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In the short story The Coming of Mr Quin, Sir Richard Conway is a guest at the New Year's Eve house party at Royston hosted by Tom Evesham which forms the main setting for the events in the story.

Sir Richard is described as a "tall soldierly man" and is in fact a well-known soldier, traveller and sportsman. He is described as being much the same type as Tom Evesham, both are "honest upright kindly men with no great pretensions to brains".

Through the course of the evening at the house party, conversation turned to the former owner of the house, Derek Capel, a successful person in the prime of his life who suddenly and mysteriously committed suicide although just a few minutes earlier he had announced to some friends that he was engaged to be married. By coincidence, Sir Richard was, with Tom Evesham, also house guests of Derek Capel at Royston at that time of his suicide.

It is suggested that they hold a Court of Inquiry into the circumstances of Capel's death, and Sir Richard takes part. Mr Quin asks if Sir Richard has any theories on the subject, which will serve as a starting point. Sir Richard says that he thought that it had something to do with a woman.

Sir Richard says that when Capel announced his engagement, they had thought that the lady in question was Marjorie Dilke. However, it was odd that if that was the case, Capel had said that the engagement could not be announced immediately. Sir Richard expresses the opinion that it sounded as if the lady were a married woman, whose husband had just died, or who was going through a divorce.

When Sir Richard and Tom Evesham are trying to remember in which month Capel died, Sir Richard remembers that it was January. His hunter dog, Ned, had lamed itself at the end of January, and that was just after Capel's death.

Sir Richard also remembers the scene outside Capel's bedroom window, including the moonlight, the snow, and the shadow of the big tree outside the window. He remembers it so well that he believes he could draw the scene, although he never realized that he was looking at it at the time.

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