For a long moment the newcomer stood, bowed with unutterable grief, holding the hand of the dead man, as if he would joyfully impart to those lifeless fingers, the largest measure of his own vitality.

Reluctantly he relinquished the limp hand, and the effort cost him a pang.
As he turned from the rigid features staring vacantly up at him, he was sobbing inwardly.

His handsome face was contorted as if in physical pain, his head drooped as if his shoulders had suddenly grown too weak to bear its weight.
"Who are you, sir ?" the coroner's voice broke the stillness.
The wave of sorrow which swept over the man seemed to deprive him of the faculty of speech.

He looked about him in a bewildered way, as if unable to comprehend the presence of the others.
[Illustration: He looked about him in a bewildered way] "You knew Mr.Whitmore ?" the coroner inquired mildly.
"Yes, I was his confidential secretary," the answer came in weak tones.
The coroner and the two detectives exchanged significant glances.
"Then you are Mr.Beard ?" the former inquired.
"Yes." "Can you throw any light on the murder--have you any idea as to who could have done it ?" As the weighty import of the query slowly dawned on Beard's consciousness, his face contracted until it took on the expression of one whose mental vision is gradually clearing; before whose dazed mind certain images are again taking compact shape, revealing themselves out of the surrounding darkness, sharply cut like figures illumined by the long-stretching rays of a powerful searchlight.
Britz noted the changing expression of the man's face with lynxlike eagerness.

There was something touching, pathetic, in the utter desolation which the secretary felt at his employer's death.