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176 going, he'll need my help to do that," he said in a tone of quiet satisfaction.

"A posthumous nuisance—you do have phrases! And how you do dislike him!" she said.

"The moderately civilized man, with a gentle disposition like mine, always does hate the bull man. Also, he despises him," said Mr. Manley calmly.

She was silent a while, thinking; then she said: "What did you mean by saying: 'If it was a crime.' What else could it have been?"

"A suicide. The evidence was that the wound might have been self-inflicted," said Mr. Manley.

"Absurd! Lord Loudwater was the last man in the world to commit suicide!" she cried.

"That's purely a matter of individual opinion. I am of the opinion that a man of his uncontrollable temper was quite likely to commit suicide," he said firmly. "As for its being absurd, if there is any attempt to prove any one guilty of murdering him on purely circumstantial evidence, that person won't find anything absurd in the theory at all. In fact, he'll work it for all it's worth. I think myself that, with Dr. Thornhill's evidence in mind, the police, or the Public Prosecutor, or the Treasury, or whoever it is that decides those things, will never attempt in this case to bring any one to trial for the murder on merely circumstantial evidence."

"Do you think not?" she said in a tone of relief.

"I'm sure of it," said Mr. Manley. "But why