"Moreover," he said, "I'd wager his brain is as keen as ever it was."

"It is; indeed it is," I assented eagerly.

"No greater mistake than to think that because a man's tied by the leg it affects his brain pan. Not a bit of it. Anno Domini affects headwork much less than you'd think. By Jove, I wouldn't care to undertake to commit a murder under Hercule Poirot's nose - even at this time of day."

"He'd get you if you did," I said, grinning.

"I bet he would. Not," he added ruefully, "that I should be much good at doing a murder anyway. I can't plan things, you know. Too impatient. If I did a murder, it would be done on the spur of the moment."

"That might be the most difficult crime to spot."

"I hardly think so. I'd probably leave clues trailing along behind me in every direction. Well, it's lucky I haven't got a criminal mind. Only kind of man I can imagine myself killing is a blackmailer. That is a foul thing, if you like. I've always thought a blackmailer ought to be shot. What do you say?" I confessed to some sympathy with his point of view.

Then we passed on to an examination of the work done on the house as a young architect came forward to meet us.

Knatton was mainly of Tudor date with a wing added later. It had not been modernized or altered since the installation of two primitive bathrooms in the eighteen-forties or thereabouts.

Boyd Carrington explained that his uncle had been more or less of a hermit, disliking people and living in a corner of the vast house. Boyd Carrington and his brother had been tolerated, and had spent their holidays there as schoolboys before Sir Everard had become as much of a recluse as he afterwards became. The old man had never married, and had spent only a tenth of his large income, so that even after death duties had been paid, the present baronet had found himself a very rich man.

"But a very lonely one," he said, sighing.

I was silent. My sympathy was too acute to be put into words. For I, too, was a lonely man. Since Cinders had died, I felt myself to be only half a human being. Presently, a little haltingly, I expressed a little of what I felt.

"Ah yes, Hastings, but you've had something I never had." He paused a moment and then - rather jerkily he gave me an outline of his own tragedy.

Of the beautiful young wife, a lovely creature full of charm and accomplishments but with a tainted heritage. Her family had nearly all died of drink, and she herself fell a victim to the same curse. Barely a year after their marriage she had succumbed and had died a dipsomaniac's death. He did not blame her. He realized that heredity had been too strong for her.

After her death he had settled down to lead a lonely life. He had determined, saddened by his experience, not to marry again.