more question before you proceed, please:
About the trainer Farrow getting the stable-boy to carry in that
pail of water. Would not that be a trifle unusual at such a time
of the night?"

"I don't know. Yes--perhaps it would. I never looked at it in that
light before."

"Very likely not. Stables would be closed and all the grooms, et
cetera, off duty for the night at that hour, would they not?"

"Yes. That is, unless Farrow had reason for asking one of them to
help him with something. That's what he did, by the way, with the
boy, Dewlish."

"Just so. Any idea what he wanted with that pail of water at that
hour of the night? He couldn't be going to 'water' one of the horses,
of course, and it is hardly likely that he intended to take on a
stableman's duties and wash up the place."

"Oh, gravy--no! He's a trainer, not a slosh-bucket. I pay him
eighteen hundred a year and give him a cottage besides."

"Married man or a single one?"

"Single. A widower. About forty. Lost his wife two years ago. Rather
thought he was going to take another one shortly, from the way things
looked. But of late he and Maggie McFarland don't seem, for some
reason or another, to be hitting it off together so well as they did."

"Who's Maggie McFarland, please?"

"One of the dairymaids. A little Scotch girl from Nairn who came into
service at the Abbey about a twelvemonth ago."

"H'm! I see. Then the filly isn't the only 'Highland Lassie' in the
case, it would seem. Pardon? Oh, nothing. Merely a weak attempt to
say something smart, that's all. Don't suppose that Maggie McFarland
could by any possibility throw light upon the subject of that pail
of water, do you, Major?"

"Good lud, no! Of course she couldn't. What utter rot. But see
here--come to think of it now, perhaps _I_ can. It's as like as
not that he wanted it to wash himself with before he went over to
the shoer's at Shepperton Old Cross with Chocolate Maid. I forgot
to tell you, Mr. Cleek, that ever since Dawson-Blake made that
attempt to buy him off, Farrow became convinced that it wouldn't
be safe to leave Highland Lassie unguarded night or day for fear
of that cad's hirelings getting at her in some way or another, so he
closed up his cottage and came to live in the rooms over the filly's
stable, so as to be on the spot for whatever might or might not
happen at any hour. He also bought a yapping little Scotch terrier
that would bark if a match fell, and kept it chained up