the
sergeant had no more to ask. "You seemed to suggest that, when we
came."

"Well, he was a bit longer," admitted Miss Pett. "Of course, he varied.
But an hour was about his time. Up and down and about the hill-side he'd
go--in and out of the coppices. I've warned him more than once."

"But why?" asked Brereton, whose curiosity was impelling him to take a
part in this drama. "What reason had you for warning him?"

Miss Pett turned and looked scrutinizingly at her last questioner. She
took a calm and close observation of him and her curious face relaxed
into something like a smile.

"I can tell what you are, mister," she said. "A law gentleman! I've seen
your sort many a time. And you're a sharp 'un, too! Well--you're young,
but you're old enough to have heard a thing or two. Did you never hear
that women have got what men haven't--instinct?"

"Do you really tell me that the only reason you had for warning him
against going out late at night was--instinct?" asked Brereton. "Come,
now!"

"Mostly instinct, anyhow," she answered. "Women have a sort of feeling
about things that men haven't--leastways, no men that I've ever met had
it. But of course, I'd more than that. Mr. Kitely, now, he was a
townsman--a London man. I'm a countrywoman. He didn't understand--you
couldn't get him to understand--that it's not safe to go walking in
lonely places in country districts like this late at night. When I'd got
to know his habits, I expostulated with him more than once. I pointed
out to him that in spots like this, where there's naught nearer than
them houses at the foot of the hill one way, and Harborough's cottage
another way, and both of 'em a good quarter of a mile off, and where
there's all these coverts and coppices and rocks, it was not safe for an
elderly man who sported a fine gold watch and chain to go wandering
about in the darkness. There's always plenty of bad characters in
country places who'd knock the King himself on the head for the sake of
as much as Mr. Kitely had on him, even if it was no more than the chain
which every Tom and Dick could see! And it's turned out just as I
prophesied. He's come to it!"

"But you said just now that he must have been murdered for something
else than his valuables," said Brereton.

"I said that if his papers were gone, somebody must have wanted them
bad," retorted Miss Pett. "Anyway, what's happened is just what I felt
might happen, and there he is--dead. And I should be o