man?"

Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.

"Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?" he said.
"It's close by."

"Well--I--the fact is, I've got a case on, in Mr. Justice Borrow's
court," Breton answered, also glancing at his clock. "But it won't be
called until after eleven. Will--"

"Plenty of time, sir," said Rathbury; "it won't take you ten minutes to
go round and back again--a look will do. You don't recognize this
handwriting, I suppose?"

Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it
again, intently.

"No!" he answered. "I don't. I don't know it at all--I can't think, of
course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought
he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional
services, you know," he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; "but,
three--three o'clock in the morning, eh?"

"The doctor," observed Rathbury, "the doctor thinks he had been dead
about two and a half hours."

Breton turned to the inner door.

"I'll--I'll just tell these ladies I'm going out for a quarter of an