but all he said when they
told him, was as if he caught any one after him he would thrash them
within an inch of their lives."

"Serve them right, too," exclaimed Dunn warmly.

Evidently this explained, in part at least, what had recently happened.
Mr. Clive, finding himself being followed, had supposed it was one of
his poaching enemies and had at once attempted to carry out his threat
he had made.

Dunn told himself, at any rate, the error would have the result of
turning all suspicion away from him, and yet he still seemed very
disturbed and ill at ease.

"Has Mr. Clive been here long?" he asked.

"It must be four or five years since his father bought the place,"
answered his new acquaintance. "Then, when the old man was killed a year
ago, Mr. John inherited everything."

"Old Mr. Clive was killed, was he?" asked Dunn, and his voice sounded
very strange in the darkness. "How was that?"

"Accident to his motor-car," the other replied. "I don't hold with them
things myself--give me a good horse, I say. People didn't like the old
man much, and some say Mr. John's too fond of taking the high hand. But
don't cross him and he won't cross you, that's his motto and there's
worse."

Dunn agreed and asked one or two more questions about the details of the
accident to old Mr. Clive, in which he seemed very interested.

But he did not get much more information about that concerning which his
new friend evidently knew very little. However, he gave Dunn a few more
facts concerning Mr. John Clive, as that he was unmarried, was said to
be very wealthy, and had the reputation of being something of a ladies'
man.

A little further on they parted, and Dunn took a side road which he
calculated should lead him back to Bittermeads.

"It may be pure coincidence," he mused as he walked slowly in a very
troubled and doubtful mood. "But if so, it's a very queer one, and if
it isn't, it seems to me Mr. John Clive might as well put his head in
a lion's jaws as pay visits at Bittermeads. But of course he can't have
the least suspicion of the truth--if it is the truth. If I hadn't lost
my temper like a fool when he whacked out at me like that I might have
been able to warn him, or find out something useful perhaps. And his
father killed recently in an accident--is that a coincidence, too, I
wonder?"

He passed his hand across his forehead on which a light sweat stood,
though he was not a man easily affected, for he had seen and en