t was he doing in these parts?"

"He started to call on my father, sir."

"Eh? You knew of his coming?"

"Yes, sir. We planned it together."

Mr. Rogers, still on his knees, leaned back and regarded me fixedly.

"You planned it together?" he repeated slowly. "Well, go on.
He started to call on your father? Why?"

"He wanted to show my father something," said I, with a glance at Mr.
Goodfellow. "Are you sure, sir, there's nothing in his pockets?"

"Not a penny-piece. I'll search 'em again if you insist, though I
don't like the job."

"He carried it in his breast-pocket, sir; there, on the left side."

"Then your question's easy to answer." Mr. Rogers turned back the
lapel and pointed. The pocket hung inside out. "But what was it he
carried?"

I hesitated, with another glance towards Mr. Goodfellow, who at the
same moment uttered a cry and sprang for a thicket of brambles
directly behind Mr. Rogers's back. Mr. Rogers leapt up, with an
oath.

"No, you don't!" he threatened, preparing to spring in pursuit.

But Mr. Goodfellow, not heeding him, plunged a hand among the
brambles and drew forth a walking-stick of ebony, carved in rings,
ending with a ferrule in an iron spike--Captain Coffin's
walking-stick.

"I glimpsed at it, there, lyin' like a snake," he began, and let fall
the stick with another sudden, sharp cry. "Ur-rh! There's blood
upon it!"

Mr. Rogers picked it up and examined it loathingly. Blood there
was--blood mixed with grey hairs upon its heavy ebony knob, and blood
again upon its wicked-looking spike.

"This settles all question of the weapon," he said. "The owner of
this--"

We cried out, speaking together, that the stick belonged to the
murdered man; and just then a voice hailed us, and Constable Hosken
came panting up, with two of Miss Belcher's woodmen at his heels.

Mr. Rogers directed them to fetch a hurdle. Then came the question
whither to carry the corpse, and after some discussion one of the
woodmen suggested that Miss Belcher's cricket pavilion lay handy, a
couple of hundred yards beyond the rise of the park, across the
stream. "At this time of year the lady wouldn't object--"

Mr. Rogers shuddered.

"And the last time I saw the inside of it 'twas at Lydia's
Cricket-Week Ball--and the place all flags and lanterns, and a good
third of the men drunk! Well, carry him there if you must, but damme
if I'll ever find stomach to dance there again!"

The men lifted