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tracted his heart. He had lost much—very much more than he could afford to lose. It was quarter day, and he had calls to meet which must be met out of this money that he was losing.

At seventy pounds Herbert Dawlish leant back and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a shaky hand. He was pale, and the corners of his mouth were out of his control. A very unpleasant sight, indeed.

"I am afraid," he muttered, "that I can't go on. I've lost every penny."

The nifty man stopped short in the midst of a tune he was whistling.

"That a fact? Hard luck, mate. Good game, though, eh? 'Ammer and tongs."

"Look here," said Dawlish abjectly. "I—it's a queer thing to ask, but—could you let me have that money back? For a little while, I mean. I would repay you, later. But, just now, I—I——"

The nifty man had been staring at Dawlish in blank surprise. Now he suddenly guffawed.

"Well, that's rich," he observed, "I'll tell the missus that when I gits 'ome. She'll cry 'er eyes out, that she will. No, matey. Napoo. I ain't the Salvation Army 'Ome."

"Let me explain," begged Dawlish in agony. "You don't understand. It's like this——"

"Aw, shove a boot in it, ole feller. You oughn't never to 'ave come out without yer nurse. Hey! What the——"

"Put up your hands," said Dawlish, staring wickedly from behind his automatic. "Right up!"

Even then, Dawlish had no notion of murder. He merely wanted to scare the fellow into parting with the money. He was frantic. He positively daren't go home and face his wife with a story of seventy pounds lost. But, firearms are dangerous things to play with. The nifty man's eyes narrowed. He made a sudden spring. And Dawlish, closing his eyes, pulled the trigger.

Death is shockingly quick and sudden. In one brief second Dawlish was saddled with a corpse. There was a grim blue hole in the middle of its forehead, and it had sagged slackly on the foor like a sack of something. Dawlish commanded himself with an effort, and began to think out ways and means.

He was about to bundle the body out of the carriage on to the permanent way when he caught sight of a wrist-watch. An inspiration caused him to alter the time of this watch to five-fifty. He counted on the watch stopping when the crash came, and a watch stopped at five-fifty (unless the body were found immediately) would point to the fact of the man's having travelled down by an earlier train.

This done, he opened the carriage-door, looked cautiously ahead and behind, then, with the train doing about forty, shoved out the remains of the nifty man.

Venner, the Scotland Yard man, was in the eight-forty to town on the following morning. He and two others greeted Dawlish with ribald cries, as usual. These four had played cards on the up journey every day (barring holidays} for ten years.