ble Queensmead."

The chief constable touched a bell, and directed the policeman who
answered it to bring in Constable Queensmead.

The policeman who appeared in answer to this summons was a thickset
sturdy Norfolk man, with an intelligent face and shrewd dark eyes. On
the chief constable informing him that he was to give the gentlemen the
details of the _Golden Anchor_ murder, he produced a notebook from his
tunic, and commenced the story with official precision.

Ronald had arrived at the inn before dark on the previous evening, and
had asked for a bed for the night. A little later Mr. Glenthorpe, the
murdered man, who had been staying at the inn for some time past, had
come in for his dinner, and was so pleased to meet a gentleman in that
rough and lonely place that he had asked Ronald to dine with him. The
dinner was served in an upstairs sitting-room, and during the course of
the meal Mr. Glenthorpe talked freely of his scientific researches in
the district, and informed his guest that he had that day been to
Heathfield to draw L300 to purchase a piece of land containing some
valuable fossil remains which he intended to excavate. The two gentlemen
sat talking after dinner till between ten and eleven, and then retired
to rest in adjoining rooms, in a wing of the inn occupied by nobody
else. In the morning Ronald departed before anybody, except the servant,
was up, refusing to wait for his boots to be cleaned. The servant, who
had had the boots in her hands, had noticed that one of the boots had a
circular rubber heel on it, but not the other. Ronald gave her a pound
to pay for his bed, and the note was one of the first Treasury issue,
as were the notes which Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn from the bank at
Heathfield the day before. The men who had seen the footprints to the
pit earlier in the morning, informed Queensmead of their discovery on
learning that Mr. Glenthorpe had disappeared. Queensmead examined the
footprints, and, with the assistance of the men, recovered the body.
Queensmead telephoned a description of Ronald to the police stations
along the coast, then mounted his bicycle and caught the train at
Leyland in order to report the matter to the district headquarters at
Durrington.

"I suppose there is no doubt that the young man who stayed at the inn is
identical with Ronald," said the detective, when the constable had
finished his story. "Do the descriptions tally in every respect?"

"Read the particulars