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now. You go on to bed.”
    Sam went; Gamadge sat down on the chair he had vacated, and lighted a cigarette. When he looked up, Mitchell’s small blue eyes were on him.
    â€œYou know any of these people well, Mr. Gamadge?” he asked.
    â€œI met the Cowdens last night, for the first time. The Barclays I know as summer acquaintances.” He added, “I don’t think there was anything the matter with their cocoa, Mitchell. I don’t think Mrs. Cowden meant that there was.”
    â€œThe boy being tired, and sick, anyway, it might have upset him. That the idea?”
    â€œI think that was the idea.”
    â€œOf course we have to have an inquest.” Mitchell spread out his hands, and contemplated his square fingers.
    â€œI suppose you do.”
    â€œOur medical examiner seems to think that the deceased died of this heart trouble he had.”
    â€œAnd fell off the cliff during the attack?”
    â€œYes. We’d like to get hold of some kind of a working theory about why he went down there, in his condition, at that time of night.”
    â€œThat cigarette-case business certainly points to a planned affair.”
    â€œI don’t think there’s any doubt but what it was. There seems to be some idea in the family that he was going for good.”
    â€œReally? Going where?”
    â€œUp to a place called Seal Cove, where they have a summer theatre. He has a cousin up there.”
    â€œSo he told me. He was interested in the place. But—”
    â€œSanderson tells me he was planning to go up to-day. You know he was having his twenty-first birthday?”
    â€œYes; I heard about that.”
    â€œAll of it?”
    â€œIf you mean the financial situation, the Barclays told me about it last night.”
    â€œNot much of a birthday,” said Mitchell, again spreading his hands and examining the fingers.
    â€œAnd he was looking forward to it, too.”
    â€œWas, was he?”
    â€œAll kinds of plans. He was going to sign his will, to-day.”
    â€œIt’s missing.”
    â€œIs it, really? He put it in his pocket—I saw him; if that was the document he showed Fred Barclay.”
    â€œIf it ain’t there,” Mitchell jerked his head towards the pigskin dressing case; “it ain’t anywhere.”
    â€œHow very odd.”
    â€œYou’d think he’d take a thing like that case with him, if he was going off for good.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t have been able to carry anything, Mitchell. I know he’d never think of such a thing. But if he was going off for good, and didn’t want his family to know it, why did he struggle through that cigarette-case comedy with Sam, instead of quietly decamping by way of the fire escape? It’s only one flight down, and the dining-room and kitchens are at that end of the hotel. Not a soul would have seen him.”
    â€œHe might not have known about the fire escape; and even if he did, he had a good reason for not going that way. He’d have had to pass his tutor’s room, his sister’s room, and his aunt’s room; and even if they were in bed, the transoms were open.”
    â€œThey were; I saw them.”
    â€œAnd those people hadn’t hardly time to get to bed, much less to sleep. One squeak out of his shoes, or anything like that, and the trip was off.”
    â€œSo it was.”
    â€œI’m going into all this, Mr. Gamadge, for two reasons. First, they think this cousin of his, Atwood, must have planned to drive down from the Cove, last night, and meet him at the cliff, and take him up there to that summer theatre. ‘The Old Pier Players’; that’s what the name is. Now, this Atwood hasn’t come forward; so I’m going up there to see him. If there was any kind of an accident, down on the rocks, he may not want to admit being there; but we found a folding cheque book in the boy’s pocket, and one of the cheques in it was made