to boast, but his mistakes had been fewer still. So he had come to his present place.

Now he sat opposite Mr. Thurlow, in the lounge of that gentleman's suite, sharing a pleasant fire, and having accepted one of the ambassador's excellent cigars.

"Monsieur - Your Excellency - - " he said, "that you should be annoyed thus - our regret is extreme. But you will see how we stand. M. Reynard is dead. He was a police-officer of France and he has been murdered here. He did not die by his own hand, that is sure. We do not say it was done by you. We have no cause to suggest! But a motive there must have been. And it is between yourself and Mr. Kindell the deed must lie. You say you are sure it was not he; and beyond that you will tell us nothing at all. It is hard to think that you know as little as that!"

"I tell you I never heard of the man till I saw his dead body lying in the room, on which I rang the hotel office at once. I did not know who he was, nor how he came to be there. Can I be plainer than that? It is for you to explain, and for the hotel management to apologize that they cannot keep my rooms clear of a sight which I was sorry for my daughter to see."

M............