Year: 1878

erly." answered him. "But as for murder
will out and all that, don't think you will
find any policeman or magistrate who will
agree with you there; and there was less to
help us when you had got out of the scrape
in this Combestead business than any affair l
was ever concerned in."


II don't care," he says; II dream of it al
most every night; and my wife CONSULTED
some of the best fortune. .tellers in India, and
they all told her it would be discovered"


Hum p said: "we don't think much of
fortunetellers here you know"


"I'm perfectly aware of that" he says: "and
1 shouldn't give them in as evidence but if
you had lived in India with people who knew
the native ways, you might alter your mind
about fortune tellers Anyway you will re-
member, when it's found out, that l told you
how it would be-"


I laughed and said should and after we
had had another glass together, and he had
given me his address and made me promise
to call on him, we parted.


told my wife all about it; and it is very
curious to see how women are all alike in
curiosity and superstition and all that; for
although nv wife had been married to me for
thirty years, and 80 had every opportunity of
learning better, yet she caught at what young
Lytherly-not 80 very young now, by the
by-had said about these fortune.tellers and
was quite ready to believe and swear that the
murder would be found out. It's no use ar
guing with party like that; so l merely
smiled at her and passed il off.


1t was the very next day that Mrs. Robin
son and myself had agreed to 60 and see
new exhibition of paintings which some one
was starting in London, and tickets were pref
ty freely given away for it; but the same
reason which stopped my wife from going to
the Canterbury, stopped her from going to
the exhibition. l. went, of course, because l
couldn't be of any use, under the circumstan-
ces, to my married daughter and very
good exhibition il was too. There were plen-
ty of paintings, and I had gone through all
the rooms and entered the last one. There
were very few persons, I was sorry to see, in
the place, so that you could have an uninter.
rupted view of any picture you pleased. At
ter glancing carelessly round the room, for
one gets kind of surfeited with pictures after
bit, was struck with gloomy-looking
painting to the left Of the doorway, and which
I had not noticed on my first entry. When
1 came to look closer into it, l was more
struck was astounded. 1t was a picture
representing the finding of old Trapbois, the
miser, in the Fortunes of Nigel The heavy,
dull room was lighted only by the candle
which the young nobleman held above his
head and it appeared to be excellently
painted. But what drew my attention was
that, as part of the confusion i'll which the
struggle between the old man and his MUIR
derers had placed the room, the washstand
had been upset, had fallen into the fireplace,
and the ever had rolled into the crate, where
it was shown as unbroken, although the wa
ter was flooding the boards-so exactly, that
| was perfectly sure that no chance colncl'
dence had produced the resemblance, but
that whoever had painted this picture had
seen the room where Miss Parkway was muir.
dered, and had had the features of the scene
stamped on his memory. Who so likely to
have the scene stamped, l instantly thought,
as the murderer himself? As this rushed on
my mind, could not repress an exclamation,
although pretty we'll guarded as rule. The
only other person in the room heard me, and
came to see what had excited me SO strongly.
Apparently, he was disappointed, for he look
ed from the picture to his catalogue, then to
the picture again, then at me, back to MS
catalogue, and then went away with dis
contented grunt. ! did not move, however,
but remained quite absorbed in the study OF
this mysterious painting and the more look.
ed the more convinced became that it was
copied from the scene of Miss Parkway's
murder. There were several little points
which I had not at first noticed, and in fact
had quite forgotten such as the position Of
the 6re.irons, the direction in which the water
had run, ETC., which were all faithfully shown
in the picture To be brief, I had made up
my mind before I left the room that had at
last found the real clue to the Combestead
murder.


The artists name was Wyndham; and |
was determined that would very soon, as
natural beginning, make some inquiries
about this MIR. Wyndham; and, indeed, |
began before 1 left the exhibition. engaged
the hall-keeper to have glass with me at the
nearest tavern, and when | got fully into con-
versation with him, asked carelessly where
Mr.. Wyndham lived, as I thought l had
known him several years ago, giving de-
scrption of some entirely imaginary person.
The hall-keeper said: "No, that was not the
sort of man at ALL Mr.. Wyndham was"
(here he described him J "and he doesn't live
at place at the west end of London, as you
said, sir, but at place in Essex, not very far
from Colchester" He knew where he lived,
because he had several times posted letters to
him at "The Mount" This was about all |
got from the hall.keeper, but it was as much
as wanted.


I am not greatly in the habit of taking 9TH
er people into my confidence, but this was
altogether an exceptional case 80, after lit
tie reflection. went straight to the address
John Lytherly had given me, and told him
what I had seen. He of course introduced
me to his wife, very pretty dark eyed young
woman and when had told all, they ex-
changed looks less of surprise than triumph.
"Oh, it is coming all rightT he exclaimed.
II knew the murder would cry out some day.
And now you will have little more respect
for Indian fortune-telers."


Il am not quite sure about that, l said.
"But don't you go making so certain that we
are going to find out anything, Mr.. Ltherly;
this may be only an accidental resemblance"
Because, as you may suppose, | had not told
them how confident felt in my own mind.


Accidental Nonsense !" was all he said
to that; and then he asked me what was the
first step proposed to take. I told him that
I thought we ought to 60 down to this village
and see if we could learn anything suspicious
about Mr.. Wyndham; and by my old detec-