Tab’s brain was clearing now; he was taking a cold survey of the position. Rex Lander was mad—up to a point. Mad as men of abnormal vanity are mad. Vanity inspired the bravado which made him leave in the deathroom a statement which would surely hang him when it was found. Vanity and hurt pride led him to his present dreadful act, even as it had led him to search amongst Tab’s papers at the flat for Ursula’s non-existent love letters and to tear and mutilate the portrait of the man who had won her love.
Rex was the burglar. Who else could have found his way unerringly in the dark? And Carver had known!
Madness in relation to crime fascinated Tab. In his younger and more confident days, he had written a monograph on the subject which, amidst much profitless speculation had contained one ge
