has got it, too, I don't wonder that they get fed up with one another's
company."

"That's about the secret of it. And now, I shall be glad, Sowerby, if
you will be after that taxi-man again. Report at one o'clock. I shall be
here."

With his hand on the door-knob: "By the way," said Sowerby, "who the
blazes is Mr. King?"

Inspector Dunbar looked up.

"Mr. King," he replied slowly, "is the solution of the mystery."




VII

THE MAN IN THE LIMOUSINE


The house of the late Horace Vernon was a modern villa of prosperous
appearance; but, on this sunny September morning, a palpable atmosphere
of gloom seemed to overlie it. This made itself perceptible even to the
toughened and unimpressionable nerves of Inspector Dunbar. As he mounted
the five steps leading up to the door, glancing meanwhile at the lowered
blinds at the windows, he wondered if, failing these evidences and his
own private knowledge of the facts, he should have recognized that the
hand of tragedy had placed its mark upon this house. But when the door