"'Oh, put it in a drawer,' he said, pointing to the writing-table, and I put it there, as he suggested. Of course I see now that some one else may have found the key in that drawer, but at first it did look as if David must, for some reason, have taken it, and been in the library, after I'd gone to bed."

"It seems very unlikely that anyone else would have hit on the place where you had put it," said Gimblet reflectively. "And if they had done so, would they have recognized the key? Is the library key peculiar in any way?"

"It is rather an uncommon pattern," said Mark. "It is very old and strong. I think anyone who knew the key would have recognized it all right."

"It is hardly likely that anyone would have found it if they had had to search all through the house for it in the middle of the night," commented Gimblet. "Is there no other way of getting into the library?"

"No, there is only one door."

"How about the window? It was broken; could not anyone have put in a hand, or raised the sash?"

"I don't think anyone could have got in. It isn't a sash window. There are stone mullions and small leaded casements in the old part of the castle where the library is, and I doubt if anyone larger than a child could squeeze through; in fact, a child couldn't; there are iron bars down the middle, which make it too narrow."

"H'm," murmured Gimblet. "I should like to have a look at them. And what was the doctor's report?"

"He said that the injuries to the heart were such that death must have been instantaneous, or practically so."

"Did anything else come out?"

"Nothing, except the evidence against poor old David, I'm sorry to say."

"You haven't told me that yet," said Gimblet. "Go on from when the police arrived on the scene."

"As soon as it was daylight we started off again on our search. But right at the beginning of it, they came upon the footsteps."

"Ah, where were they?"

"The flower-bed outside the library window showed them plainly; the ground beyond that was mossy, and there were no other marks. We divided into two parties, one going west down the side of the loch, and the other north and east over the hills. Till ten o'clock or later we beat the country, searching behind every rock, and going through the woods and bracken in a close line. But we saw no sign of a stranger, and came back at last, dead beat, for food and a rest. When we got back we found that the policeman left in charge had been nosing about, and whiling away his time by collecting the boots of every one in the house and fitting them to the footprints on the flower-bed. As bad luck would have it, David's shooting-boots exactly fitted the marks."

"His shooting-boots?" said Gimblet. "He wouldn't be wearing shooting-boots after dinner."

"That's what he said himself, and there seems no imaginable reason why he should have worn them, unless—" Mark hesitated for a moment, and then went on in a tone perhaps rather too positive to carry complete conviction to a critical ear. "Of course not. He can't have put them on after dinner. The idea is ludicrous. He must have made those footmarks earlier in the day."

"Is that what he himself says?" asked the detective. He had finished eating, and was leaning back in his chair with that air of far-off contemplation which those best acquainted with him knew was habitually his expression when his attention and interest were more than usually roused.

"No," admitted Mark regretfully. "He doesn't. He sticks to it that he'd never been near the flower-bed, with boots, or without them; it's my belief his memory has been affected by the shock of all this. And he would insist on talking to the police, though they warned him that what he said might be used against him. I did all I could to stop him, but it was no good. It really looked as if he was doing his best to incriminate himself."

"How was that? What else did he say?"

"You see," said Mark, "when the Crianan man had got hold of the boots that matched the footprints, he was no end excited by his success. Pleased to death with himself, he was. And he was as keen as mustard on following up his rotten clue. The next thing he did was to want a look at David's guns. Of course we didn't make any objection to that, though if I'd known—well, it's no earthly thinking of that now. So off we all marched in procession to the gun-room, and it didn't take long to see that the only one of the whole lot there that hadn't been cleaned since it was last fired was the Mannlicher David had shot his stag with the day before. The silly ass of a constable took it up and squinted through it as solemn as a judge, and then he just handed it to my cousin, and 'What have you to say to this, Sir David?' says he. Infernal cheek! 'I shot it off yesterday, and haven't had time to clean it since,' said David, and I, for one, could have sworn he was speaking the truth. Why not, indeed? There was nothing improbable about it. But the dickens of the thing was that while we were all out of the house, and he had the place to himself, the policeman had routed out poor Miss Byrne and badgered her for an account of all that had happened the evening before; and she, without a thought of doing harm to any of us—I'm convinced she's as sorry for it now as I am myself—had mentioned incidentally that David had told her, when she saw him half an hour before the murder, that he'd just been cleaning his rifle. She'd told me so, too, as far as that goes, when she passed through the billiard-room on her way to the library. I happened to ask her if she knew what he was up to."

