he'll tell
you. Aunt Daphne, wasn't it here that father lost the string bag?"

"Wretched fool!" said Daphne under her breath, turning hurriedly in the
direction of the car.

Berry watched her retreat, and turned to his listeners with a sigh.

"I'm afraid I've gone and upset her now," he said. "I oughtn't to have
reminded her of the untoward incident. It was the only string bag they
had, and it was an awful blow to her. It upset him, too, terribly.
Never the same man again. In fact, from that day he began to go
wrong--criminally, I mean."

The little group grew closer to him than ever. Like a fool, I stayed
to hear more.

"Yes," Berry went on, "in less than a month he was up at the Old
Bailey, under the Merchandise Marks Act, for selling Gruyere cheese
with too big holes in it. Five years his sentence was. Let's see, he
ought to be coming out in about--oh, about--When does father come out,
Cousin Albert?"

The excursionists gazed greedily at me--the felon's son. I approached
Berry and laid a hand upon his arm. Then I turned to the little group.

"This fellow," I said, "has got us into trouble before. Those of you
who have motor-cars will understand me when I refer to the great
difficulty of securing a really trustworthy chauffeur. Now, this man
is honest and a most careful driver, but when he is, so to speak, off
duty, he is so unfortunate as to suffer from delusions, usually
connected with crime and the administration of the criminal law. While
we were having lunch at Whitchurch only this afternoon, he went off to
the police-station and tried to give himself up for the Hounslow
murder, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," faltered Berry.

"And all the time," I went on, "I'm not at all satisfied myself that he
did murder the woman, although things certainly looked rather black--"

"I did!" said Berry fiercely.

The crowd of excursionists recoiled, and a small boy in a green flannel
blazer burst into tears.

"Any way," I said, "there isn't anything like enough evidence against
you, so we won't argue it. Now, then, we want to be going. Come
along."

"Half a shake, sir," said Berry, feeling in his pockets. "You know
that knife--"

The company began nervously to disperse. Some exhorted one another to
observe some feature of the cromlechs which was only visible from some
point of vantage on the side other to that on which we stood. Others
agreed that they had no idea that it was so late, and the fat