The Four Stragglers. Frank L. Packard

way, handed it back, and lighted a fresh cigarette.

      "Yes," he said.

      "Sure?" said Captain Francis Newcombe.

      "Absolutely!" replied the Frenchman in the same low tone.

      "Very good!" said the ex-captain of territorials. "Don't look so damned white around the gills, Runnells. And watch yourself!" He raised his voice. "Show the sergeant in, Runnells!" he said.

      A minute later, Runnells ushered in a thick-set, florid-faced man.

      "Sergeant Mullins, sir!" he announced, and withdrew from the room.

      The sergeant looked inquiringly from one to the other of the two men.

      "I'm sorry to intrude, gentlemen," he said. "It's Captain Newcombe, I—"

      Captain Francis Newcombe waved his hand pleasantly.

      "Not at all, sergeant!" he said. "I am Captain Newcombe. What can I do for you?"

      "Well, sir," said the man from Scotland Yard, "I'm not saying you can do anything, and then again maybe you can." He glanced at the Frenchman, and coughed slightly.

      "Mr. Cremarre is a close friend of mine," said Captain Francis Newcombe quietly. "You may speak quite freely before him, so far as I am concerned."

      "Very good, sir!" said Sergeant Mullins. "Well, then, even if the papers hadn't been full of it all day, you'd probably know about it anyway, being as how you were a friend of his. It's Sir Harris Greaves, sir—Sir Harris' murder."

      Captain Francis Newcombe, as though instinctively, turned toward an evening paper that lay upon the table, its great headlines screaming the murder across the front page.

      "Good God, sergeant—yes!" he exclaimed. "It's a shocking thing! Shocking!" He jerked his head toward the paper, and glanced at Paul Cremarre. "You've read it, of course, Paul?"

      "I've never read anything like it before," said the Frenchman grimly. "The most wanton thing I ever heard of! Absolutely purposeless!"

      "Don't you be too sure about that, sir," said Detective-Sergeant Mullins crisply. "Things aren't done purposelessly—leastways, not them kind of things."

      "Exactly!" agreed Captain Francis Newcombe. "Right you are, sergeant! But you'll pardon me if I appear a bit curious as to why you should have come to me about it."

      "Well, sir," said Sergeant Mullins, "that's simple enough. You are the last one as had any conversation with Sir Harris before he was murdered."

      Captain Francis Newcombe stared at the Scotland Yard man in a puzzled way.

      "I am afraid I don't quite understand, sergeant," he said a little helplessly. "According to the published accounts, Sir Harris was stabbed in his bed, presumably during the early morning hours, though no sound was heard, and the crime wasn't discovered until his man went to take Sir Harris his tea at the usual hour this morning. But perhaps the accounts are inaccurate?"

      "No, sir," said Sergeant Mullins; "as far as that goes, they're accurate enough. The doctors say it must have been somewhere between two and three o'clock in the morning."

      "Quite so!" said Captain Francis Newcombe. "That is what I had in mind. The last time I saw Sir Harris was yesterday evening at the club. Sir Harris left the club shortly before I did. I have no exact idea what the hour was, though the doorman would probably be able to say, but I am quite certain it could not have been later than half past eleven."

      "It wasn't even as late as that, sir," said the man from Scotland Yard seriously. "Ten after eleven, it was, when Sir Harris left; and you, sir, at a quarter past. But I didn't say, sir, that you were the last one as spoke to Sir Harris alive. Conversation was what I said, sir—and a lengthy one too. One says a lot in an hour or so, sir."