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There was a further uneasy pause: Sergeant Bluett took out the evening paper, stared at it as though he wondered how it had got there, and put it back in another pocket.

"Realising that the man was dead," said Firth, "you came to the 'phone, which I see on the table, yonder, and called up Scotland Yard. Is that correct?"

"It is correct. I then returned hoping that in the short time still left to me before final interruption should occur, I might reconquer some of what I had lost."

"You mean that you went into another room, leaving no one in the lobby but the dead man?"

"Yes."

"Then someone in hiding," Bluett suggested, "might have slipped out? Before we arrived, I mean."

"I have no reason to suppose that there was anyone in hiding."

The door opened and Dr. Fawcett entered, sniffing and looking from face to face, a man whose curiosity could brook no further repression. A wave of that disturbing perfume followed him in.

"Why do you burn incense, Lord Marcus?" he asked rather tersely—"and what is it?"