stopped close by me to light his pipe! But he'd
his back to me, so I didn't see his full face, only a side of it. He
were a man with a thin, greyish beard. Well, he walks past there, not
far--and then I heard other steps. Then I heard your father's voice,
miss--and I see the two of 'em meet. They stood, whispering together,
for a minute or so--then they came back past me, and they went off
across the moor towards Hexendale. And soon they were out of sight, and
when I'd finished what I was after I came my ways home. That's all,
master--but if yon old man was killed down in Highmarket Shawl Wood
between nine and ten o'clock that night, then Jack Harborough didn't
kill him, for Jack was up here at soon after nine, and him and the tall
man went away in the opposite direction!"

"You're sure about the time?" asked Brereton anxiously.

"Certain, master! It was ten minutes to nine when I went out--nearly ten
when I come back. My clock's always right--I set it by the almanack and
the sunrise and sunset every day--and you can't do better," asserted
Mrs. Hamthwaite.

"You're equally sure about the second man being Harborough?" insisted
Brereton. "You couldn't be mistaken?"

"Mistaken? No!--master, I know Harborough's voice, and his figure, aye,
and his step as well as I know my own fireside," declared Mrs.
Hamthwaite. "Of course I know it were Harborough--no doubt on't!"

"How are you sure that this was the evening of the murder?" asked
Brereton. "Can you prove that it was?"

"Easy!" said Mrs. Hamthwaite. "The very next morning I went away to see
my daughter up the coast. I heard of the old man's murder at High Gill
Junction. But I didn't hear then that Harborough was suspected--didn't
hear that till later on, when we read it in the newspapers."

"And the other man--the tall man in grey clothes, who has a slightly
grey beard--you didn't know him?"

Mrs. Hamthwaite made a face which seemed to suggest uncertainty.

"Well, I'll tell you," she answered. "I believe him to be a man that I
have seen about this here neighbourhood two or three times during this
last eighteen months or so. If you really want to know, I'm a good deal
about them moors o' nights; old as I am, I'm very active, and I go about
a goodish bit--why not? And I have seen a man about now and then--months
between, as a rule--that I couldn't account for--and I believe it's this
fellow that was with Harborough."

"And you say they went away in the direction of