t not to bother if they were still sitting up. It
had been decided that the young gentleman should occupy the bedroom next
to Mr. Glenthorpe, and Ann was a bit late with her ordinary work because
it had taken her some time to get his room ready. The room had not been
occupied for some time, and she'd had to air the bed-clothes and make
the bed afresh.

"The next morning I was a bit late getting down--there's nothing to open
the inn for in the mornings--and Ann told me as soon as I got down that
the young gentleman had left nearly an hour before. She had taken him up
an early cup of tea at seven o'clock, and he opened the door to her
knock, and took it from her. He was fully dressed, except for his boots,
which he had in his hand, and he asked her to clean them, as he wanted
to leave at once. She was walking away with the boots, when he called
her back and took them from her, saying that it didn't matter about
cleaning them, as he was in a hurry. When she gave him the boots he put
a note into her hand, and said that was to pay for his bill.

"It was the key in the outside of Mr. Glenthorpe's room which led to us
finding out that he was not in the room. As I told you upstairs, sir, he
used to always lock his door when he went to bed and put the key under
the pillow. Ann noticed the key in the outside of the door when she
went up with his breakfast tray--he never took early morning tea but he
always breakfasted in his room. That would be about eight o'clock. She
thought it strange to see the key in the door, and as she could get no
answer to her knock she tried the door, found it unlocked and the room
empty. She came downstairs and told me. I thought at first that Mr.
Glenthorpe might have got up early to go and look at his excavations,
but I went up to his room and saw the signs of a struggle and
blood-stains on the bed-clothes, and I knew that something must have
happened to him. I went into the village and told Constable Queensmead.
He came to the inn, and made a search inside and outside and found the
footprints leading to the pit on the rise. One of Mr. Glenthorpe's men
who had been down the pit for flints was lowered by a rope, and brought
up the body."

The innkeeper took a leather wallet from his pocket and produced from it
a Treasury L1 note. "This is the note the young gentleman left behind
with Ann to pay his bill," he explained, pushing it across the table to
the chief constable.

"I would draw your attenti