y had started on
their quest; and the detective had gone into the town to get the food
he needed so badly and to bring back lunch for the lawyer. The lawyer
sat on a bench, awaiting his return impatiently. Searching the wood
like a questing hound had given him also a fine appetite.

It was soon after two o'clock that Pollyooly made the acquaintance of
the boy Edward, or the boy Edward made the acquaintance of Pollyooly.
It is difficult to be sure how these things happened. But both of them
were lonely; Pollyooly was of far too simple and direct a nature to be
much hampered by the cold conventions of a sophisticated civilisation;
and Edward was but ten.

For all his extreme youth, he was an agreeable companion; and so it
came about that Pollyooly, who had meant to return to the house at
three o'clock, was detained by Edward and the sea till half-past four.
She was not loth to be detained; she was indeed pleased to be giving
the duchess her full measure of hours, and the lawyer and detective a
really good run for their money.

But as a matter of fact they did no running at all that afternoon. At
three o'clock the replete detective returned with the lunch of the
raging lawyer. From half-past three till four they prowled gently
about the wood; at four they returned to the garden and sat on a bench
in the garden, confident that their quarry must very soon return for
food.

At four o'clock a flaming Eglantine came out of the house and accused
them furiously of having murdered Lady Marion Ricksborough in the wood.
It took them nearly twenty minutes to persuade her that they had not.
They found it hard work; and doubted even then that they had wholly
succeeded.

At half-past four Pollyooly said good-bye to the regretful Edward at
the end of the High Street, whither he had accompanied her. She did
not hurry up the hill, but as she went picked flowers to adorn the
Honourable John Ruffin's chambers. When she did come into the garden,
her eyes fell at once on the lawyer and the detective. They slept on
the bench. The lawyer's head rested affably on the detective's
shoulder. He looked not only redder but thinner, as if his quest in
the warm wood had shrunk him a little.

[Illustration: They slept on the bench]

Pollyooly did not awaken them; she went quietly into the house, and was
welcomed by Eglantine with kisses and reproaches for the fright she had
given her by her delay. Though in the end persuaded that she