Frant broke the news to Miss Fanshawe. He found her in the kitchen, preparing supper. She heard him without the slightest trace of emotion.

“He always said he would do this, rather than go to prison again,” was her only comment. “He didn’t tell me you were coming for him, but I’m not surprised.”

“Is there anything I—we can do for you?” stammered the sergeant, taken aback.

“Nothing, thank you.” Then with a muttered “One must eat”, she turned to her cooking again.

The inspector, having made arrangements for the removal of the body, turned his attention to the papers in the desk. He observed that the letter was addressed to himself, and characteristically left it to the last. Quickly he sorted out the neatly filed documents, appraised their significance, and divided them into two little heaps—those of value from the police point of view and those that could be disregarded. Among the former were two bank passbooks which he scrutinized with some care and not a little surprise. Finally, when he was satisfied that nothing of interest had been overlooked, he opened the letter.

“Well, Inspector,” it began abruptly, “so you have solved the problem! My congratulations! In an hour or so, perhaps less, I suppose you will be clumping up here in your heavy policeman’s boots, all agog to make your arrest and provide a bit more carrion for the gallows. But when you come, I shall not be here. It would have been easy enough for me to absent myself in body as well as—if a policeman can understand the word—in soul, but I shall not attempt to. At my time of life I am not going to embark on a wretched game of hide-and-seek abroad, skulking in third-rate hotels under an assumed name, with the long drawn out mummery of extradition at the end of it all. I loathe an anti-climax, and two little tablets which I bought in Paris will save me from that. Candidly, I should like to have gone on living, merely for the intellectual pleasure of having got the better of you. Since that is denied, there is no great point in further existence. And to the last I retain the far greater pleasure of leaving the world a better place for the extermination of a rogue.