otive, the man's mad. That's the line of
least resistance; but it don't follow by a long sight that it's the
right line. Here's a chap has lured his brother to death, and very
cunning he's been about it. He's pitched a yarn and then, after a
promise to turn up, he changes his mind and makes a new plan
altogether by which old Ben Redmayne is put entirely in his power.
Then--"

"But who was to know he meant mischief? We had facts to deal with.
Mrs. Pendean herself had seen and spoken to him; so had Doria. In
the case of the lady, at any rate, all she said was above suspicion.
She hid nothing; she behaved like a Christian woman, wept at the
spectacle of his awful misery, and brought his message to his
brother. Then sudden, panic fear overtook the man at the last
moment--natural enough--and he begged Bendigo Redmayne to see him in
his hiding-place alone. It rang true as a bell. For myself I had not
a shadow of suspicion."

"That's all right," admitted Damarell, "and I'm not one who pretends
to be wise after the event. But, as I told you before, I thought it
a mistake to suspend our search and take the matter out of
professional hands just when we were safe to nab him. You were in
command and we obeyed, but whatever the murderer had to say would as
well have been said to us as to his brother--and better; because in
any case he might have tempted a brother to break the law for him.
Now there's more innocent blood been shed and a damned, dangerous
criminal--mad or sane--is still at large. Most likely more than one.
However, it is not much use jawing, I grant you. What we've got to
do is to catch them--if we can."

Brendon made no reply to this speech. He was vexed, yet knew that
he had heard little more than the truth.

He examined the plateau and showed again where some round object had
pressed the earth and where a man had sat beside it. From this spot
it was not possible to dispose of a body in the sea. Beneath it
extended a fall of a hundred feet to broken ground, which again gave
by sloping shelves to the water. Had a corpse been thrown over here,
it must have challenged their sight beneath; and yet from this
standpoint no sign of the vanished man or his burden appeared. But
the zigzag path to the cliff top revealed neither any evidence of a
weight being dragged upward nor the impression of the iron-shod
foot. Fresh footprints there were, but they had been made by Brendon
and Doria on the previous night. Now the pol