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"I should darned well say——" began the indignant Bill, but the other arrested him with a gesture.

"There is the doctor. He is an eminent medical man, extremely wealthy, the author of a famous medical work, rather indolent, but otherwise with no particular vices."

"We can rule him out," said Bill.

"We'll rule nobody out. He was called to a patient; his car broke down in Victoria Street, and he called up the patient to tell him that he was delayed, only to learn that he had not been summoned. I have substantiated those facts. Jennings, a man of unimpeachable character—his wife was housekeeper to a well-known Society woman—they occupied seats sixteen and seventeen, row G, at the Empire last night, and have been identified by a commissionaire who knows Jennings, and by the programme girl from whom Jennings bought a box of sweets for his wife. Now comes me, and my conduct is open to the gravest question. I was in the house when the Thing was here, and it was a fairly simple matter for me to imitate the howling, horrible noise that the creature was making, and equally possible to fake the fight and the story I told."