"Yes, there has certainly been foul play here as well as in the other room," said John Brancker, after a brief examination of the strong room. "In the first place, the twelve hundred pounds are gone which Mr. Hazeldine fetched from London yesterday, and I have no doubt that there were cash and notes to the amount of three or four thousand pounds in the safe, which also seem to be missing. The exact sum I cannot, of course, tell till I have examined the books. Of this safe Mr. Hazeldine himself always kept the key. The other safes in the cellar are under my charge. I must at once send a telegram to Mr. Avison, who is staying for a few days in Paris on his way home."

"That's an ugly bruise, Mr. Brancker, just above your left eye," said the chief constable, gazing straight into the other's face.

"Yes; it is the result of a little accident last night," answered John, indifferently. "A woman flung a stone at me. I suppose I shall be disfigured for a few days; but it might have been worse."

"If you will step this way for a moment, there is something I should like to ask you about," said Mace, and with that he led the way to the inner office, Dr. Barton and Sweet bringing up the rear. Mace unlocked the door and they all went in. "Can you explain how those marks came there?" asked the constable, pointing to the stains on the floor.

"Good gracious, no!" cried John with a start. "I know no more about them than you do"--which was precisely the remark Sweet had given utterance to. "And there are more marks outside my drawer! What can it all mean?"

"It may, perhaps, be as well to open the drawer, if you have the key about you."

John produced his bunch of keys at once. "This is the one," he said, handing the bunch to Mace. "Perhaps you had better open the drawer yourself."

The constable took the key and opened the drawer. The books and papers were marked here and there with drops of blood. John stared as he had never stared before. "Someone has been here to a certainty," he said. "The books and papers have been disturbed, and as for those stains----" He was too agitated to say more.

"And yet the lock does not seem to have been tampered with," said Mace, with his keen eyes again fixed on John's face.

"It's all a mystery, and I can throw no light on it whatever," answered the latter.

"Can you call to mind the last occasion of your having to open the drawer?"

"It was when I put my papers away last evening before leaving; that would be sometime between eight and nine o'clock."

"Then you did not open the drawer when you came back to the Bank at half-past ten?"

"Certainly not. I had no occasion to do so. I did not even light the gas, but searched for and found my umbrella in the dark. I was not more than two minutes in the office."

"I shall have to keep this office locked up till the jury have visited it," said Mace. "I have no doubt the Coroner will be able to sit this afternoon."

John looked at him for a moment as though he hardly understood his meaning; then following Mace's lead, they all left the office, the door of which was carefully re-locked. They had just got back to the other office when Clement Hazeldine rushed in, white and breathless.

Although lame, Ephraim Judd, with the assistance of his stick, could get over the ground as quickly as most people, and it did not take him many minutes to reach Clement Hazeldine's door. Clem lodged with the widow of the practitioner to whose business he had succeeded. He was still in bed when Ephraim knocked, having been attending a patient till four A.M.; but the summons sent upstairs was so peremptory that he lost no time in coming down. In what words Ephraim told his terrible tidings he never afterwards knew; it is sufficient that they were told.

"What about your brother?" asked Ephraim, as soon as Clement seemed in some measure to be recovering from the shock. "Ought he not to know as soon as possible?"

"Will you please go and tell him, Mr. Judd, while I go down to the Bank? There's my mother and sister, too; but Edward must break the news to them. It seems impossible that it can be true--impossible to. think that I shall never see my poor father alive again! What wretch's hand has done this deed?"

Beecham, the suburb of Ashdown, where Edward Hazeldine lived, was a clear mile and a half away. Ephraim would have hired a fly, but there was none to be had at that early hour. He was far from being easy in his mind as he walked along. It was almost a certainty that during his absence Mr. Mace would discover the blood-stains on the office floor, and Ephraim felt terribly afraid lest, by some means or other, they should be traced back to him. He did not well see how they could be, but his conscience made a coward of him. He had taken away the knife that had cut his hand, and it was now locked up in his trunk at home, while the cut itself, although it had bled a good deal at the time, had not proved a severe one. It was in the palm of the hand, and he had covered it with a little gold-beater's skin to keep the air out. He made a mental note that on no account must Mr. Mace's eyes be permitted to discover the wound.

Edward Hazeldine was an early riser. While breakfasting, he made a point of running through his correspondence. It was a saving of valuable time. He had just sat down to table with his heap of letters before him when Mr. Judd was announced. Edward, who knew that Ephraim was employed at the Bank, leaped in a moment to the conclusion that his visitor could only be the bearer of ill news, and one glance at the latter's grave face was enough to assure him that such was the case.

"My father--what is amiss?" he said, as he started to his feet.

Then Ephraim had to break the same news to him that he had already broken to his brother. Edward's face blanched, and his eyes filled with horror as the tale was told.

"My father murdered!--he who never harmed a creature in his life."

Then he bowed his head on his hands, and there was silence in the room for a little while.

But Edward Hazeldine was a man of action; to sit still for any length of time was for him next to an impossibility. Presently he lifted his head, wiped his eyes, and rang the bell. To the servant who came in, he said:

"Order the mare to be put into the dog-cart and brought round as quickly as possible." Then to Ephraim: "We will drive over to the Bank together as soon as I have given certain instructions to my clerk."

Left alone for a few minutes, Ephraim glanced with curiosity round the handsomely furnished room. He had never been inside Edward Hazeldine's house before. Then his eyes wandered to the breakfast tray, and the little heap of post-letters lying beside it. As has been said already, other people's letters always had an irresistible fascination for Mr. Judd. If he could not see the inside of a letter, he would rather see the outside than not see it at all. His long, thin fingers shut and opened automatically. He half rose fr............