47042    The other is my wife, and I can answer for it that the sound could not have come from her.'

47043    And yet he lied as he said it, for it chanced that after breakfast I met Mrs Barrymore in the long corridor with the sun full upon her face.

47044    She was a large, impassive, heavy-featured woman with a stern, set expression of mouth.

47045    But her tell-tale eyes were red and glanced at me from between swollen lids.

47046    It was she, then, who wept in the night, and if she did so her husband must know it.

47047    Yet he had taken the obvious risk of discovery in declaring that it was not so.

47048    Why had he done this?

47049    And why did she weep so bitterly?

47050    Already round this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery and of gloom.

47051    It was he who had been the first to discover the body of Sir Charles, and we had only his word for all the circumstances which led up to the old man's death.

47052    Was it possible that it was Barrymore, after all, whom we had seen in the cab in Regent Street?

47053    The beard might well have been the same.

47054    The cabman had described a somewhat shorter man, but such an impression might easily have been erroneous.

47055    How could I settle the point for ever?

47056    Obviously the first thing to do was to see the Grimpen postmaster, and find whether the test telegram had really been placed in Barrymore's own hands.