tous chiming, for my interest was at once called to the
fact that this was the first time that clock had struck since I had been
on the lawn. I could not conceivably have missed its earlier efforts at
the hours of ten and eleven. There was an insistence about the beastly
thing that demanded one's attention. Had it, then, run down overnight and
been recently re-wound? And if so, by whom?

It may seem absurd that I should have made so much of the inferences that
followed my consideration of this problem, but the truth is that my mind
was so intensely occupied with one subject that everything seemed to point
to the participation of the important Arthur Banks. At any other time I
should not have troubled about the clock; now, I looked to it for
evidence. And however ridiculous it may appear, I was influenced in my
excited search for clues by the fact that the clock had, after it was
re-wound, only struck the hour of twelve. The significance of that
deduction lay in the observation--my experience is, admittedly,
limited--that clocks which have run down must be patiently made to re-toll
the hours they have missed, or they will pick up their last neglected
reminders of the time at the point at which they stopped. And from that I
inferred an esoteric knowledge of mechanics from that rewinder of the
stable-clock who had got the horrid contrivance correctly going again
without imposing upon us the misery of slowly working through an almost
endless series of, as it were, historical chimes. I agree that my premises
were faulty, far too lightly supported, but my mind leapt to the deduction
that the mechanic in this connection could be none other than Banks. And
granting that, the further inferences were, undoubtedly, important. For as
I saw them they pointed infallibly to the conclusion that Banks had
accepted once more the yoke of servitude; that he had made his exit
through the servants' quarters and had meekly taken up his tasks again
with the winding of the stable-clock.

(I may add that strangely enough the weak inference was correct, and the
well-grounded one fallacious. If you would interpret the riddle of human
motives, put no confidence in logic. The principles of logic are founded
on the psychology of Anyone. And Anyone is a mechanical waxwork, an
intellectual abstraction, a thing without a soul or a sub-consciousness.)

Having taken the side of old Jervaise, I ought to have been comforted by
this conclusion, and I tried