"Decidedly awkward for Sir David," said Gimblet meditatively, "but after all, some one else might have fired off the rifle after he had cleaned it."

Mark shook his head gloomily.

"There are difficulties about that," he said. "It happens that David is very fussy about his guns, always cleans them himself, you know, and won't let another soul touch 'em. And though he keeps them in the gunroom like the rest of us, he's got his own particular glass-fronted cupboard which he keeps the key of himself. My uncle and I share one between us, and generally leave the key in the lock, so that the keeper can get at the guns, which we never bother to clean ourselves. Not so David. Ever since we were boys he's had his own private cupboard, and no one but himself has ever been allowed to open it. We always spent our holidays here, and my uncle let us behave as if we were at our own house. David took out the key for the sergeant to use, and when he was asked if anyone else could have got at the rifle, he replied that it was impossible, as the key had been in his pocket the whole time, except for an hour or two while he was asleep, when it had lain on the table by his bedside."

"Did he deny having told Miss Byrne he had cleaned the rifle?" asked Gimblet.

"Yes; he said he hadn't told her so. It was all very unpleasant, and the police sergeant was as suspicious as you like, by this time. 'What were you doing when the alarm was given?' he asked David. 'I was out in the grounds,' said David, and that was rather a facer for the rest of us, I must confess. He went on to say that he had fancied he saw some one hanging about at the edge of the lawn—which is the opposite side of the house from the library—and gone out to make sure, but he had found no one, though he hunted about for nearly an hour, till he saw lights approaching and fell in with our party of searchers. He said that it was then he first heard what had happened."

Gimblet nodded his head thoughtfully.

"Miss Byrne said she saw him start off to look for some one," he remarked.

"Yes," said Mark eagerly, "there's no doubt he saw a man lurking in the darkness. And it was dark too," he added, "never saw such a black night in my life; I must say it beats me how he could have seen anyone. But his eyes were always rather more useful than mine," he concluded hastily.

"The police, however, seem to have thought it improbable," said Gimblet, "since they arrested your cousin for the murder."

"Stupid brutes!" said Mark viciously. "No, they would have it it was impossible he should have seen anyone. And what clinched it was the unlucky fact that David and my uncle had had a violent row the day before. My uncle shot David's dog; I must say I think it was uncalled for, and poor David was absurdly fond of the beast. He felt very savage about it, and all the ghillies heard what he said to Uncle Douglas."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, a lot of rot. He lost his temper. The idiotic thing he said was, that he'd a good mind to shoot him and see how he liked it. Pure temper, you know. I don't believe David would hurt a hair of his head."

"Well, it was decidedly an indiscreet remark."

"It was imbecile. And of course the police heard all about it from the servants and keepers, and it fitted in only too well with all the rest about the footmarks and his absence from the house at the time, and the rifle and everything. By the by, the bullet was a soft-nosed one which fitted David's rifle; but for that matter it fitted mine—which is a .355 Mannlicher like his—or a dozen others on the loch side. It's a very common weapon on a Scotch forest. But taking one thing with another there was a good deal of evidence against him, so they made up their minds he had done it; and Macross, when he arrived from Glasgow with his myrmidons, agreed with the local idiots, and took him off. I'm certain there must be a mistake somewhere, but so far it seems jolly hard to hit on it. I hope you'll put your finger on the spot."

"I hope so," said Gimblet, but his voice was full of doubt. "It's hard to see how anyone else could have used his rifle after he cleaned it, since he admits that he locked it up and kept the key on him. Yes," he murmured to himself, "the rifle speaks very eloquently. What other interpretation can be put on these facts? I'm sure you must see that yourself," he went on, glancing up at Mark, who was feeling in his pocket for another cigarette. "Sir David told Miss Byrne he had cleaned his rifle; he told the police he then locked it up and that the key had been in his possession ever since. But the rifle was found to have been fired again since he had cleaned it. His only explanation was to contradict what he had previously said to Miss Byrne. Do those facts appear to you to leave any possible loophole of doubt as to his guilt?"

