"No; Mr. Moore has failed to call our attention to this fact. Did
you meet Mr. Moore during the course of your visit to a neighborhood
over which he seems to hold absolute sway?"

"Not to my knowledge. But his house is directly opposite, and as
he has little to do but amuse himself with what he can see from his
front window, I concluded that he might have observed me going in."

"You entered by the front door, then?"

"How else?"

"And on what night?"


Mr. Jeffrey made an effort. These questions were visibly harassing
him.

"The night before the one - the one which ended all my earthly
happiness," he added in a low voice.

Coroner Z. cast a glance at me. I remembered the lack of dust on
the nest of little tables from which the upper one had been drawn
forward to hold the candelabrum, and gently shook my head. The
coroner's eyebrows went up, but none of his disbelief crept into
his voice as he made this additional statement

"The night on which you failed to return to your own house."