Quick now, for the burning cloth has left a pungent, titillating, acrid smell, which must be attended to immediately. Mr. Dunn draws an easy-chair to the corner of the table close by the fireplace, and rumples the antimacassar, which has been laid on by careful hands; then takes the Tourist's Guide, places it on the table in close proximity to the chair, opens it, and places his gold pencil-case between the leaves; lastly, he takes a shovelful of red-hot coals from the grate, and deliberately strews them over the hearthrug; then he quietly quits the room, leaving the door open behind him.

Meanwhile, Inspector Jeffery and his subordinate. Sergeant Scott, were enjoying themselves after their fashion. They had a great triumph of popular excitement and curiosity up to the doors of the hotel, and once inside, they were destined to still greater distinction, not, indeed, at the hands of the young lady in the glass case--she was too much in the habit of seeing celebrities of all kinds, military and naval heroes, leading lawyers, great authors and actors, all of whom were in the habit of putting up at the Adelphi, and addressing polite nothings to her, to be particularly moved at the entrance of a couple of policemen, even though engaged in investigating a murder mystery. When she had turned them over to the manager, her business with them was concluded, and she went back to her ledger and to answering the numerous applicants at the glass case, without bestowing another thought upon the visitors in blue-braided uniform. But the gentleman who at that time filled the position of manager was a very different kind of person; he delighted in the mysterious and romantic, and the word 'murder' sounded pleasantly in his ear. The police officers were invited into his private sanctum, were bidden to take seats, and were asked what beverage would be most agreeable to them. The inspector, a man of travel and of taste, suggested dry sherry; the sergeant, a pure and simple Liverpudlian, would have liked to have named gin, but he recollected where he was, and asked for brandy.

'And now,' said the manager, as soon as the visitors were comfortably seated, with their glasses before them, 'now, inspector, tell us all about it.'

'There isn't much to tell, sir,' said Inspector Jeffery, 'though it is as bold and, I may say, as clean a job as I have met with in my experience.'

'And you mean to say the murdered man was a visitor in this hotel?' interrupted the manager. 'Who could it be?'

'I'm coming to that presently, sir,' said the inspector, who always delivered himself according to what he called 'the laws of evidence,' and who was terribly put out by having his straight story broken in upon. 'I said it was a bold and clean job, and I might have added clever, for although there was a patrol passing up and down in front of the very door of the warehouse where it was committed every half hour, to say nothing of sergeants visiting rounds and all that, not a trace was seen or heard of anything about it until the people came to the warehouse this morning.'

'Warehouse! How did he get in there? It must have been done by one of the warehouse hands,' again interrupted the manager.

'When you have done, sir, I will continue,' said the inspector testily. 'It was one of those large warehouses close by Water-street, which are let in floors, or flats as they call them in Scotland; each lock up separate to themselves, with a common stairway, and where, there being no porter resident on the place, the front door is always kept unfastened. I have spoken to the commissioners about that once or twice, suggesting an order should be issued to have some one responsible for those doors being locked, and if that had been the case there would have been no murder. It was an out-door clerk belonging to Triggs and Vyner, wool-staplers, on the third floor, that discovered the murder. He came about seven o'clock this morning, having forgotten his note-book last night, and being unable to start his rounds without it. When he got up to the first-floor landing, he found the dead man lying in a heap in the corner. He thought he was drunk at first--not a tramp, he could not have been that by his clothes, but some gentleman who had been dining out and mistaken his road home--but when he bent over him he found that the man was dead. There was very little blood on the floor, though his clothes were soaked with it. He had been stabbed to the heart with a long-bladed knife, more like a dagger, which was lying by his side. Such a stab, so straight and sure, I never saw before in my experience, nor our divisional surgeon neither. He says, if it weren't for reflecting upon the credit of the profession, he could almost swear it had not been done by any amateur.'

'Good Lord!' said the manager, by this time intensely interested. 'Well, what then?'

'Then, I was sent for,' resumed the inspector, 'and I came down, and by this time there was a crowd round the place, and my men had some difficulty in turning them out. Two or three of them I allowed to stop, and among them was old Tom Langman the flyman, who whispered to me that he recognised the body as that of the gentleman he had driven from this house to the docks, and who, he thought, was one of a large theatrical party now staying here.'