Mark struck a match and lighted his cigarette before he answered. When at length he did so his reluctance was very plain, and his voice full of regret.

"Poor old chap," he said. "I'm afraid he must have done it in some fit of madness. As you say, there is no other imaginable alternative."

Gimblet nodded philosophically.

"Is there anything else?" he asked.

Mark hesitated.

"There's a letter which arrived for Uncle Douglas this morning," he said, "which you may think worth looking at. I daresay it's of no importance, but it struck me as rather odd."

He took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to the detective, who opened it and read as follows:

"Si Milord ne rend pas ce qu'il ne doit pas garder, le coup de foudre lui tombera sur la tete."

There was no signature, nor any date.

Gimblet turned the sheet over thoughtfully. The message was typewritten on a piece of thin foreign paper; the postmark on the envelope was Paris, and the stamps French. He folded it again and replaced it in its cover.

"It seems the usual threatening anonymous communication," he observed. "Have you any idea who it's from?"

Mark shook his head.

"None," he confessed. "It looks, though, as if my uncle had in his possession something belonging to the writer, doesn't it? Don't you think it might have something to do with the murder?"

"I don't see why the murderer should send a threatening letter after the deed was done," said the detective. "Still less could he have posted it in Paris on the very day the crime was committed."

"No, that's true enough," Mark admitted reluctantly.

"Has any suspicious looking person been seen about this place, this summer? Any foreigner, for instance?" asked the detective.

"No; no," Mark replied. "I should have heard of it for certain if there had been. It would have been an event, down here."

Gimblet dropped the subject.

"If I may," he said. "I will keep this. It may lead to something," he added, tucking the letter away in an inside pocket. "That's all, I suppose?"

Mark was silent for a minute. He seemed to be thinking.

"That's all I know about the murder," he said at last, "but there are plenty of complications apart from that. I suppose Miss Byrne told you that my uncle electrified us all by saying she was his daughter, only an hour or so before he died?"

Gimblet nodded. "Yes," he said, "she told me."

"It makes it very awkward for me," said Mark. "I want to do the right thing, but I'm hanged if I know what I ought to do. You see, my uncle used to say that he'd left his property between me and David; he never made any secret of it, and as a matter of fact I've had a communication from his London lawyers, telling me they have a very old will, made when I was a small boy, long before the birth of his son, and that everything is left to me. There were reasons why he may have thought David would be provided for—he was engaged to marry a very rich American, but she dropped him yesterday like a red-hot coal as soon as it began to look as if he'd be suspected. She's gone now, I'm glad to say. As a matter of fact, if David can only be cleared of this horrible charge, I shall insist on dividing my inheritance with him. That is, if I can't get Miss Byrne to take it, or Miss McConachan, as I ought to call her now."

"Lord Ashiel could leave his money where he liked, couldn't he?" Gimblet inquired.

"Yes, he could, but he would naturally have left it to his daughter, if she really was his daughter. In fact, Miss McConachan says he told her he had done so, but I haven't come across the will so far, though I had a good hunt through his papers this morning; Blanston and the housekeeper, who say they witnessed some document which may have been a will, have no idea where it is. Of course, my uncle may have intended to say that he was going to make one, and Miss McConachan may have misunderstood him, but she seems to think he had some secret hiding-place of his own, and I hope to goodness you'll be able to hit on it, if he had. I can't stand the idea of profiting by a lost will, and I'd far rather simply hand over the money than bother to look for this missing paper."

"Oh, I daresay it will turn up," said Gimblet. "You haven't had much time to find it yet."

"My uncle was a very methodical man. Everything is in its place. You wait till you see his papers! If he made a will he must have hidden it somewhere where we shall never dream of looking for it. It's just waste of time hunting about, and I shall have another try at persuading my new cousin to let me make over everything to her."

"It is not every young man in your position who would part so readily with a large fortune," observed Gimblet.

But Mark awkwardly deprecated his approving words.

"Oh," he said, "I'm sure any decent chap would do the same in my place."



CHAPTER X

"And now," said Gimblet, "may I visit the scene of the crime?"

