instincts aroused. For though Rolfe had not yet risen very high in the
police force, he had many of the qualities which make the good
detective--observation, sagacity, and some imagination. The
extraordinary crime which he had been called upon to help unravel
presented a baffling mystery which was likely to test the value of these
qualities to the utmost.

Rolfe looked steadily at the corpse for some time, impressing a picture
of it in every detail on his mental retina. Struck by an idea, he bent
over and touched the patch of blood in the dead man's breast, then looked
at his finger. There was no stain. The blood was quite congealed. Then he
tried to unclench the judge's right hand, but it was rigid.

As Rolfe stood there gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form
some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had
heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to
him. These rumours had not been much--a jocular hint or two among his
fellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty face
and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to
do. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these
stories. He glanced around the vast room. Certainly it was not the sort
of apartment in which a High Court judge might be expected to do his
entertaining, but Rolfe recalled that he had heard gossip to the effect
that Sir Horace, because of his virtual estrangement from his daughter,
did very little entertaining beyond an occasional bridge or supper party
to his sporting friends, and rarely went into Society.

Rolfe began to scrutinise the articles of furniture in the room,
wondering if there was anything about them which might reveal something
of the habits of the dead man. He produced a small electric torch from