o disputing the influence which dominated Robert Fenley. He
was his brother's catspaw. When his rifle was found next day MacBain's
testimony would be a tremendous addition to the weight of evidence
against him, since any unprejudiced judgment must decide that the
pursuit of his "cousin" was a mere pretense to enable him to go out
and search for the weapon he had foolishly left in the wood.

Hilton might or might not admit that he told Robert of the girl's
escapade. If he did admit it, he might be trusted to give the incident
the requisite kink to turn the scale against Robert. Surveying the
facts with cold impartiality afterwards, Scotland Yard decided that
while Hilton could not hope that Robert would be convicted of the
murder, the latter would assuredly be suspected of it, perhaps
arrested and tried; and in any event his marriage with Sylvia Manning
would become a sheer impossibility.

Moreover, once the rifle was found by the police, the only reasonable
prospect of connecting Hilton himself with the crime would have
vanished into thin air. If that weapon were picked up in the Quarry
Wood, or for that matter in any other part of the estate, the hounds
of the law were beaten. Winter's level-headed shrewdness and
Furneaux's almost uncanny intuition might have saddled Hilton with
blood guiltiness, but a wide chasm must be bridged before they could
provide the requisite proof of their theory.

In fact, thus far they dared not even hint at bringing a charge
against him. To succeed, they had to show that the incredible was
credible, that a murderer could be in a room within a few feet of his
victim and in a wood distant fully four hundred yards. It was a
baffling problem, not wholly incapable of solution by circumstantial
evidence, but best left to be elucidated by Hilton Fenley himself.
They believed now that he was about to oblige them by supplying that
corroborative detail which, in the words of Poohbah, "lends artistic
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."

Winter drew Furneaux into the room, and breathed the words into his
ear:

"You go. You stand less chance of being seen. I'll search his room."

"If there is a misfire, show a signal after five minutes."

"Right!"

Furneaux, standing back from the window, but in such a position that a
light would be visible to any one perched on the rock in the wood,
pressed the button of an electric torch three times rapidly. Then he
lowered the