Mark took him first to his uncle's bedroom; a room austere in its simplicity, with bare white-washed walls and uncarpeted floor. No one could have hidden a sheet of paper in that room, thought the detective, as he gazed round it, after he had looked, with a feeling akin to guilt, on the features of the dead peer. He had not known how to protect this man from the dreadful fate that had struck him down from a direction so utterly unexpected, and he held himself, in a way, responsible for his death.

Then young Ashiel led him away, down a wide corridor into the billiard-room, and so into another passage, at the end of which a door of stout and time-darkened oak gave access to the library. It creaked noisily on its hinges, as he pushed it open and ushered Gimblet in. They stepped into a square room, comfortably furnished, with deep arm-chairs, and a large chippendale writing-table which stood at right angles to the bow window, so placed that anyone writing at it should have the light upon his left. It was rather a dark room, the walls being lined with books from floor to ceiling, except at two points: opposite the window an alcove, panelled in ancient oak, appeared in the wall; and above the fireplace, opposite the door, the wall was panelled in the same manner and covered by an oil painting, representing Lord Ashiel's grandmother. The polished boards were unconcealed by any rug or carpet, and reflected a little of the light from the window. An ominous discoloration near the writing-table showed plainly upon them.

In the glass of the mullioned casement was the small round hole made by the fatal bullet.

Gimblet glanced at the bureau on which the writing materials were set out in perfect order, and could not conceal his annoyance.

"Everything has been moved, I see," he said. "Why couldn't they leave it as it was for a few hours longer?"

"Nothing was touched till after the police had gone," said Mark. "I confess I did not think it necessary to leave things alone once they were out of the house. Not only have the housemaids been at work in here, but I spent most of the morning here myself, going through the papers in that bureau. Will it matter much?" He spoke with evident dismay.

"Never mind," said Gimblet, "I suppose Macross's people photographed everything, and I can get copies from them, I have no doubt. By the by, what did Sir David Southern say about having been in the room while you were in bed? Did he admit it; and did he say why he moved the body?"

"He said he'd not been near the place," replied Mark, looking more perplexed and worried than ever. "I can't understand it at all," he added. "Why should he deny it to me?"

Gimblet opened a drawer in the bureau. Papers filled it, tied together in bundles and neatly docketed. They seemed to be receipted bills. He glanced at the pigeon-holes, and opened one or two more drawers. Everywhere the most fastidious order reigned.

"You have been through all these?" he asked.

"Yes, but there is a cupboard full in the smoking-room. I thought of looking into those this afternoon."

"It would be a good plan," Gimblet agreed. "Don't let me keep you," And as the young man still lingered, "I prefer," he confessed, "to do my work alone. If you will kindly get me a shooting-boot of Sir David Southern's, I shall do better if I am left to myself."

"If that is really the case," said Mark, "I have no choice but to leave you. I admit I should have liked to see your methods, but if I should be a hindrance—"

Gimblet did not deny it, and Mark departed to fetch the boots.

"This is not the identical pair," he said when he returned. "The police took those; but these come from the same maker and are nearly the same, so Blanston tells me."

"Ah, yes, Blanston," said Gimblet. "I must see him presently. Thanks very much."

Left alone, Gimblet examined the window, opening one of the small-paned casements, and measuring the space between the mullions and the central bars of iron. Satisfied as to the impossibility of any ordinary-sized person passing through those apertures, he took one more look round, and then with a swift movement drew each of the heavy curtains across the bay. They did not quite meet in the middle, as Juliet had observed. Then he made his way out into the garden through the door just outside, at the end of the passage which led from the billiard-room to the library.

The library was at the far end of the oldest portion of Inverashiel Castle. To Gimblet, examining it from the outside, it looked as if the room had been hewn out of the solid walls of the ancient fortress; for beyond the mullioned, seventeenth-century window, the wall turned sharply to the left and was continued with scarce a loophole in the stupendous blocks of its surface for a distance of fifty yards or so, where it was succeeded by the lower, less heavy battlements of the old out-works. In the angle formed by the turn and immediately opposite the window of the library, a long flower-bed, planted with standard and other rose trees, with violas growing sparsely in between, stretched its blossoming length, and continued up to the actual stones of the library wall. At the farther end of it, a thick hedge of holly bordered on the roses at right angles to the end of the battlements; while the lawn on his left was spangled with geometrically shaped beds showing elaborate arrangements of heliotrope, ageratum, calceolarias, and other bedding-out plants.

