tes had passed, the wheels
of the _Highflyer_, our evening coach to Plymouth, sounded far along
the road.

The stranger pulled out a bunch of keys from his pocket.

"I will ask you as a favour," said he, "to return these to the
lodge-keeper, from whom I borrowed them. Will you be so kind?"

I said that I would do so with pleasure.

"I have been over the house. It appears--the lodge-keeper tells me--
that I have been almost the only visitor to inspect it.
That's queer, for I should have thought that to an amateur in crime--
with a taste for discovery--it offered great possibilities.
But never mind, child," said this strange man, and shook hands.
"I have great hopes of finding the scoundrel, and of dealing with
him. Eh? 'How?' Well, if we get him upon an island, he shan't get
away, like Napoleon."

With these words, which I did not understand in the least, he turned
and left me, passing out into the lane by the side-gate. A minute
later I heard the coach pull up, and yet a minute later roll on
again, conveying him towards Plymouth. I stole a glance at the
water, at the summer-house, at the tree behind it. Somehow in the
twilight they all wore an uncanny look. On my way home--for I
decided to return and take my bath in the house, after all--my mind
kept running on a story of Ann the cook's, about a man (a relative of
hers, she said) who had once seen the devil. And yet the stranger
had tipped me a guinea at parting, nor was it (except metaphorically)
red hot in my pocket.

Next evening Miss Belcher rode back to us from Plymouth with the
announcement that Minden Cottage was hers. She had not attended the
sale in person, but Maddicombe, her lawyer, had started the bidding
(under her instruction) at precisely the sum which she had privately
offered Messrs. Harding and Whiteway. There was no competition.
In fact, Maddicombe reported that, apart from the auctioneers and
himself, but six persons attended the sale. Of these, five were
local acquaintances of his whom he knew to be attracted only by
curiosity. Of the sixth, a stranger, he had been afraid at first,
but the man appeared to be a visitor, who had wandered into the sale
by mistake. At any rate, he made no bid.

"What sort of man?" I asked.

"As to that, Maddicombe had no very precise recollection, or couldn't
put it into words. A tall man, he said, and dressed in black; a
noticeable man--that was as far as he could get--and, he believed, a