d."

Bill stopped suddenly in the middle of the path.

"I say, do you think so?"

Antony shrugged his shoulders.

"I shouldn't be surprised. We must be devilishly inconvenient for him,
hanging about the house. Any moment he can get, when we're definitely
somewhere else, must be very useful to him."

"Useful for what?"

"Well, useful for his nerves, if for nothing else. We know he's mixed
up in this business; we know he's hiding a secret or two. Even if he
doesn't suspect that we're on his tracks, he must feel that at any
moment we might stumble on something."

Bill gave a grunt of assent, and they went slowly on again.

"What about to-night?" he said, after a lengthy blow at his pipe.

"Try a piece of grass," said Antony, offering it to him. Bill pushed it
through the mouthpiece, blew again, said, "That's better," and returned
the pipe to his pocket.

"How are we going to get out without Cayley knowing?"

"Well, that wants thinking over. It's going to be difficult. I wish we
were sleeping at the inn.... Is this Miss Norbury, by any chance?"

Bill looked up quickly. They were close to Jallands now, an old thatched
farmhouse which, after centuries of sleep, had woken up to a new world,
and had forthwith sprouted wings; wings, however, of so discreet
a growth that they had not brought with them any obvious change of
character, and Jallands even with a bathroom was still Jallands. To the
outward view, at any rate. Inside, it was more clearly Mrs. Norbury's.

"Yes Angela Norbury," murmured Bill. "Not bad-looking, is she?"

The girl who stood by the little white gate of Jallands was something
more than "not bad-looking," but in this matter Bill was keeping
his superlatives for another. In Bill's eyes she must be judged, and
condemned, by all that distinguished her from Betty Calladine. To
Antony, unhampered by these standards of comparison, she seemed, quite
simply, beautiful.

"Cayley asked us to bring a letter along," explained Bill, when the
necessary handshakings and introductions were over. "Here you are."

"You will tell him, won't you, how dreadfully sorry I am about what
has happened? It seems so hopeless to say anything; so hopeless even to
believe it. If it is true what we've heard."

Bill repeated the outline of events of yesterday.

"Yes.... And Mr. Ablett hasn't been found yet?" She shook her head in
distress. "It still seems to have happened to somebody else; somebody we
didn't know at all.