the
other affair. And to be sure, they found Crone's body close by where you
found yon other man--Phillips."

"Where, then?" I asked. "And when?"

"I tell you, not an hour ago," he replied. "The news just came in. I was
going down here to see if any of the neighbours at the shop saw Crone in
any strange company last night."

I hesitated for a second or two, and then spoke out.

"I saw him myself last night," said I. "I went to his shop--maybe it was
nine o'clock--to buy some bits of stuff to make Tom Dunlop a door to his
rabbit-hutch, and I was there talking to him ten minutes or so. He was
all right then--and I saw nobody else with him."

"Aye, well, he never went home to his house last night," observed
Chisholm. "I called in there on my way down--he lived, you know, in a
cottage by the police-station, and I dropped in and asked the woman that
keeps house for him had she seen him this morning, and she said he never
came home last night at all. And no wonder--as things are!"

"But you were saying where it happened," I said.

"Where he was found?" said he. "Well, and it was where Till runs into
Tweed--leastways, a bit up the Till. Do you know John McIlwraith's
lad--yon youngster that they've had such a bother with about the
school--always running away to his play, and stopping out at nights, and
the like--there was the question of sending him to a reformatory, you'll
remember? Aye, well, it turns out the young waster was out last night in
those woods below Twizel, and early this morning--though he didn't let on
at it till some time after--he saw the body of a man lying in one of them
deep pools in Till. And when he himself was caught by Turndale, who was
on the look out for him, he told of what he'd seen, and Turndale and some
other men went there, and they found--Crone!"

"You were saying there were marks of violence," said I.

"I haven't seen them myself," he answered. "But by Turndale's account--it
was him brought in the news--there is queer marks on the body. Like as
if--as near as Turndale could describe it--as if the man had been struck
down before he was drowned. Bruises, you understand."

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He's where they took Phillips," replied Chisholm. "Dod!--that's two of
'em that's been taken there within--aye, nearly within the week!"

"What are you going to do, now?" I inquired.

"I was just going, as I said, to ask a question or two down here--did
anybody hear Crone say anything las