was an uncommonly bad man to deal with, and that I had best be
on my guard.

"Mr. Crone," said I, gazing straight at him, "what's this you have to
say to me?"

"Sit you down," he answered, pointing at a chair that was shoved under
one side of the little table. "Pull that out and sit you down. What we
shall have to say to each other'll not be said in five minutes. Let's
confer in the proper and comfortable fashion."

I did what he asked, and he took another chair himself and sat down
opposite me, propping his elbow on the table and leaning across it, so
that, the table being but narrow, his sharp eyes and questioning lips
were closer to mine than I cared for. And while he leaned forward in his
chair I sat back in mine, keeping as far from him as I could, and just
staring at him--perhaps as if I had been some trapped animal that
couldn't get itself away from the eyes of another that meant presently to
kill it. Once again I asked him what he wanted.

"You didn't answer my question," he said. "I'll put it again, and you
needn't be afraid that anybody'll overhear us in this place, it's safe! I
say once more, what for did you not tell in your evidence at that inquest
that you saw Sir Gilbert Carstairs at the cross-roads on the night of the
murder! Um?"

"That's my business!" said I

"Just so," said he. "And I'll agree with you in that. It is your
business. But if by that you mean that it's yours alone, and nobody
else's, then I don't agree. Neither would the police."

We stared at each other across the table for a minute of silence, and
then I put the question directly to him that I had been wanting to put
ever since he had first spoken. And I put it crudely enough.

"How did you know?" I asked.

He laughed at that--sneeringly, of course.

"Aye, that's plain enough," said he. "No fencing about that! How did I
know? Because when you saw Sir Gilbert I wasn't five feet away from you,
and what you saw, I saw. I saw you both!"

"You were there?" I exclaimed.

"Snug behind the hedge in front of which you planted yourself," he
answered. "And if you want to know what I was doing there, I'll tell you.
I was doing--or had been doing--a bit of poaching. And, as I say, what
you saw, I saw!"

"Then I'll ask you a question, Mr. Crone," I said. "Why haven't you told,
yourself?"

"Aye!" he said. "You may well ask me that. But I wasn't called as a
witness at yon inquest."

"You could have come forward," I suggested.

"I