l
might be using to strengthen his own position.

"Let's have a look at the place marked 'X' in the picture," he
suggested, rising. "Kitchen garden, wasn't it? That means the rear of
the house. Let's go out this back way, through the kitchen. Sometimes
it pays to look the servants over in a casual fashion before having
them on the mat. They're less apt to be on guard."

He bustled cheerfully into the kitchen, asked a question or two about
the exact location of the crime, and left the house by the rear door,
Krech close behind.

"One Irish cook," summarized the detective when they were safely out of
hearing. "Fat and fifty, good-natured and violent by turns. One
rather pretty girl, a housemaid from the white cap, frightened, been
crying, inclined to be hysterical. Old Bates, the butler. Last, one
gaunt, tall, vinegary, nondescript female. Who's the nondescript,
Krech?"

"Search me. Here's the place."

Creighton took one look and groaned. Whatever precautions the police
might have taken in the first stages of their investigation had
evidently been relaxed thereafter. The garden might have been the
scene of a recent rodeo. A mob of curious Hambletonians had held high
revel in it from one end to the other.

"That ought to be classed as criminal negligence," snorted the
detective, turning away.

"It's no use to you?" asked his friend disappointedly.

"Not for the moment. If I were nature-faking a book on Africa I could
run a picture of it as an elephant's playground, but that's all." He
stopped and gazed at the house long enough to memorize the windows that
commanded a view of the garden. "No use going back there, now," he
decided. "Chuck full of a man named Norvallis. Suppose we drop down
to the tannery. Not far, is it? Where's that short cut through the
woods in which Varr first saw his monk?"

"Right over here." The big man had gleaned that piece of information
earlier in the day. The two men crossed the garden by its path,
passing the very spot where Simon Varr had met his tragic end, and
plunged into the trail. Like the garden, this had been trampled by a
multitude of feet. "What are you going to do at the tannery?" asked
Krech, yielding to his favorite weakness, curiosity.

"Talk to whoever is in charge. Poke around the premises. We know the
crook was there twice, on the occasions of the fires, and where a man
has been he may leave a trace. It's an off-chance, but we can't
negl