hundred easy as winking--but--you take my meaning?--I daresay M. & C.
'ud run to five thousand if I kept my tongue still. What?"

But Stoner knew at once that Myler disapproved. The commercial
traveller's homely face grew grave, and he shook his head with an
unmistakable gesture.

"No, Stoner," he said. "None o' that! Play straight, my lad! No
hush-money transactions. Keep to the law, Stoner, keep to the law!
Besides, there's others than you can find all this out. What you want to
do is to get in first. See Tallington as soon as you get back."

"I daresay you're right," admitted Stoner. "But--I know M. & C, and I
know they'd give--aye, half of what they're worth--and that's a lot!--to
have this kept dark."

That thought was with him whenever he woke in the night, and as he
strolled round Darlington next morning, it was still with him when,
after an early dinner, he set off homeward by an early afternoon train
which carried him to High Gill junction; whence he had to walk five
miles across the moors and hills to Highmarket. And he was still
pondering it weightily when, in one of the loneliest parts of the
solitudes which he was crossing, he turning the corner of a little pine
wood, and came face to face with Mallalieu.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LONELY MOOR

During the three hours which had elapsed since his departure from
Darlington, Stoner had been thinking things over. He had seen his friend
Myler again that morning; they had had a drink or two together at the
station refreshment room before Stoner's train left, and Myler had once
more urged upon Stoner to use his fortunately acquired knowledge in the
proper way. No doubt, said Myler, he could get Mallalieu and Cotherstone
to square him; no doubt they would cheerfully pay thousands where the
reward only came to hundreds--but, when everything was considered, was
it worth while? No!--a thousand times, no, said Myler. The mere fact
that Stoner had found out all this was a dead sure proof that somebody
else might find it out. The police had a habit, said Myler, of working
like moles--underground. How did Stoner know that some of the Norcaster
and London detectives weren't on the job already? They knew by that time
that old Kitely was an ex-detective; they'd be sure to hark back on his
past doings, in the effort to trace some connexion between one or other
of them and his murder. Far away as it was, that old Wilchester affair
would certainly come up again. And whe