them. Look there, now!" They had crossed the threshold as the
detective spoke, and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall,
he made a sidelong motion of his head towards a bar on the left,
wherein stood or lounged a number of men who from their general
appearance, their slouched hats, and their bronzed faces appeared to be
Colonials, or at any rate to have spent a good part of their time
beneath Oriental skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a
Colonial accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and
Trichinopoly, and Rathbury wagged his head sagely. "Lay you anything
the dead man was a Colonial, Mr. Spargo," he remarked. "Well, now, I
suppose that's the landlord and landlady."

There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and
woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge
on which lay a register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a
fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at
some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured,
thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an
enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.

"You the landlord of this house, sir?" he asked. "Mr. Walters? Just
so--and Mrs. Walters, I presume?"

The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired.

"A little matter of business, Mr. Walters," replied Rathbury, pulling
out a card. "You'll see there who I am--Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of
the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald