"I suppose you know every spout and gargoyle!" "Ought to," answered the librarian.

"I've been fed on it, man and boy, for five-and-forty years." Bryce made some fitting remark and went out and home to his rooms--there to spend most of the ensuing evening in trying to puzzle out the various mysteries of the day.

He got no more light on them then, and he was still exercising his brains on them when he went to the inquest next morning--to find the Coroner's court packed to the doors with an assemblage of townsfolk just as curious as he was.

And as he sat there, listening to the preliminaries, and to the evidence of the first witnesses, his active and scheming mind figured to itself, not without much cynical amusement, how a word or two from his lips would go far to solve matters.

He thought of what he might tell--if he told all the truth.