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Rh "I'd like you to see one room, doctor, if you don't mind coming up," he said, and I followed him to the top of the house, where we entered a long room, with sloping roof, in which I saw some steel cog-wheels and several pieces of frames of machines, the nature of which it was impossible to determine.

"It looks as though this was used as a workshop," I said.

"Yes, that's just the point, doctor."

"An inventor's workshop—a mad inventor, probably," I said.

"I must call Syms, our C.I.D. man," the inspector said, "and I shall leave it to him."

"There's little to leave," I declared with a laugh. "The man was evidently wanted on a criminal charge and simply shot himself to escape arrest, giving your people notice of his intentions. He says so in his letter to the Superintendent. He was probably some crank inventor."

"All we have to determine is the cause of death," Wills remarked.

"That's easily settled," I said. "Bullet-wound, self-inflicted."

And with my pronouncement the estimable official expressed himself entirely satisfied.