“But—” I began.

“Non, non,” he replied, half laughing. “En avant, mon ami! I would that we return home as quickly as possible. Much work creates much appetite, and I make small doubt that I shall consume the remainder of that so delicious apple pie which I could not eat at dinner.”

Jules de Grandin regarded the empty plate before him with a look of comic tragedy. “May endless benisons rest upon your amiable cook, Friend Trowbridge,” he pronounced, “but may the curse of heaven forever pursue the villain who manufactures the woefully inadequate pans in which she bakes her pies.”

“Hang the pies, and the platemakers, too!” I burst out. “You promised to explain all this hocus-pocus, and I’ve been patient long enough. Stop sitting there like a glutton, wailing for more pie, and tell me about it.”

“Oh, the mystery?” he replied, stifling a yawn and lighting a cigarette. “That is simple, my friend, but these so delicious pies—however, I do digress:

“When first I saw the accounts of so many strange suicides within one little week I was interested, but not greatly puzzled. People have slain themselves since the beginning of time, and yet”—he shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly—“what is it that makes the hound scent his quarry, the war-horse sniff the battle afar off? Who can tell?

“I said to me: ‘There is undoubtedly more to these deaths than the newspapers have said. I shall investigate.’

“From the coroners’ to the undertakers’, and from the undertakers’ to the physicians’, yes, parbleu! and to the family residences, as well, I did go, gleaning here a bit and there a bit of information which seemed to mean nothing, but which might mean much did I but have other information to add to it.

“One thing I ascertained early: In each instance the suicides had been to hear this Reverend Maundy the night before or the same night they did away with themselves. This was perhaps insignificant; perhaps it meant much. I determined to hear this Monsieur Maundy with my own two ears; but I would not hear him too close by.

“Forgive me, my friend, for I did make of you the guinea-pig for my laboratory experiment. You I left in a forward seat while the reverend gentleman preached, me, I stayed in the rear of the hall and used my eyes as well as my ears.

“What happened that night? Why, my good, kind Friend Trowbridge, who in all his life had done no greater wrong than thoughtlessly to kill a little, so harmless kitten, did almost seemingly commit suicide. But I was not asleep by the switch, my friend. Not Jules de Grandin! All the way home I saw you were distrait, and I did fear something would happen, and I did therefore watch beside your door with my eye and ear alternately glued to the keyhole. Parbleu, I entered the chamber not one little second too soon, either!