ch it was in his power to give.

It was brief enough; his partner had gone up to town on Tuesday last,
and, had he followed his plans should have returned to Brighton by
Thursday evening, since he had made an appointment to come to Mr.
Taynton's house at nine thirty that night. It had been ascertained
too, by--Mr. Taynton hesitated a moment--by Mr. Morris Assheton in
London, that he had left his flat in St. James's Court on Thursday
afternoon, to go, presumably, to catch the train back to Brighton. He
had also left orders that all letters should be forwarded to him at his
Brighton address.

Superintendent Figgis, to whom Mr. Taynton made his statement, was in
manner slow, stout, and bored, and looked in every way utterly unfitted
to find clues to the least mysterious occurrences, unearth crime or run
down the criminal. He seemed quite incapable of running down anything,
and Mr. Taynton had to repeat everything he said in order to be sure that
Mr. Figgis got his notes, which he made in a large round hand, with
laborious distinctness, correctly written. Having finished them the
Superintendent stared at them mournfully for a little while, and asked
Mr. Taynton if he had anything more to add.

"I think that is all," said the lawyer. "Ah, one moment. Mr. Mills
expressed to me the intention of perhaps getting out at Falmer and
walking over the downs to Brighton. But Thursday was the evening on which
we had that terrible thunderstorm. I should think it very unlikely that
he would have left the train."

Superintendent Figgis appeared to be trying to recollect something.

"Was there a thunderstorm on Thursday?" he asked.

"The most severe I ever remember," said Mr. Taynton.

"It had slipped my memory," said this incompetent agent of justice.

But a little thought enabled him to ask a question that bore on the case.

"He travelled then by Lewes and not by the direct route?"

"Presumably. He had a season ticket via Lewes, since our business often
took him there. Had he intended to travel by Hayward's Heath," said Mr.
Taynton rather laboriously, as if explaining something to a child, "he
could not have intended to get out at Falmer."

Mr. Figgis had to think over this, which he did with his mouth open.

"Seeing that the Hayward's Heath line does not pass Falmer," he
suggested.

Mr. Taynton drew a sheet of paper toward him and kindly made a rough
sketch-map of railway lines.

"And his season ticket went by the Lewes