ell to find out, quietly, what Mallalieu
was doing with himself up to ten o'clock. But the main thing was--what
was Cotherstone doing during that hour of absence? And--had Cotherstone
any reason--of his own, or shared with his partner--for wishing to get
rid of Kitely?

Brereton sat thinking all these things over until he had finished his
cigar; he then left Bent's house and strolled up into the woods of the
Shawl. He wanted to have a quiet look round the scene of the murder. He
had not been up there since the previous evening; it now occurred to him
that it would be well to see how the place looked by daylight. There was
no difficulty about finding the exact spot, even in those close coverts
of fir and pine; a thin line of inquisitive sightseers was threading its
way up the Shawl in front of him, each of its units agog to see the
place where a fellow-being had been done to death.

But no one could get at the precise scene of the murder. The police had
roped a portion of the coppice off from the rest, and two or three
constables in uniform were acting as guards over this enclosed space,
while a couple of men in plain clothes, whom Brereton by that time knew
to be detectives from Norcaster, were inside it, evidently searching the
ground with great care. Round and about the fenced-in portion stood
townsfolk, young and old, talking, speculating, keenly alive to the
goings-on, hoping that the searchers would find something just then, so
that they themselves could carry some sensational news back to the town
and their own comfortable tea-tables. Most of them had been in or
outside the Court House that morning and recognized Brereton and made
way for him as he advanced to the ropes. One of the detectives
recognized him, too, and invited him to step inside.

"Found anything?" asked Brereton, who was secretly wondering why the
police should be so foolish as to waste time in a search which was
almost certain to be non-productive.

"No, sir--we've been chiefly making out for certain where the actual
murder took place before the dead man was dragged behind that rock,"
answered the detective. "As far as we can reckon from the disturbance of
these pine needles, the murderer must have sprung on Kitely from behind
that clump of gorse--there where it's grown to such a height--and then
dragged him here, away from that bit of a path. No--we've found
nothing. But I suppose you've heard of the find at Harborough's
cottage?"

"No!" ex