al lunatic at the bottom of it. Everything
looks pretty clear, but it don't look sane."

"You haven't found the body?"

"No; but you can often prove murder mighty well without it--as now.
Come out to the bungalow and I'll tell you what there is to tell.
There's been a murder all right, but we're more likely to find the
murderer than his victim."

They went out together and soon stood in the building.

"Now let's have the story from where you come in," said Brendon, and
Inspector Halfyard told his tale.

"Somewhere about a quarter after midnight I was knocked up. Down I
came and Constable Ford, on duty at the time, told me that Mrs.
Pendean was wishful to see me. I knew her and her husband very well,
for they'd been the life and soul of the Moss Supply Depot, run at
Princetown during the war.

"Her husband and her uncle, Captain Redmayne, had gone to the
bungalow, as they often did after working hours, to carry on a bit;
but at midnight they hadn't come home, and she was put about for
'em. Hearing of the motor bike, I thought there might have been a
breakdown, if not an accident, so I told Ford to knock up another
chap and go down along the road. Which they did do--and Ford came
back at half after three with ugly news that they'd seen nobody, but
they'd found a great pool of blood inside the bungalow--as if
somebody had been sticking a pig there. 'Twas daylight by then and I
motored out instanter. The mess is in the room that will be the
kitchen, and there's blood on the lintel of the back door which
opens into the kitchen.

"I looked round very carefully for anything in the nature of a clue,
but I couldn't see so much as a button. What makes any work here
wasted, so far as I can see, is the evidence of the people at the
cottages in the by-road to Foggintor, where we came in. A few
quarrymenn and their families live there, and also Tom Ringrose, the
water bailiff down on Walkham River. The quarrymen don't work here
because this place hasn't been open for more than a hundred years;
but they go to Duke's quarry down at Merivale, and most of 'em have
push bikes to take 'em to and from their job.

"At these cottages, on my way back to breakfast, I got some
information of a very definite kind. Two men told the same tale and
they hadn't met before they told it. One was Jim Bassett, under
foreman at Duke's quarry, and one was Ringrose, the water bailiff
who lives in the end cottage. Bassett has been at the bungalow o