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cide. First, as I told you, the hat. He wasn't alone when he fell out of the carriage, or who threw the hat after him?"

"There was no mark in the hat, was there?"

"Only the maker's; that's the irritating thing about this business. Hats, collars, shirts, people buy them at a moment's notice and pay cash for them, so there's no record in the books. And watches⁠—of course you don't have a watch sent, you take it with you, to save the danger of carriage by post. I'll try all those tradesmen if the worst comes to the worst; probably the police have already; but I bet nothing comes of it."

"What's your next argument against suicide?"

"The ticket. That extra four bob would have got him a first instead of a third. Now, a man who means to commit suicide doesn't want four bob, but he does want to be alone."

"But the suicide might have been an impulse at the last moment."

"I don't believe it. The place where he fell was just the one place about here where he was bound to kill himself, not merely maim himself. That looks like preparation."

"All right. Any more?"

"No, but I think that's enough to go on with. The probability I'm going to bet on is murder."

"You're up against coincidence again, though, there. Why should somebody happen to murder Brotherhood on the very day he went bankrupt?"

"You will go on assuming that it is Brotherhood.