ing
which was likely to throw light on the obscure motive for the crime. It
was for that reason he directed his footsteps towards the fountain head
of gossip in an English village--the inn. He flattered himself he would
be able to extract more local information from the patrons of the place
than any other detective could hope to do. To begin with, he was a
Sussex man and a native of the village, and since his return, after so
many years' absence, he had spent his evenings at the inn renewing old
associations and talking to the companions of his boyhood.

A week's renewed village life had taught him the ways of the place and
the war-time drinking customs of the inhabitants. Constrained by recent
legislation to compress their convivial intercourse into extremely
limited periods, the village tradesmen, and a fair proportion of the
surrounding farm labourers and shepherds, had fallen into the habit of
assembling at the inn at midday, to discuss the hard times and drink the
sour weak "war beer" forced on patriotic Britons as an exigent war
measure.

Caldew entered a side door which opened into a small snuggery, divided
from the tap-room by a wooden partition. It was here that the regular
cronies and select patrons of the establishment sat in comfortable
seclusion to discuss the crops, the weather, and market prices in the
broad Sussex dialect, which Caldew, from the force of old association,
unconsciously fell into again when he was with them.

The room was nearly full, but his appearance threw a marked restraint on
the group of assembled countrymen. The conversation, which had obviously
been about the murder, ceased instantly as he entered and seated himself
on one of the forms placed against the partition. The innkeeper, who was
standing behind the bar in his shirt sleeves, nodded uneasily in
response to his friendly salutation, but the customers awkwardly avoided
his glance by staring stolidly in front of them. Caldew attempted to
dispel their reserve with a friendly remark, but no reply was
forthcoming. It was obvious that the patrons of the inn wanted neither
his conversation nor company. One after another, they finished their
beer and walked out of the inn with the slow deliberate movements of the
Sussex peasant.

Caldew had not allowed for the change the murder had effected on the
village mind. His familiar relations with the inn customers had changed
overnight. He was no longer the former village lad, returned to