n the same occasion were curling up
above the elms and beeches.

"Now look here!" whispered the landlord. "D'ye see that one window with
the whitish blind and the light behind it? I came up here, maybe half an
hour ago, to see if we were out of something that's kept here, and I
chanced to look out on to Joseph Chestermarke's garden. Mr.
Neale!--there's a man in that room with the light-coloured blind--I saw
his shadow on the blind, pass and repass, you understand, twice, while I
looked. And--it's not Joseph Chestermarke!"

"Could you tell?--had you any idea?--whose shadow it was?" demanded
Neale eagerly.

"No!--he passed in a sort of slanting direction--back and forward--just
once," answered Walford. "But--his build was, I should say, about the
like of John Horbury's. Mr. Neale--Horbury might be locked up there!
He's a bad 'un, is Joe Chestermarke--oh, he's a rank bad 'un, my
lad!--though most folk don't know it. You don't know what mayn't be
happening, or what mayn't have happened in yon place! But look here--I
can't stop. Me and Sam Barraclough's going off to Wymington now, in his
motor--he'll be waiting at this minute. You do what I say--stop here and
watch a bit. And if you see aught, go to Polke and insist on the police
searching that place. That's my advice!"

"I shall do that, in any case, after what you've said," muttered Neale,
who was staring at the lighted window. "But I'll watch here a bit.
You've said nothing of this to anybody else?"

"No," replied the landlord. "As I said, I knew you were in the house.
Well, I'm off, then. Shan't be back till late tomorrow night--and I hope
you'll have some news by then, Mr. Neale."

Walford went off across the creaking floor and down the stairs, and
Neale leaned out of the dismantled window and stared into the garden
beneath. Was it possible, he wondered, that there was anything in the
old fellow's suggestion?--possible that the missing bank manager was
really concealed in that mysterious laboratory, or workshop, or whatever
the place was, into which Joseph Chestermarke never allowed any person
to enter? And if he was there at all, was it with his consent, or
against his will, or--what? Was he being kept a prisoner--or was
he--hiding?

In spite of his own knowledge of Horbury, and of Betty Fosdyke's
assertions of her uncle's absolute innocence, Neale had all along been
conscious of a vague, uneasy feeling that, after all, there might be
something of an unexplain