acquaintances you must possess! Workers are the small
fry who put spouters into Parliament, and pay them L400 a year, and
make them Cabinet Ministers."

"Evidently things have happened at Roxton, or you wouldn't be so
chirpy. Well, so long! See you later."

Having ascertained that an express train was timed to leave St.
Pancras for Roxton at six P. M., he was packing a suitcase when a
telegram arrived. It had been handed in at Folkestone at four thirty,
and read:

Decided to follow lady instead of motor cyclist. Will explain
reasons verbally. Reaching London seven o'clock.

SHELDON.

"I'm the only one of the three who has accomplished nothing," was
Winter's rueful comment. Nor could any critic have gainsaid him, for
he seemed to have been wasting precious hours while his subordinates
were making history in the Fenley case.

He left instructions with Johnston that Mr. Sheldon was to write
fully, care of the Roxton police station, and took a cab for St.
Pancras. He was passing along the platform when he caught sight of
Hilton Fenley seated on the far side of a first-class carriage, which
was otherwise untenanted. An open dispatch box lay beside him, and he
was so engrossed in the perusal of some document that he gave no heed
to externals. Winter threw wide the door, and entered.

"We are fated to meet today, Mr. Fenley," he said pleasantly. "First,
you send for me; then I hunt you, and now we come together by chance.
I don't think coincidence can arrange any fourth way of bringing us in
touch today."

But he was mistaken. Coincidence had already done far more than he
imagined in providing unseen clues to the ultimate clearing up of a
ghastly crime, and the same subtle law of chance was fated to assist
the authorities once more before the sun rose again over the trees
from whose cover Mortimer Fenley's murderer had fired the fatal shot.

CHAPTER IX

WHEREIN AN ARTIST BECOMES A MAN OF ACTION

Furneaux's visit left Trenholme in no happy frame of mind. The man who
that morning had not a care in the world was now a prey to disquieting
thought. The knowledge that he had been close to the scene of a
dastardly murder at the moment it was committed, that he was in a
sense a witness of the crime, was depressing in itself, for his was a
kindly nature; and the mere fact that circumstances had rendered him
impotent when his presence might have acted as a deterrent was
saddening