story is concerned, I don't think you will advantage him
by telling it," he said. "There is nothing whatever to connect Kara with
this business and you would only give your husband a great deal of pain.
I'll do the best I can."

He held out his hand and she grasped it and somehow at that moment
there came to T. X. Meredith a new courage, a new faith and a greater
determination than ever to solve this troublesome mystery.

He found Mansus waiting for him in a car outside and in a few minutes
they were at the scene of the tragedy. A curious little knot of
spectators had gathered, looking with morbid interest at the place where
the body had been found. There was a local policeman on duty and to him
was deputed the ungracious task of warning his fellow villagers to keep
their distance. The ground had already been searched very carefully. The
two roads crossed almost at right angles and at the corner of the cross
thus formed, the hedges were broken, admitting to a field which had
evidently been used as a pasture by an adjoining dairy farm. Some rough
attempt had been made to close the gap with barbed wire, but it was
possible to step over the drooping strands with little or no difficulty.
It was to this gap that T. X. devoted his principal attention. All the
fields had been carefully examined without result, the four drains which
were merely the connecting pipes between ditches at the sides of the
crossroads had been swept out and only the broken hedge and its tangle
of bushes behind offered any prospect of the new search being rewarded.

"Hullo!" said Mansus, suddenly, and stooping down he picked up something
from the ground.

T. X. took it in his hand.

It was unmistakably a revolver cartridge. He marked the spot where
it had been found by jamming his walking stick into the ground and
continued his search, but without success.

"I am afraid we shall find nothing more here," said T. X., after half
an hour's further search. He stood with his chin in his hand, a frown on
his face.

"Mansus," he said, "suppose there were three people here, Lexman, the
money lender and a third witness. And suppose this third person for some
reason unknown was interested in what took place between the two men and
he wanted to watch unobserved. Isn't it likely that if he, as I think,
instigated the meeting, he would have chosen this place because this
particular hedge gave him a chance of seeing without being seen?"

Mansus thought.