ncing
souvenir of its visit in the shape of a soft felt hat with two bullet
holes through the crown.

Furneaux, quivering with silent wrath, soon abandoned the search when
this _piece de conviction_ was found at the root of the Dorothy Perkins
rose-tree. Seeing the lamp relighted, he peremptorily bade Grant and
Bates come in with him. He closed the window, adjusted the blind again,
and poured generous measures of port wine into two glasses. Handing one
to Bates, he took the other himself.

"Friend," he said, "some men have fame thrust upon them, but you have
achieved it. To-night you pierced the heel of Achilles. Here's to you!"

"I dunno wot 'ee's saying mister, but 'good health'," said Bates,
swigging the wine with gusto.

"Now, for your master's sake, not a word to a soul about this hubbub."

"Right you are, sir! But that there pryin' Robinson wur on t' bridge five
minutes since. And, by gum, here he is!"

A determined knock and ring came at the front door. Minnie, helped by
Hart, had just escorted Mrs. Bates to the kitchen.

"Let _me_ go!" said Furneaux, darting out into the hall. He opened the
door, and thrust his face into the police-constable's, startling the
latter considerably. Before Robinson could utter a syllable, the
detective hissed a question.

"Did anyone cross the bridge after that shot was fired?"

"Nun--No, sir," stuttered the other.

"You saw no one running along the road?"

"Saw nothing, sir."

"Very well. Glad to find you're on the job. Don't let on you met me here.
Good-night!"

Mighty is Scotland Yard with the provincial police. Robinson was back on
his self-imposed beat before he well realized that he knew neither why
nor by whom nor by what sort of weapon the commotion had been created.
But he was quite sure the noise came from the garden front of Mr.
Grant's house.

"That little hop-o'-me-thumb thinks he's smart, dam smart," he communed
angrily, "but I've taken a line of me own, an' I'll stick to it, though
the Yard sends down twenty men!"

He heard footsteps coming down a paved footpath which ran like a white
riband through the cobble-beaded width of the high-street, and withdrew
swiftly to the shelter of a disused tannery adjoining the village end of
the bridge. A cloaked female figure sped past. Though the night was
rather dark for June, he had no difficulty in recognizing Doris Martin's
graceful movements. No other girl in Steynholme walked like her. She was
slim enough