sort of sickness--a sleeping sickness."

"Well," admitted Ashe, "you have me there too. I'm afraid I couldn't
swear I was awake all the time; but I don't put it down to magic
trees--only to a private hobby of going to bed at night. But look here,
Mr. Paynter; there's another and better argument against any outsider
from the village or countryside having committed the crime. Granted he
might have slipped past us somehow, and gone for the Squire. But why
should he go for him in the wood? How did he know he was in the wood?
You remember how suddenly the poor old boy bolted into it, on what a
momentary impulse. It's the last place where one would normally look for
such a man, in the middle of the night. No, it's an ugly thing to say,
but we, the group round that garden table, were the only people who
knew. Which brings me back to the one point in your remarks which I
happen to think perfectly true."

"What was that?" inquired the other.

"That the murderer was a mystic," said Ashe. "But a cleverer mystic than
poor old Martin."

Paynter made a murmur of protest, and then fell silent.

"Let us talk plainly," resumed the lawyer. "Treherne had all those mad
motives you yourself admit against the woodcutter. He had the knowledge
of Vane's whereabouts, which nobody can possibly attribute to the
woodcutter. But he had much more. Who taunted and goaded the Squire to
go into the wood at all? Treherne. Who practically prophesied, like an
infernal quack astrologer, that something would happen to him if he did
go into the wood? Treherne. Who was, for some reason, no matter what,
obviously burning with rage and restlessness all that night, kicking
his legs impatiently to and fro on the cliff, and breaking out with wild
words about it being all over soon? Treherne. And on top of all this,
when I walked closer to the wood, whom did I see slip out of it swiftly
and silently like a shadow, but turning his face once to the moon? On my
oath and on my honor--Treherne."

"It is awful," said Paynter, like a man stunned. "What you say is simply
awful."

"Yes," said Ashe seriously, "very awful, but very simple. Treherne knew
where the ax was originally thrown. I saw him, on that day he lunched
here first, watching it like a wolf, while Miss Vane was talking to him.
On that dreadful night he could easily have picked it up as he went into
the wood. He knew about the well, no doubt; who was so likely to know
any old traditions about the peac