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The Chief Inspector opened a notebook, glancing across at the check back of the speaker. "You mean, Mrs. Vane's reference to a limping man?"

"That's it." Colonel O'Halloran turned, and producing from one pocket a quantity of tobacco which presumably he kept there loose, and from another a packet of cigarette papers, he began with great skill to manufacture a cigarette. "Limping man: that's what stuck in my mind."

"Aye, it was certainly queer," Firth admitted, studying his notes. "Weel, Mrs. Vane was presently produced by Lord Marcus, as I told ye. She came out wrapped in a fur coat of a verra costly character. Sergeant Bluett tells me it is chinchilla—"

"Poor old Amberdale," murmured the colonel, biting ragged ends from his cigarette and snapping a lighter into action.

"Dr. Fawcett made her over, and assured me that she had been under the influence of drugs—"

"What drugs?"

"On that point he remained uncertain, sir. I questioned her closely, but her manner was vague to the point o' imbecility. She was like a body talking in her sleep. Lord Marcus insisted that she must not be asked to see the dead man, and as Dr. Fawcett supported him, I had the body removed before she came in. She admitted, however, wi'out any pressure on my part, that she had known Sir Giles weel at one time. She stated that she had not seen him for six months or more. Then came her words to which you refer, sir. She seemed to come over whimsy—kind o' fey; and she exclaimed: