elf together, and she
sort of got between me and the door. 'No, I don't!' she says. 'But if he
is, I'm not surprised, for I've warned him many a time about going out
after nightfall.' I looked hard at her. 'What're you doing with his
papers there?' I says. 'Papers!' she says. 'They're naught but old bills
and things that he gave me to sort.' 'That's a lie!' I says, 'those
aren't bills and I believe you know something about this, and I'm off
for the police--to tell!' Then she pushed the door to behind her and
folded her arms and looked at me. 'You tell a word,' she says, 'and I'll
tell it all over the town that you and your partner's a couple of
ex-convicts! I know your tale--Kitely'd no secrets from me. You stir a
step to tell anybody, and I'll begin by going straight to young
Bent--and I'll not stop at that, neither.' So you see where I was--I was
frightened to death of that old affair getting out, and I knew then that
Kitely was a liar and had told this old woman all about it, and--well,
I hesitated. And she saw that she had me, and she went on, 'You hold
your tongue, and I'll hold mine!' she says. 'Nobody'll accuse me, I
know--but if you speak one word, I'll denounce you! You and your partner
are much more likely to have killed Kitely than I am! Well, I still
stood, hesitating. 'What's to be done?' I asked at last. 'Do naught,'
she said. 'Go home, like a wise man, and know naught about it. Let him
be found--and say naught. But if you do, you know what to expect.' 'Not
a word that I came in here, then?' I said at last. 'Nobody'll get no
words from me beyond what I choose to give 'em', she says. 'And--silence
about the other?' I said. 'Just as long as you're silent,' she says. And
with that I walked out--and I set off towards home by another way. And
just as I was leaving the wood to turn into the path that leads into our
lane I heard a man coming along and I shrank into some shrubs and
watched for him till he came close up. He passed me and went on to the
cottage--and I slipped back then and looked in through the window, and
there he was, and they were both whispering together at the table. And
it--was this woman's nephew--Pett, the lawyer."

The superintendent, whose face had assumed various expressions during
this narrative, lifted his hands in amazement.

"But--but we were in and about that cottage most of that
night--afterwards!" he exclaimed. "We never saw aught of him. I know he
was supposed to come down from L