some trick of fortune, he and not Grant were the tenant of The Hollies, P. C. Robinson would have haled him to the village lock-up that very morning. It was not that he was villainous-looking, but rather that he looked capable of villainy. He was a tall, slender, rather stooping man, with a decidedly well-molded, if hawk-like, face. His aspect might be described as saturnine. Possibly, when he smiled, this morose expression would vanish, and then he might even win a favorable opinion. He had brilliant black eyes, close set, and an abundant crop of black hair, turning gray, which, in itself, lent an air of distinction. His lips were thin, his chin slightly prominent. He was well dressed, and managed a hat, stick, and gloves with ease. Altogether, he reminded Grant of a certain notable actor who is invariably cast for the rôle of a gentlemanly scoundrel, but who, in private life, is a most excellent fellow and good citizen. Oddly enough, Grant recognized in him, too, the type of man who would certainly have appealed to Adelaide Melhuish in her earlier and impressionable years.
Meanwhile, the visitor, finding that the clear-eyed young man seated in an easy chair (from which he had not risen) could seemingly regard him with blank indifference during the next hour, thought fit to say something.
"Is my name familiar to you, Mr. Grant?" he inquired.
The voice was astonishingly soft and pleasant, and the accent agreeably refined. Evidently, there were surprising points about Mr. Ingerman. Long afterwards, Grant learned, by chance, that the man had been an actor before branching off into that mysterious cosmopolitan profession known as "a financier."
"No," said Grant. "I have heard it very few times. Once, about three years ago, and today, when I mentioned it to the police."
The other man's sallow cheeks grew a shade more sallow. Grant supposed that this slight change of color indicated annoyance. Of course, the association of ideas in that curt answer was intolerably rude. But Grant had been tried beyond endurance that day. He was in a mood to be brusque with an archbishop.
"We can disregard your confidences, or explanations, to the police," said Ingerman smoothly. "Three years ago, I suppose, my wife spoke of me?"
"If you mean Miss Adelaide Melhuish—yes."
"I do mean her. To be exact, I mean the lady who was murdered outside this house last night."
Grant realized instantly that Isidor G. Ingerman was a foeman worthy of even a novelist's skill in repartee. Thus far, he, Grant, had been merely uncivil, using a bludgeon for wit, whereas the visitor was making play with a finely-tempered rapier.
"Now that you have established your identity, Mr. Ingerman, perhaps you will tell me why you are here," he said.
"I have come to Steynholme to inquire into my wife's death."
"A most laudable purpose. I was given to understand, however, that at one time you took little interest in her living. I have not seen Mrs. Ingerman for three years—until last night, that is—so there is a chance, of course, that husband and wife may have adjusted their differences. Is that so?"
"Until last night!" repeated Ingerman, almost in a startled tone. "You admit that?"
Grant turned and pointed.
"I saw, or fancied I saw, her face at that window," he said. "She looked in on me about ten minutes to eleven. I was hard at work, but the vision, as it seemed then, was so weird and unexpected, that I went straight out and searched for her. Perhaps 'searched' is not quite the right word. To be exact, I opened the French window, stood there, and listened. Then I persuaded myself that I was imagining a vain thing, and came in."
"What was she doing here?"
"I don't know."
"She arrived in Steynholme on Sunday evening, I am told."
"I heard that, too."
"You imply that you did not meet her?"
"No need to imply anything, Mr. Ingerman. I did not meet her. Beyond the fanciful notion that I had seen her ghost last night, the first I knew of her presence in the village was when I recognized her dead body this morning."
"Strange as it may sound, I am inclined to believe you."
Grant said nothing. He wanted to get up and pitch Ingerman into the road.
"But who else will take that charitable view?" purred the other, in that suave voice which so ill accorded with his thin lips and slightly hooked nose.
"I really don't care," was the weary answer.
"Not at the moment, perhaps. You have had a trying day, no doubt. My visit at its close cannot be helpful. But—"
"I am feeling rather tired mentally," interrupted Grant, "so you will oblige me by not raising too many points at once. Why should you imagine that conversation with you in particular should add to my supposed distress?"
"Doesn't it?"
"No."
"Why, then, may I ask, do you so obviously resent my questions? Who has so much right to put them as I?"
Grant found that he must bestir himself. Thus far, the honors lay with this rather sinister-looking yet quiet-mannered visitor.
"I am sorry if anything I have said lends color to that belief," he answered. "Candidly, I began by assuming that you forfeited any legal right years ago to interfere in behalf of Miss Melhuish, living or dead. Let us, at least, be candid with each other. Miss Melhuish herself told me that you and she had separated by mutual consent."
"Allow me to emulate your candor. The actual fact is that you weaned my wife's affections from me."
"That is a downright lie," said Grant coolly.
Ingerman's peculiar temperament permitted him to treat this grave insult far more lightly than Grant's harmless, if irritating, reference to the police.
"Let us see just what 'a lie' signifies," he said, almost judicially. "If a lady deserts her husband, and there is good reason to suspect that she is, in popular phrase, 'carrying on' with another man, how can the husband be lying if he charges that man with being the cause of the domestic upheaval?"
"In this instance a hypothetical case is not called for. Three years ago, Mr. Ingerman, you had parted from your wife. Your name was never mentioned. Apparently, none in my circle had even heard of you. Miss Melhuish had won repute as a celebrated actress. I met her, in a sense, professionally. We became friends. I fancied I was in love with her. I proposed marriage. Then, and not until then, did the ghost of Mr."—Grant bent forward, and consulted the card—"Mr. Isidor G. Ingerman intrude."
"So marriage was out of the question?"
"If you expect an answer—yes."
Ingerman rested the handle of his stick against his lips.
"That isn't how the situation was represented to me at the time," he said thoughtfully.
Grant was still sore with the recollection of the way in which the superintendent of police had forced him to confess the pitiful scheme whereby a woman in love had sought to gain her ends. He refused to sully her memory a second time that day, even to gain the upper hand in this troublesome controversy.
"I neither
