"A woman, then--" Wrayson began.

"Bless you, yes! a woman could have done it easily," the Colonel
declared, "only unfortunately there don't seem to have been any women
about. Why, I've seen it done in Korea with a turn of the wrist. It's
all knack."

Wrayson shuddered slightly. The Colonel's words had troubled him more
than he would have cared to let any one know.

"Woman or man or child," Mason remarked, "the person who did it seems to
have vanished in some remarkable manner from the face of the earth."

"He certainly seems," the Colonel admitted, "to have covered up his
traces with admirable skill. I have read every word of the evidence at
the inquest, and I can understand that the police are completely
confused."

Heneage and Mason exchanged glances of quiet amusement whilst the
Colonel helped himself to cheese.

"Dear old boy," the latter murmured, "he's off on his hobby. Let him go
on! He enjoys it more than anything in the world."

Heneage nodded assent, and the Colonel returned to the subject with
avidity a few moments later.

"This man Morris Barnes," he affirmed, "seems to have been a somewhat
despicable, at any rate, a by no means desirable individual. He was of
Jewish origin, and he had not long returned from South Africa, where