t in
order, to help her lover. But Colwyn was not looking at her. He had
opened the match-box, and was shaking out the few matches which remained
in the interior. They fell, half a dozen of them, into the palm of his
hand. They were wax matches, with blue heads. A sudden light leapt into
the detective's eyes as he saw them--a look so strange and angry that
the girl, who was watching him, recoiled a little.

"What is it? What have you found?" she cried.

"It is a pity you did not tell me the truth in the first instance
instead of deceiving me," he retorted harshly. "Listen to me. Does any
one at the inn know of your visit to me to-day? I do not suppose they
do, but I want to make sure."

"Nobody. I told them I was going to Leyland to see the dressmaker."

"So much the better." Colwyn looked at his watch. "You have just time to
catch the half-past one train back. You had better go at once. I will go
to the inn some time this evening, but you must not let any one know
that I am coming, or that you have seen me to-day. Do you understand?
Can I depend on you?"

"Yes," she replied. "I will do anything you tell me. But, oh, do tell me
before I go whether you are going to save him."

"I cannot say that," he replied, in a gentler voice. "But I am going to
try to help him. Go at once, or you will not catch the train."

CHAPTER XIX

Colwyn formed his plans on his way back to the hotel. He stopped at the
office as he went in to lunch, and informed the lady clerk that he had
changed his mind about leaving, and would keep on his room, but expected
to be away in the country for two or three days. The lady clerk, who had
mischievous eyes and wore her hair fluffed, asked the detective if he
had been successful in finding the young lady who had called to see him.
On Colwyn gravely informing her that he had, she smiled. It was obvious
that she scented a romance in the guest's changed plans.

As the detective wished to attract as little attention as possible in
the renewed investigations he was about to make, he decided not to take
his car to Flegne. After lunch he packed a few necessaries in a handbag,
and caught the afternoon train to Heathfield. Arriving at that wayside
station, he asked the elderly functionary who acted as station-master,
porter and station cleaner the nearest way across country to Flegne,
and, receiving the most explicit instructions in a thick Norfolk
dialect, set out with his handbag.

The road jou