d Colwyn. "It will help to pass away an hour."

There were about a dozen men in the bar--agricultural labourers and
fishermen--clustered in groups of twos and threes in front of the
counter, or sitting on stools by the wall, drinking ale by the light of
a smoky oil lamp which hung from the rafters. The fat deaf waiter was in
the earthy recess behind the counter, drawing ale into stone mugs.

A loud voice which had been holding forth ceased suddenly as Colwyn
entered. The inmates of the bar regarded him questioningly, and some
resentfully, as though they considered his presence an intrusion. But
Colwyn was accustomed to making himself at home in all sorts of company.
He walked across the bar, called for some whisky, and, while it was
being served, addressed a friendly remark to the nearest group to him.
One of the men, a white-bearded, keen-eyed Norfolk man, answered his
question civilly enough. He had asked about wild fowl shooting in the
neighbourhood, and the old man had been a water bailiff on the Broads in
his younger days. The question of sport will draw most men together. One
after another of the villagers joined in the conversation, and were soon
as much at home with Colwyn as though they had known him from boyhood.
Some of them were going eel-fishing that night, and Colwyn violated the
provisions of the "no treating" order to give them a glass of whisky to
keep out the cold of the marshes. The rest of the tap room he regaled
with ale.

From these Norfolk fishermen Colwyn learnt many of the secrets of the
wild and many cunning methods of capturing its creatures, but the real
object of his visit to the bar--to discover whether any of the
frequenters of the _Golden Anchor_ had ever seen Ronald in the district
before the evening of the murder--remained unsatisfied. He was a
stranger to "theer" parts, the men said, in response to questions on the
subject.

But "theer" parts were limited to a mile or so of the marshland in which
they spent their narrow, lonely lives. Their conversation revealed that
they seldom went outside that narrow domain. Durrington, which was
little more than ten miles away, was only a name to them. Many of them
had not been as far as Leyland for months. They spent their days
catching eels in the marsh canals, or in setting lobster and crab traps
outside the breakwater. The agricultural labourers tilled the same patch
of ground year after year. They had no recreations except an occasional
ni