Gimblet walked slowly along the lawn at the edge of the bed, his eyes on the black peaty mould, where it was visible among the flowers. About twenty yards from the hedge, he stopped with a muffled exclamation. The bed in front of him was covered with footprints of all shapes and sizes; but plainly distinguishable among the rest were the neat nail-encrusted marks which matched the boot he held in his hand. He put it down on the ground and carefully made an imprint with it in the soil, beside the existing footmarks. It was easy to single out its fellows.

"Two extra nails," murmured Gimblet to himself, "but otherwise, the same. Probably made on the same last."

Stepping cautiously in the places where his predecessors had walked, he followed the tracks that had betrayed Sir David Southern. They were numerous and distinct; he counted fourteen of each separate foot. First Sir David would seem to have walked straight across the bed, then returned and taken up his position near the middle. He was not contented with that, it seemed, for he had walked backwards five or six paces and then moved sideways again till he was exactly opposite the opening between the curtains. Here the ground was trampled down as if he had several times shifted slightly from one place to another. Whether or not he was exactly in line with the writing-table Gimblet could not see, as its position was hidden in the obscurity behind the drawn curtains. It would want a light there to prove that, thought Gimblet; still there was no reason to doubt that it was so. There were four or five more footmarks leading back to the lawn, and over these Gimblet stooped with particular interest.

With a tape measure, which he took from his pocket, he measured the distances between the prints, entering the various figures in his notebook, beside carefully drawn diagrams. Then he picked his way to the edge of the lawn, and stood a moment considering.

Apparently he was not satisfied, for presently he retraced his steps delicately to the middle of the bed, till he was once more just behind the place where the earth was trodden down. After pausing there an instant, he turned once more, and ran quickly back to the grass, without this time troubling himself to step in the chain of footprints used previously by the police. But he had not even yet finished; and was soon crouching down again, with the tape measure in one hand and the notebook in the other, poring over the evidence preserved so carefully by the impartial soil.

At last he got up, put his measure back in his pocket, and walked slowly towards the hedge. He had nearly reached it when something at his feet arrested his attention. He bent over it curiously.

Near the edge of the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation a little over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in a straight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it was a puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if an oblong, narrow, heavy object had rested there, sinking a little into the ground so as to leave this strange mark. Gimblet rubbed his forehead pensively, as he looked at it.

Suddenly as his introspective gaze wandered unconsciously over the ground before him, his attention was arrested by a second mark of the same perplexing shape, which he could see behind a rose-bush, more than half-way across the bed. Stepping as near the hedge as he could, the detective proceeded to examine this duplicate of the riddle. It seemed absolutely the same, though deeper, as was natural on the soft mould, and he found, by measuring, that it lay exactly parallel to the other. What could it be, he asked himself. A moment later, still another and yet stranger impression caught his eye. It was about the same width, but not more than half as long, and rounded off at each end to an oval. It was situated about a foot from the deep indentation and rather farther from the holly hedge. A tall standard rose-tree, covered with blossoms of the white Frau Karl Drouski rose, grew near it, interposing between it and the house.

Gimblet measured it with painstaking precision; then with the help of his measurements, he made a life-size diagram of it on the page of his notebook, and studied it with an expression of annoyance. He had seldom felt more at a loss to explain anything. At length he turned and went back towards the grass.

"What a track I leave," he thought to himself, looking down ruefully at his own footprints. "What I want is—" He stopped abruptly as a sudden idea struck him; then a look of relief stole slowly over his face, and he permitted himself a gratified smile, "To be sure!" he said, and seemed to dismiss the subject from his mind.

Indeed, he turned his back upon the rose-bed, and strolled away by the side of the hedge, which was of tall and wide proportions, providing a spiky, impenetrable defence against observation, from the outside, of the rectangular enclosed garden. Half-way along it he came upon an arched opening. Passing through this, he found himself in an outer thicket, and immediately upon his right hand beheld a small shed, which stood back, modest and unassuming, in a leafy undergrowth of rhododendrons.

