on. We saw Stoner--now and then, you understand--right away to
Chat Bank."

"You didn't notice any suspicious characters come to your station that
afternoon or evening?" asked the superintendent.

The ticket-collector replied that nothing of that sort had been seen,
and he presently went away. And Brereton, after an unimportant word or
two, went away too, certain by that time that the death of Stoner had
some sinister connexion with the murder of Kitely.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SCRAP BOOK

Brereton went back to his friend's house more puzzled than ever by the
similarity of the entries in Kitely's memoranda and in Stoner's
pocket-book. Bent had gone over to Norcaster that afternoon, on
business, and was not to be home until late in the evening: Brereton
accordingly dined alone and had ample time to reflect and to think. The
reflecting and the thinking largely took the form of speculating--on the
fact that certain terms and figures which had been set down by Kitely
had also been set down by Stoner. There were the initials--M. & C. There
was a date--if it was a date--81. What in Kitely's memorandum the
initials S. B. might mean, it was useless to guess at. His memorandum,
indeed, was as cryptic as an Egyptian hieroglyph. But Stoner's
memorandum was fuller, more explicit. The M. & C. of the Kitely entry
had been expanded to Mallows and Chidforth. The entry "fraud" and the
other entries "Wilchester Assizes" and the supplementary words, clearly
implied that two men named Mallows and Chidforth were prosecuted at
Wilchester Assizes in the year 1881 for fraud, that a sum of L2,000 was
involved, which was never recovered, that Mallows and Chidforth,
whoever they were, were convicted and were sentenced to two years'
imprisonment. So much for Stoner's memorandum. But did it refer to the
same event to which Kitely made reference in his memorandum? It seemed
highly probable that it did. It seemed highly probable, too, that the M.
& C. of Kitely's entry were the Mallows & Chidforth of Stoner's. And now
the problem narrowed to one most serious and crucial point--were the
Mallows and Chidforth of these references the Mallalieu and Cotherstone
of Highmarket.

Speculating on this possibility, Brereton after his solitary dinner went
into Bent's smoking-room, and throwing himself into a chair before the
fire, lighted his pipe and proceeded to think things out. It was
abundantly clear to him by that time that Kitely and Stoner had