made a mental note. Tallente threw the remains of his
cigarette into the sea. "I am going to bed now." he said. "Can I offer
you any refreshment, Mr. Inspector, or are your investigations not yet
complete?"

"I thank you, sir, but I require nothing. I have some men up in the
wood there and I shall join them presently. I am staying in the
neighborhood."

Tallente pointed to the rope.

"If you would care to search for yourself, Mr. Inspector, we'll help
you down."

The man shook his head.

"Scarcely a job for a man of my build, sir. I have a professional
climber coming to-morrow. I wish you had informed me of your intention
to go down to-night."

"If you had informed me of your intention to remain in the neighborhood,
that might have been possible," was the cool reply. The man took the
loose wooden rail from its place and held it under his arm. "Walking
off with a portion of my fence, eh?" Tallente asked.

The inspector made no direct reply. He turned his torch on to the
broken end.

"A clue?" Tallente asked him lightly. The other turned away. "It is
not my place, sir," he announced, "to share any discovery I might make
with a person who has deliberately refused to assist the law."

"No one has convinced me yet," Tallente replied, "that Palliser's
disappearance is a matter in which the law need concern itself." The
inspector coughed. "I wish you good night, sir." He disappeared along
the narrow path. They listened to his retreating footsteps. Tallente
picked up his end of the rope. "I was right," he said, as he led the
way back to the house. "Quite the Inspector Bucket type."

CHAPTER VI

At noon the next day, Tallente, nervously as well as physically
exhausted with the long climb from the Manor, turned aside from the
straight, dusty road and seated himself upon a lichen-covered boulder.
He threw his cap on the ground, filled and lighted an old briar pipe,
and gazed with a queer mixture of feelings across the moorland to where
Woolhanger spread itself, a queer medley of dwelling house and farm
buildings, strangely situated at the far end of the table-land he was
crossing, where the moor leaned down to a great hollow in the hills.
The open stretch of common which lay between him and his destination had
none of the charm of the surrounding country. It was like a dark spot
set in the midst of the rolling splendours of the moorland proper.
There were boulders of rock of unknown age, dark patches of peat lan