been murdered
was the man Gilverthwaite sent you to meet, or if he's some other that
got there before you, and was got rid of for some extraordinary reason
that we know nothing about. But one thing's certain: we've got to get
some light on your late lodger. That's step number one--and a most
important one."

The superintendent of police, Mr. Murray, a big, bustling man, was
outside our house with Chisholm when we got there, and after a word or
two between us, we went in, and were presently upstairs in
Gilverthwaite's room. He lay there in his bed, the sheet drawn about him
and a napkin over his face; and though the police took a look at him, I
kept away, being too much upset by the doings of the night to stand any
more just then. What I was anxious about was to get some inkling of what
all this meant, and I waited impatiently to see what Mr. Lindsey would
do. He was looking about the room, and when the others turned away from
the dead man he pointed to Gilverthwaite's clothes, that were laid tidily
folded on a chair.

"The first thing to do is to search for his papers and his keys," he
said. "Go carefully through his pockets, sergeant, and let's see what
there is."

But there was as little in the way of papers there, as there had been in
the case of the murdered man. There were no letters. There was a map of
the district, and under the names of several of the villages and places
on either side of the Tweed, between Berwick and Kelso, heavy marks in
blue pencil had been made. I, who knew something of Gilverthwaite's
habits, took it that these were the places he had visited during his
seven weeks' stay with us. And folded in the map were scraps of newspaper
cuttings, every one of them about some antiquity or other in the
neighbourhood, as if such things had an interest for him. And in another
pocket was a guide-book, much thumbed, and between two of the leaves,
slipped as if to mark a place, was a registered envelope.

"That'll be what he got yesterday afternoon!" I exclaimed. "I'm certain
it was whatever there was in it that made him send me out last night, and
maybe the letter in it'll tell us something."

However, there was no letter in the envelope--there was nothing. But on
the envelope itself was a postmark, at which Chisholm instantly pointed.

"Peebles!" said he. "Yon man that you found murdered--his half-ticket's
for Peebles. There's something of a clue, anyway."

They went on searching the clothing, onl