g whatever about him."

"What was the nature of his illness?" inquired the chief constable.

"It had some of the symptoms of a seizure," replied Sir Henry guardedly.
"I begged him, when he recovered, not to leave his room. I even offered
to communicate with his friends, by telephone, if he would give me their
address, but he refused."

"It is a pity he did not take your advice," responded the chief
constable. "He appears to have left the hotel shortly after his illness,
and walked along the coast to a little hamlet called Flegne, about ten
miles from here. He reached there in the evening, and put up at the
village inn, the _Golden Anchor_, for the night. He left early in the
morning, before anybody was up. Shortly afterwards the body of Mr. Roger
Glenthorpe, an elderly archaeologist, who had been staying at the inn
for some time past making researches into the fossil remains common to
that part of Norfolk, was found in a pit near the house. The tracks of
boot-prints from near the inn to the mouth of the pit, and back again,
indicate that Mr. Glenthorpe was murdered in his bedroom at the inn, and
his body afterwards carried by the murderer to the pit in which it was
found."

"In order to conceal the crime?" said Colwyn.

"Precisely. Two men employed by Mr. Glenthorpe saw the footprints
earlier in the morning, and when it was discovered that Mr. Glenthorpe
was missing, one of them was lowered into the pit by a rope and found
the body at the bottom. The pit forms a portion of a number of so-called
hut circles, or prehistoric shelters of the early Briton, which are not
uncommon in this part of Norfolk."

"And you have strong grounds for believing that this young man Ronald,
who was staying at the _Grand_ till yesterday, is the murderer?"

"The very strongest. He slept in the room next to the murdered man's,
and disappeared hurriedly in the early morning from the inn some time
before the body was discovered. It is his boot-tracks which led to and
from the pit where the body was found. A considerable sum of money has
been stolen from the deceased, and we have ascertained that Ronald was
in desperate straits for money. Another point against Ronald is that Mr.
Glenthorpe was stabbed, and a knife which was used by Ronald at the
dinner table that night is missing. It is believed that the murder was
committed with this knife. But if you feel interested in the case, Mr.
Colwyn, you had better hear the report of Police Consta