ou do with the packet you removed?"

"I took it across the marshes and threw it into the sea," she replied,
looking steadily into his face.

"Why did you go to that trouble? Why did you not burn it?"

"I had no fire, and I dared not keep it till the morning. Besides, there
were rings and things in the packet--his dead wife's jewellery. He told
me so."

He looked at her keenly. She had told him the truth about her visit to
the breakwater, but how much of the rest of her story was true?

"So that is your explanation?" he said.

"Yes."

"I am sorry to say that I find it difficult to believe. If you are
deceiving me you are very foolish."

"I have told you the truth, Mr. Colwyn," she said, and, turning away,
returned to the inn.

CHAPTER XIII

Ronald's strange silence after his arrest decided Colwyn to relinquish
his investigations and return to Durrington. His tacit admissions,
coupled with the damaging evidence against him, enforced conviction in
the young man's guilt in spite of the detective's previous belief to the
contrary. In assisting Queensmead in his search Colwyn had cherished the
hope that Ronald, if captured, would declare his innocence and gladly
respond to his overture of help. But, instead of doing so, Ronald had
taken up an attitude which was suspicious in the highest degree, and one
which caused the detective to falter in his belief that the Glenthorpe
murder case was a much deeper mystery than the police imagined. Ronald's
attitude, by its accordance with the facts previously known or believed
about the case, belittled the detective's own discoveries, and caused
him to come to the conclusion that it was hardly worth while to go
farther into it.

Nevertheless, it was in a perplexed and puzzled state of mind that he
returned to Durrington, and his perplexity was not lessened by a piece
of information given to him at luncheon by Sir Henry. The specialist
started up from his seat as soon as he saw the detective, and made his
way across to his table.

"My dear fellow," he burst out, "I have the most amazing piece of news.
Who do you think this chap Ronald turns out to be? None other than James
Ronald Penreath, only son of Sir James Penreath--Penreath of
Twelvetrees--one of the oldest families in England, dating back before
the Conquest! Not very much money, but very good blood--none better in
England, in fact. The family seat is in Berkshire, and the family take
their name from a village