e perspiration that had gathered
on his face.

"Before God, gentlemen!" he answered. "I know no more--at least, little
more--about that than you do! I'll tell you all I do know. Wraye and I,
of course, met now and then and talked about this. It got to our ears
at last that Collishaw knew something. My own impression is that he
saw what occurred between me and Mr. Brake--he was working somewhere up
there. I wanted to speak to Collishaw. Wraye wouldn't let me, he bade
me leave it to him. A bit later, he told me he'd squared Collishaw with
fifty pounds--"

Mitchington and the detective exchanged looks.

"Wraye--that's Folliot--paid Collishaw fifty pounds, did he?" asked the
detective.

"He told me so," replied Flood. "To hold his tongue. But I'd scarcely
heard that when I heard of Collishaw's sudden death. And as to how that
happened, or who--who brought it about--upon my soul, gentlemen, I
know nothing! Whatever I may have thought, I never mentioned it to
Wraye--never! I--I daren't! You don't know what a man Wraye is! I've
been under his thumb most of my life and--and what are you going to do
with me, gentlemen?"

Mitchington exchanged a word or two with the detective, and then,
putting his head out of the door beckoned to the policeman to whom he
had spoken at the end of the lane and who now appeared in company with a
fellow-constable. He brought both into the cottage.

"Get your tea," he said sharply to the verger. "These men will stop with
you--you're not to leave this room." He gave some instructions to the
two policemen in an undertone and motioned Ransford and the others to
follow him. "It strikes me," he said, when they were outside in the
narrow lane, "that what we've just heard is somewhere about the truth.
And now we'll go on to Folliot's--there's a way to his house round
here."

Mrs. Folliot was out, Sackville Bonham was still where Bryce had
left him, at the golf-links, when the pursuers reached Folliot's. A
parlourmaid directed them to the garden; a gardener volunteered the
suggestion that his master might be in the old well-house and showed the
way. And Folliot and Bryce saw them coming and looked at each other.

"Glassdale!" exclaimed Bryce. "By heaven, man!--he's told on you!"

Folliot was still staring through the window. He saw Ransford and Harker
following the leading figures. And suddenly he turned to Bryce.

"You've no hand in this?" he demanded.

"I?" exclaimed Bryce. "I never knew till