"I think I must be going mad!" he muttered. "Grayson wasn't the kind to kill himself. Why, I tell you," he cried, "that last night, when I bade him good-night, he was gay, smiling. He looked like a man who goes forth to meet success."
"You saw him, then?" the reporter queried eagerly. "When? Where? Please give us full details, Mr. Van Ingen. This may turn out to be of tremendous importance." He pulled out his note-book.
"I was at the opera with his party last night," replied Van Ingen. He repeated the events of the previous evening.
"Grayson was not meditating suicide when I left him," he concluded positively. "I could swear it! Rather, he seemed to be reflecting with relish upon some particularly fine joke. May I see that note he is supposed to have written?"
"Certainly!" The reporter vanished into an inner room, and presently returned holding a scrap of white paper in his hand. "Torn from his memorandum book, you see," he observed quietly.
Van Ingen read it through. "It's his handwriting, right enough," he admitted. "But somehow, it doesn't sound like Grayson himself. Too theatrical, dramatic!" He frowned, as if trying to catch some haunting impression. "It sounds like----" He broke off sharply, his face paling. "Good God, no!" he whispered, "that couldn't be! And yet"--his eyes sought the paper again--"it's the dead ringer of the kind of rot he talks! But why----" He pressed his hand to his temples. "I give it up!" He returned the slip to the reporter, who had been watching him with cool, level eyes.
"No, no!" replied Van Ingen hurriedly. "The whole affair is utterly inexplicable to me at present. I cannot believe that Grayson deliberately killed himself. The thing is beyond reason! The paper says that his hat and overcoat were found?"
"Together with his wallet and some personal letters. It seems a clear case." The reporter hesitated a moment. "It is not as yet known to the public, but I think I may tell it to you that Mr. T.B. Smith has been given charge of the matter. He will probably wish to know your address. And in the meantime, if you run across anything----"
"Certainly! I will let you know. Smith is an able man, of course." Van Ingen gave the number of his chambers, and retreated hastily, glad that the man had questioned him no further.