fanciful aspersions.
What about him?"

"Well, sir," said the constable, "I took all the men's addresses and had
them all watched. It wasn't serious enough to do more than that. All the
other addresses are all right. But this man Keith gave a false address.
The place doesn't exist."

The breakfast table was nearly flung over as Rupert sprang up, slapping
both his thighs.

"Well, by all that's good," he cried. "This is a sign from heaven."

"It's certainly very extraordinary," said Basil quietly, with knitted
brows. "It's odd the fellow should have given a false address,
considering he was perfectly innocent in the--"

"Oh, you jolly old early Christian duffer," cried Rupert, in a sort of
rapture, "I don't wonder you couldn't be a judge. You think every one
as good as yourself. Isn't the thing plain enough now? A doubtful
acquaintance; rowdy stories, a most suspicious conversation, mean
streets, a concealed knife, a man nearly killed, and, finally, a false
address. That's what we call glaring goodness."

"It's certainly very extraordinary," repeated Basil. And he strolled
moodily about the room. Then he said: "You are quite sure, constable,
that there's no mistake? You got the address right, and the police have
really gone to it and found it was a fraud?"

"It was very simple, sir," said the policeman, chuckling. "The place
he named was a well-known common quite near London, and our people were
down there this morning before any of you were awake. And there's no
such house. In fact, there are hardly any houses at all. Though it is
so near London, it's a blank moor with hardly five trees on it, to
say nothing of Christians. Oh, no, sir, the address was a fraud right
enough. He was a clever rascal, and chose one of those scraps of lost
England that people know nothing about. Nobody could say off-hand that
there was not a particular house dropped somewhere about the heath. But
as a fact, there isn't."

Basil's face during this sensible speech had been growing darker and
darker with a sort of desperate sagacity. He was cornered almost for
the first time since I had known him; and to tell the truth I rather
wondered at the almost childish obstinacy which kept him so close to his
original prejudice in favour of the wildly questionable lieutenant. At
length he said:

"You really searched the common? And the address was really not known in
the district--by the way, what was the address?"

The constable selected one o