The flat in which I live with the old housekeeper who looks after me is not in Chelsea at all, but a quarter of an hour's walk away, just round the corner from Queen's Gate. It is exceedingly comfortable (as indeed it should be considering the rent I am made to pay for it), I have my own furniture, and on the whole I don't ask for a much better place to work in. For, quite apart from my paper, I do work, and I don't want to give you the impression that the whole of my leisure time is given over to the investigation of what happens to my Chelsea friends.

I was, as a matter of fact, particularly busy just about that time. Day after day I was getting up at half-past six in the morning, breakfasting at my table as I worked, and continuing without interruption till it was time for luncheon and the office. Since you are probably not in the white-elephant line of business, I won't tell you which of my novels I was at work on. I will only say that I at any rate was interested in it, and, severe as was the strain of writing from seven o'clock in the morning till midday, I sometimes hated to break off. Mrs. Jardine had orders not to admit anybody whomsoever between those hours, and obeyed them to the letter.

You may judge then of my surprise when there walked into my study at nine o'clock in the morning, and not over Mrs. Jardine's dead body, Billy Mackwith.

"Don't scold the old lady," he began without preface. "I suppose she hadn't any barbed wire except that on her chin—it is rather like one of the gooseberries we used to make on the old wiring-course. I had to see you."

"Had breakfast? Have a cup of coffee?" I asked him.

"Nothing, thanks. Well, I think I saved friend Philip a certain amount of trouble yesterday," he said, putting down his hat, stick and gloves. I don't think Mackwith buys a glossy new silk topper every time he goes out, but I do honestly believe he buys a new pair of lemon-colored gloves.

"Oh? How was that?"

"At the inquest on that fellow," he replied. "And by the way, I saw the Roundabout too. I suppose it has its humorous side, but it's very annoying too. I should go for 'em for libel. A house can be libeled, you know. Anyway, it's a good job he's out of town."

I was on the point of saying, "A good job he's what?" when I checked myself. If you remember, I had last seen William Mackwith, K.C., when I had left him at Sloane Square Station an hour or two after that confounded aeroplane accident. He and Hubbard had gone off to keep their respective appointments, while I myself had followed our check-coated friend Westbury into a public-house. Whether either Esdaile or Hubbard had seen him since I didn't know. I now gathered that Billy at any rate hadn't seen Esdaile.

"Yes?" I said. "What trouble have you been saving him?"

"Well, I told you—I saved him the bother of stopping for the inquest."

I had of course known that there must be an inquest, but I suppose I had been busy and had forgotten it again. This began to be interesting.

"Tell me about the inquest," I said.

He took a cigarette from his case and offered me one. Then he continued between puffs.

"Well, as a matter of fact there wasn't very much trouble. One man seemed inclined to be cantankerous, but we brought it in Misadventure all right. We——"

I imagine that at this point he caught sight of the expression on my face, for he stopped suddenly.

"Esdaile did go out of town, didn't he?" he asked.

"I'll tell you about Esdaile in a moment. Go on about the inquest."

He seemed puzzled, but went on.

"Of course, that was my idea in speaking to that Inspector that morning. It would have been a pity to upset the Esdailes' plans. So I explained this to the Inspector and gave him my card—said I hadn't seen very much, but as much as anybody else—result, I was made foreman of the jury."

Here I had a little flash of illumination as regards Inspector Webster too. Esdaile, if you remember, had said to him, "Yes, that was Mr. Mackwith, the King's Counsel; didn't you know?" and Webster had answered, "Was he indeed, sir?" My respect for the Inspector's powers of giving nothing away went up several hundreds per cent. Apparently it was the Inspector who had seen to it that Billy had been put on the jury.

"Well, you were made foreman. You said one man gave trouble. Who, and why?"

"Oh, some fellow or other—Westcott or Westmacott I think his name was—I forget. Insisted on viewing the body. Wanted his money's worth I suppose. He was sorry he did though."

This was more and more interesting. I asked what sort of a man this Westmacott was.

"The sort of fellow who would be down in the cellar before his wife and children when there was an air-raid on, I should say," Billy replied. "Awful nuisance of a man. But he got his all right. He'll probably be taking solid food again this day week."

"Then you did see the body?"

"Had to, if only to keep this fellow quiet. He stuck out right to the finish too, but we got our dozen without him. Prima facie case, of course. Death by burning, and what wasn't that was general smash-up."

"Was a doctor called?"

"The divisional surgeon was there, but he quite agreed, and I saw to the rest in my capacity as foreman. There was only one man who wasn't satisfied, and he was busy——" Billy twinkled wickedly.

You may imagine how I was beginning to relish all this. The Chelsea Arts with its rags about haunted houses and White Ladies who dropped hairpins was well enough in its way, but its humor could not compare for a moment with the spectacle of a rising King's Counsel who practically forced himself on to a jury-panel, got himself made foreman, and then burked inquiry by shutting up the only juryman who had as much as a suspicion of the dangerous truth—and all this in the whitest innocence and purest good faith! I could have laughed aloud. Had he been a willing instrument in the affair he could not have done his work more efficiently and completely.

"Is the poor fellow buried yet?" I asked in a suppressed voice.

"Yesterday," said Billy.

"And he can't be dug up again?"

Mackwith gave me a sharp look. "What do you mean?" he asked quickly.

"Dug. Past participle of the verb to dig. I mean is he buried once for all?"

"Short of an Exhumation Order from the Home Secretary he is. I don't understand you."

"And that's rather difficult to get, isn't it?" I continued.

"I should say the North Pole was comparatively easy," Billy replied.

At this point my laughter really became too much for me. I remember hoping that it didn't seem too rude, but I couldn't help it. Billy let me finish, and then asked quietly, even gravely, "Now if you're feeling better, will you please explain?"

I suppose my laughter had been just a little hysterical. As I have already told you, I myself stand only on the verge of this Case; but not so my friends, and Esdaile in particular. I remembered—and deep under that rather remarkable laughter it moved me more than a little to do so—the extraordinary range and sweep of emotions that had shaken Esdaile in the course of a single day. I remembered the bright strained tension of those first minutes after he had come up out of the cellar, the shock of that telephone message from the hospital that had told him what had happened to a friend. I remembered that black depression when Hubbard and I had found him waiting alone in his house for Monty. I remembered his ache on Joan Merrow's account, our later talk with Monty, his nascent and grim resolve that in the teeth of all the world the accident theory should be maintained, his dismay when he had realized what a post-mortem examination might disclose. I ran over again his whole day, from that merry breakfast-party to the appearance of Inspector Webster in our midst at ten o'clock at night.... Well, one peril was now safely past. In the absence of the Exhumation Order of which Mackwith spoke, there remained no tittle of material evidence save a battered bit of nickel-steel in Westbury's possession or in that of the police. If only for Esdaile's sake, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from me.

And, on the top of all, Billy Mackwith's innocent complicity must have moved me to that inane outburst.

"Well, for one thing, Esdaile isn't out of town at all," I said, wiping my eyes.

"Well, I thought he was. That isn't the joke, is it?"

"Not altogether. You see——"

"Do you mean that stupid Roundabout thing?"

"No.... I beg your pardon, Billy. It came over me all of a sudden. Now I think I can tell you——"

And so another was added to our nicely-lengthening list of Principals in the Case.