ell' you that way?"

"What, Tom Farrow? Never in God's world! Not that kind of a chap, by
George! The man that offered Tom Farrow a bribe would spend the rest
of the week in bed--gad, yes! A more faithful chap never drew the
breath of life. God only knows when or how the thing happened, but
Farrow was found on the moor yesterday morning--quite unconscious
and at death's door. He had been bludgeoned in the most brutal
manner imaginable. Not only was his right arm broken, but his skull
was all but crushed in. There was concussion of the brain, of course.
Poor fellow, he can't speak a word, and the chances are that he
never will be able to do so again."

"Bad business, that," declared Cleek, looking grave. "Any idea of
who may possibly have been the assailant? Local police picked up
anything in the nature of a clue?"

"The local police know nothing whatsoever about it. I have not
reported the case to them."

"Not reported----H'm! rather unusual course, that, to pursue, isn't
it? When a man has his place broken into, a valuable horse stolen,
and his trainer all but murdered, one would naturally suppose that
his first act would be to set the machinery of the law in motion
without an instant's delay. That is, unless----H'm! Yes! Just so."

"What is 'just so'?" inquired the major eagerly. "You seem to have
hit upon some sort of an idea right at the start. Mind telling me
what it is?"

"Certainly not. I could imagine that when a man keeps silent about
such a thing at such a time there is a possibility that he has a
faint idea of who the criminal may be and that he has excellent
reasons for not wishing the world at large to share that idea. In
other words, that he would sooner lose the value of the animal
fifty times over than have the crime brought home to the person
he suspects."

CHAPTER XII

Lady Mary made a faint moaning sound. The major's face was a study.

"I don't know whether you are a wizard or not, Mr. Cleek," he said,
after a moment; "but you have certainly hit upon the facts of the
matter. It is for that very reason that I have refrained from making
the affair public. It is bad enough that Lady Mary and I should have
our suspicions regarding the identity of the--er--person implicated
without letting others share them. There's Dawson-Blake for one. If
he knew, he'd move heaven and earth to ruin him."

"Dawson-Blake?" repeated Cleek. "Pardon, but will that be the
particular Sir Gregory Dawson-Bla