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lighted her, self-importance easily triumphing over any regret she may have felt for the apparently deceased. She had no doubt that Reeves was a reporter, but it is probable that she would have opened out quite as readily if he had announced himself as the piano-tuner.

"From the Daily Mail? To be sure, sir. I'm always fond of looking at a paper myself, and as for the Daily Telegraph, I simply revel in it. Called about poor Mr. Brotherood, I suppose; well, there isn't much doubt what's come to him, poor soul. . . . Not Mr. Brotherood at all? Don't you delude yourself, young man; that's him, sure enough. The police, they wanted me to go and look at the corpse; but I didn't hardly like to; battered they say it was, something shocking. His clothes? Of course they were his clothes; you don't think he'd want to be putting somebody else's clothes on to commit suicide in, do you? That's the same as he always wore; plain black coat and grey striped trousers, just the same as it was in the papers. . . . What tailor he went to? No, I couldn't rightly say that; though I've had the folding of them many a time; very neat man he was, Mr. Brotherood, in his personal habits. Oh, I dare say there's others as have clothes like his, only you see the way I look at it is, if the clothes were on Mr. Brotherood, then it's Mr. Brotherood's clothes they'll be, that's the way I look at it.

"A single gentleman? Yes, a single gentleman he was, single and singular, if you'll pardon the