'll be starting quite soon now."

"How old is Doris?"

"Nineteen."

"But a really good-looking girl of nineteen must have had admirers before
Grant went to the village."

"She had, and has. Having educated herself out of the rut, however, she
left many runners at the post. One is persistent--a youngish horse-coper
named Elkin. Adelaide Melhuish probably saw her with Grant. Neither Doris
nor Grant knew that Adelaide Melhuish, as such, was in Steynholme. That
is to say, the girl had seen Miss Melhuish in the post office, and
recognized her as a famous actress, but that is all. And now I shan't
tell you any more, or you'll know all that I know, which is too much."

The cigar was behaving itself at last, having burnt down to the fracture,
so Winter's thoughts could be given exclusively to the less important
matter of the Steynholme affair.

"To begin with," he said instantly. "Ingerman can establish a
cast-iron alibi."

"So I imagined. But he's a bad lot. I throw in that item gratuitously."

The oddly-assorted pair walked in silence until Vauxhall Bridge was in
sight. Winter pulled out a watch.

"What time did you say my train left Victoria?" he inquired.

"Plenty of time yet to make your guess and listen to further details,"
scoffed Furneaux.

"Frankly, I give it up. But, if I must share in the hunt, I tell you now
that, metaphorically speaking, I shall cling to the postmaster's daughter
till torn away by sheer force of evidence."

Furneaux dug his colleague in the ribs.

"That's the effect of constant association with me, James," he cackled
gleefully. "Ten years ago you would have pounced on Elkin. You've hit it!
I'm a prood mon the day. The pupil is equaling the master."

"You little rat, I had hanged my first murderer before you knew the
meaning of _habeas corpus_! Let's turn now, and get to business."

Few Treasury barristers, leading for the Crown, could have marshaled the
facts with such lucidity and fairness as Furneaux during that saunter to
Victoria Station.

"Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice," said Othello to
Lodovico, and these Scotland Yard men, charged with so great a
responsibility, never forgot the great-hearted Moor's advice.

When Winter took his seat in the train at five o'clock he could have
drawn a plan of Steynholme, which he had never seen, and marked thereon
the exact position of each house mentioned in this record. Moreover, he
was acquainted with the chief charac