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178 the neighbourhood. On the other hand, she might always be some one who had been a guest at the Castle.

He was about to go in search of Lady Loudwater to question her about their friends and acquaintances who might have this knowledge of the Castle and the habits of her husband, when the sleuth from the Wire and the sleuth from the Planet arrived together, in all amity and the same vexation at being prevented by this errand from spending the afternoon at the same bridge table. The sleuth of the Wire was a very solemn-looking young man, with a round, simple face. The sleuth of the Planet was a tall, dark man, with an impatient and slightly worried air, who looked uncommonly like an irritable actor-manager.

Both of them greeted Mr. Flexen with affectionate warmth, and Douglas, the tall sleuth of the Planet, at once deplored, with considerable bitterness, the fact that he had been robbed of his afternoon's bridge. Gregg, the sleuth of the Wire, preserved a gently-blinking, sympathetic silence.

Mr. Flexen at once sent for whisky, soda and cigars, and over them took his two friends into his confidence. He told them that it was very doubtful whether it was a case of murder or suicide; that the jury's verdict was not in accordance with the directions of the Coroner, but just a piece of natural, pig-headed stupidity. This produced another bitter