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Yet Marryatt was to be freed of his apprehensions: Brotherhood had looked worried lately at the office—had said, "Damn you, get out of the way" to the lift-boy—had complained of headaches. He had committed suicide, clearly while of unsound mind; and Marryatt might get on with the funeral.

Marryatt seemed five years younger when they met afterwards to discuss the situation. Strange, Reeves reflected, how in certain natures the wish is father to the thought. Only last night Marryatt had seemed eager to follow up the clues of a murder, so as to get the bugbear of suicide off his mind; now that the act of suicide was declared inculpable, he showed no great interest in prosecuting the inquiry. "It's a mystery," he kept on saying, "and I don't think we're ever likely to get to the bottom of it. If we could have hunted Davenant, we should have had something to go on. Now that we know Davenant was a fictitious personage, what's the use of worrying? We've no clues that can help us to any further action. Unless, of course, you like to go to the police and tell them what you know."

But to this Reeves would not consent. Ever since the apparent indifference with which the police had treated his warning chits when he was in the Military Intelligence, he had longed for an opportunity to show them in the wrong.

"There are one or two things," he pointed out, "which we've still got to account for. There's that cipher message we found in Brotherhood's pocket.