I mean to say--"

"I'm sure it was altogether Godfrey's," I said. "The thing which
surprises me is that nobody ever did it before. Godfrey is nearly
thirty, so for twenty years at least every man he has met must have
been tempted to break his ribs. We must, in spite of what everybody
says, be a Christian nation. If we were not--"

"He would keep following me about," said Bob. "I told him several
times to clear away and go home. But he wouldn't."

"He has a fixed idea that you're engaged in smuggling."

"Even if I was," said Bob, "it would be no business of his."

"That's just why he mixes himself up in it. If it had been his
business he wouldn't have touched it. There's nothing Godfrey hates
more than doing anything he ought to do."

"I'm awfully glad you take it that way," said Bob. "I was afraid--"

"My dear fellow," I said, "I'm delighted. But you haven't told me yet
exactly how it happened."

"I was moving a packing-case," said Bob, "a rather large one--"

He hesitated. I think he felt that the packing-case might require some
explanation, especially as it was being moved at about eleven o'clock
at night. I hastened to reassure him.

"Quite a proper thing for you to be doing," I said, "and certainly no
business of Godfrey's. Every one has a perfect right to move
packing-cases about from place to place."

"He told me he was going for the police, so--"

"I don't think you need have taken any notice of that threat. The
police know Godfrey quite well. They hate being worried just as much
as I do."

"So I knocked him down."

"You must have hit him in several places at once," I said, "to have
broken so many bones."

"The fact is," said Bob, "that he got up again."

"That's just the sort of thing he would do. Any man of ordinary good
feeling would have known that when he was knocked down he was meant to
stay down."

"Then the two other men who were with me, young fellows out of the
town, set on him."

"Was one of them particularly freckly?" I asked.

"I didn't notice. Why do you ask?"

"If he was it would account for my daughter's maid getting hold of an
inaccurate version of the story this morning. But it doesn't matter.
Go on with what you were saying."

"There isn't any more," said Bob. "They hammered him, and then we
carried him home. That's all."

"I am going down to see him now," I said. "He's thinking of taking
further action."

"Let him," said Bob. "Is Miss D'Aubigny at home?"

"Yes,