Marvell shrugged his shoulders.

“That too might be twisted.  Why not a supremely clever stroke?  Well, of course the thing is absurd—­but disagreeable—­considering the circumstances.  The moral is—­find the man!  Good-day, Lord Tatham.  I understand you will have fifty men out by this evening, assisting the police in their search?”

“At least,” said Tatham, and departed.

Outside, after a moment’s hesitation, he inquired of the police in charge whether Faversham was in his room.  Being told that he was, he asked leave to pass along the gallery.  An officer took him in charge, and he stepped, not without a shudder, past the blood-stained spot, where a cruel spirit had paid its debt.  The man who led him pointed out the picture, the chair, the marks of the muddy soles on the wainscotting, and along the gallery—­reconstructing the murder, in low tones, as though the dead man still lay there.  A hideous oppression indeed hung over the house.  Melrose’s ghost held it.

The police officer knocked at Faversham’s door.  “Would Mr. Faversham receive Lord Tatham?”

Faversham, risen from his writing-table, looked at his visitor in a dull astonishment.

“I have come to bring you a message,” said Tatham advancing, neither man offering to shake hands.  “I saw Miss Penfold early this morning—­before she got the newspapers.  She wished me to bring you her—­her sympathy.  She was very much shocked.”  He spoke with a certain boyish embarrassment.  But his blue eyes looked very straight at Faversham.

Faversham changed colour a little, and thanked him.  But his aspect was that of a man worn out, incapable for the time of the normal responses of feeling.  He showed no sense of strangeness, with regard to Tatham’s visit, though for weeks they had not been on speaking terms.  Absently offering his visitor a chair, he talked a little—­disjointedly—­of the events of the preceding evening, with frequent pauses for recollection.

Tatham eyed him askance.

“I say!  I suppose you had no sleep?”

Faversham smiled.

“Look here—­hadn’t you better come to us to-night?—­get out of this horrible place?” exclaimed Tatham, on a sudden but imperative impulse.

“To Duddon?” Faversham shook his head.  “Thank you—­impossible.”  Then he looked up.  “Undershaw told you what I told him?”

Tatham assented.  There was an awkward pause—­broken at last by Faversham.

“How did Miss Melrose get home?”

“Luckily I came across her at the foot of the Duddon hill, and I helped her home.  She’s all right—­though of course it’s a ghastly shock for them.”

“I never knew she was here—­till she had gone,” exclaimed Faversham, with sudden animation, “Otherwise—­I should have helped her.”

He stood erect, his pale look fixed threateningly on Tatham.

“I’m sure you would,” said Tatham, heartily.  “Well now, I must be off.  I have promised Marvell to put as many men as possible to work in with the police.  You have no idea at all as to the identity of the man who ran past you?”