r. By this
time he judged, from his recollection of the map, that he must be
on Morstead Fen. An interminable waste of sodden, emerald green
fields, intersected by ditches, stretched away on either hand.

He had walked for half an hour when he made out in the distance a
clump of trees standing apart and seemingly in the middle of the
fields. Then in the foreground he descried a gate. A figure was
standing by it.

As he approached the gate he saw it was a small boy. On remarking
the stranger, the urchin opened the gate and without looking to
right or left led off down the road towards the clump of trees:
Desmond followed at his leisure.

As they neared the trees, the low red roof of a house detached
itself. By this time the sun was sinking in a smear of red across
a delicately tinted sky. Its dying rays held some glittering
object high up on the side of the house.

At first Desmond thought it was a window, but presently the light
went out, kindled again and once more vanished. It was too small
for a window, Desmond decided, and then, turning the matter over
in his mind, as observant people are accustomed to do even with
trifles, he suddenly realized that the light he had seen was the
reflection of the sun on a telescope or glasses.

They were now within a few hundred yards of the house. The road
had made a right angle turn to the left, but the diminutive guide
had quitted it and struck out along a very muddy cart track.
Shading his eyes, Desmond gazed at the house and presently got a
glimpse of a figure at a window surveying the road through a pair
of field glasses. Even as he looked, the figure bobbed down and
did not reappear.

"They want to be sure I'm alone," thought Desmond, and
congratulated himself on having had the strength of mind to break
his orders.

The cart-track led up to a little bridge over a ditch. By the
bridge stood a tall pole, on the top of which was a blue and gold
painted sign-board inscribed, "The Dyke Inn by J. Rass." The
urchin led him across the bridge and up to the door of the inn.

An undersized, yellow-faced man, wearing neither collar nor tie,
came to the door as they approached. Although of short stature,
he was immensely broad with singularly long arms. Altogether he
had something of the figure of a gorilla, Desmond thought on
looking at him.

The man put a finger up and touched his forelock.

"Madame Le Bon is upstairs waiting for you!" he said in a nasal
voice which Desm