nd whiskers revisiting
that lost garden like ghosts.

Fisher, who was peering more closely at the target, startled him by
an exclamation.

"Hullo!" he said. "Somebody has been peppering this thing with
shot, after all, and quite lately, too. Why, I believe old Jink's
been trying to improve his bad shooting here."

"Yes, and it looks as if it still wanted improving," answered March,
laughing. "Not one of these shots is anywhere near the bull's-eye;
they seem just scattered about in the wildest way."

"In the wildest way," repeated Fisher, still peering intently at the
target. He seemed merely to assent, but March fancied his eye was
shining under its sleepy lid and that he straightened his stooping
figure with a strange effort.

"Excuse me a moment," he said, feeling in his pockets. "I think I've
got some of my chemicals; and after that we'll go up to the house."
And he stooped again over the target, putting something with his
finger over each of the shot-holes, so far as March could see merely
a dull-gray smear. Then they went through the gathering twilight up
the long green avenues to the great house.

Here again, however, the eccentric investigator did not enter by the
front door. He walked round the house until he found a window open,
and, leaping into it, introduced his friend to what appeared to be
the gun-room. Rows of the regular instruments for bringing down
birds stood against the walls; but across a table in the window lay
one or two weapons of a heavier and more formidable pattern.

"Hullo! these are Burke's big-game rifles," said Fisher. "I never
knew he kept them here." He lifted one of them, examined it briefly,
and put it down again, frowning heavily. Almost as he did so a
strange young man came hurriedly into the room. He was dark and
sturdy, with a bumpy forehead and a bulldog jaw, and he spoke with a
curt apology.

"I left Major Burke's guns here," he said, "and he wants them packed
up. He's going away to-night."

And he carried off the two rifles without casting a glance at the
stranger; through the open window they could see his short, dark
figure walking away across the glimmering garden. Fisher got out of
the window again and stood looking after him.

"That's Halkett, whom I told you about," he said. "I knew he was a
sort of secretary and had to do with Burke's papers; but I never
knew he had anything to do with his guns. But he's just the sort of
silent, sensible little devil who m