nd at the end of the quays and the
wooded promontories which terminated the land view, lay the North Sea,
cold, grey, and mysterious in the waning October light, and out of its
bosom rose, close to the shore, great masses of high grey rocks, strong
and fantastic of shape, and further away, almost indistinct in the
distance, an island, on the highest point of which the ruins of some old
religious house were silhouetted against the horizon.

"Just the place!" repeated Stafford. "He'd have cheerfully travelled a
thousand miles to see this. And now--we know he came here--what we next
want to know is, what he did when he got here?"

Copplestone, who had been taking in every detail of the scene before him,
pointed to a house of many gables and queer chimneys which stood a little
way beneath them at the point where the waters of a narrow stream ran
into the bay.

"That looks like an inn," he said. "I think I can make out a sign on the
gable-end. Let's go down there and inquire. He would get here just about
time for lunch, wouldn't he, and he'd probably turn in there. Also--they
may have a telephone there, and you can call up the theatre at Norcaster
and find out if anything's been heard yet."

Stafford smiled approvingly and started out in the direction of the
buildings towards which Copplestone had pointed.

"Excellent notion!" he said. "You're quite a business man--an unusual
thing in authors, isn't it? Come on, then--and that is an inn, too--I can
make out the sign now--The 'Admiral's Arms'--Mary Wooler. Let's hope Mary
Wooler, who's presumably the landlady, can give us some useful news!"

The "Admiral's Arms" proved to be an old-fashioned, capacious hostelry,
eminently promising and comfortable in appearance, which stood on the
edge of a broad shelf of headland, and commanded a fine view of the
little village and the bay. Stafford and Copplestone, turning in at the
front door, found themselves in a deep, stone-paved hall, on one side of
which, behind a bar window, a pleasant-faced, buxom woman, silk-aproned
and smartly-capped, was busily engaged in adding up columns of figures in
a big account-book. At sight of strangers she threw open a door and
smilingly invited them to walk into a snugly furnished bar-parlour where
a bright fire burned in an open hearth. Stafford gave his companion a
look--this again was just the sort of old-world place which would appeal
to Basset Oliver, supposing he had come across it.

"I won