n you think of any other that it would be? And I'm
wondering if whoever killed this fellow, whoever he may be, wouldn't have
killed Mr. Gilverthwaite, too, if he'd come? This is no by-chance murder,
Chisholm, as you'll be finding out."

"Well, well, I never knew its like!" he remarked, staring from me to the
body, and from it to me. "You saw nobody about close by--nor in the
neighbourhood--no strangers on the road?"

I was ready for that question. Ever since finding the body, I had been
wondering what I should say when authority, either in the shape of a
coroner or a policeman, asked me about my own adventures that night. To
be sure, I had seen a stranger, and I had observed that he had lost a
couple of fingers, the first and second, of his right hand; and it was
certainly a queer thing that he should be in that immediate neighbourhood
about the time when this unfortunate man met his death. But it had been
borne in on my mind pretty strongly that the man I had seen looking at
his map was some gentleman-tourist who was walking the district, and had
as like as not been tramping it over Plodden Field and that historic
corner of the country, and had become benighted ere he could reach
wherever his headquarters were. And I was not going to bring suspicion on
what was in all probability an innocent stranger, so I answered
Chisholm's question as I meant to answer any similar one--unless, indeed,
I had reason to alter my mind.

"I saw nobody and heard nothing--about here," said I. "It's not likely
there'd be strangers in this spot at midnight."

"For that matter, the poor fellow is a stranger himself," said he, once
more turning his lamp on the dead face. "Anyway, he's not known to me,
and I've been in these parts twenty years. And altogether it's a fine
mystery you've hit on, Mr. Hugh, and there'll be strange doings before
we're at the bottom of it, I'm thinking."

That there was mystery in this affair was surer than ever when, having
got the man to the nearest inn, and brought more help, including a
doctor, they began to examine him and his clothing. And now that I saw
him in a stronger light, I found that he was a strongly built, well-made
man of about Mr. Gilverthwaite's age--say, just over sixty years or
so,--dressed in a gentlemanlike fashion, and wearing good boots and linen
and a tweed suit of the sort affected by tourists. There was a good deal
of money in his pockets--bank-notes, gold, and silver--and an expensive