Gimblet pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The place was evidently a tool-house, used by the gardeners for storing their implements. Rakes, spades, forks and hoes leant against the walls; a shelf held a quantity of odds and ends: trowels, seedsmen's catalogues, a pot of paint, a bundle of wooden labels, the rose of a watering-can, and a dozen other small objects. On the floor were piled boxes and empty cases; flowerpots stood beside a bag which bore the name of a patent fertilizer; a small hand mowing-machine blocked the entrance; and a plank, too long to lie flat on the ground, had been propped slantwise between the floor and the roof. Bunches of bass hung from nails above the shelf; and on the wall opposite, a coloured advertisement, representing phloxes of so fierce an intensity of hue that nature was put to the blush, had been tacked by some admirer of Art.

Five minutes later, when Gimblet emerged once more into the open, he carried in one hand a garden rake. With this he proceeded to thread his way through the shrubbery, keeping close to the line of the holly hedge. When he thought he had gone about fifty yards, he lay down and peered under the leaves. The hedge was rather thinner at the bottom; and, by carefully pushing aside a little of the glossy, prickly foliage, he was able to make out that the end of the rose-bed he had lately examined was separated from him now only by the dividing barrier of the hedge. With the rake still in his hand, he drew himself slowly forward, gingerly introducing his head and arms under the holly, till he was prevented from going farther by the close growing trunks of the trees that formed the hedge.

It took some manoeuvring to insert the head of the rake through the fence, but he did it at last, and found a gap which his arms would pass also. Between, and under the lowest fringe of leaves on the farther side, he could see the track of his own footsteps, where he had walked on the bed. They were all, by an effort, within reach of his rake, and he stealthily effaced them. He could not see whether the garden was still untenanted, or whether the peculiar phenomenon of a rake moving without human assistance was being observed by anyone from the castle. He fervently hoped that it was not: he did not wish the attention of anyone else to be called to the puzzling marks that had mystified him; and, as the only window which looked into the garden was that of the library, he thought there was a good chance that there was no one in sight.

Cautiously and almost silently he worked his way back, and replaced the rake in the tool-house where he had found it. Then he took the small oil-can used for oiling the mowing-machine, and concealing it under his coat made towards the house. The little garden was still lonely and deserted as he walked quickly over the lawn and in at the passage door.

The library was empty as he had left it, and his first act was to draw back the curtains to their former positions on either side of the window. Then he went to the door, and, with a glance to right and left along the passage, and an ear bent for any approaching footstep, he quickly and effectually oiled the hinges and lock, so that the door closed noiselessly and without protest. When he was quite satisfied on this point, he shut it gently, and took back the oil-can to the shed.

"Now," said he to himself, "for the gun-room."

He took up Sir David Southern's shooting-boots, which he had left in the tool-house during his last proceedings, and made his way through the billiard-room into the main corridor beyond. On his right, through an open door, he peeped into a large room, obviously the drawing-room, and saw that it looked on to the front of the house. The room wore a forlorn aspect; no one, apparently, had taken the trouble to put it straight since the night of the tragedy. The blinds had been drawn down, but the furniture seemed awry as if chairs had been pushed back hastily, a little card table still displayed a game of patience half set out, and even the dead flowers in the glasses had not been thrown away.

The air was stuffy in the extreme, and Gimblet, with a disgusted sniff, pulled aside one of the blinds and threw open the window. But all at once a thought seemed to strike him. For a moment he stood irresolute, then he slowly closed the casement again, but without latching it, and after frowning at it thoughtfully walked away. He went back into the hall.

Opposite, across the corridor, rose the main staircase, wide and imposing; on each side of it a smaller passage led away at right angles to the entrance, the right-hand one giving access to rooms in the new front of the castle, one of which he knew to be the dining-room. He listened for a minute outside a door beyond it, and heard the sound of rustling papers; the smell of tobacco came to him through the key-hole. It was plain that here was the smoking-room, and that the new Lord Ashiel was at that moment engaged in it, and deep in his uncle's papers.

The little detective, as he had said, preferred to work without an audience when he could, so he left Mark to his search, and stole silently away down the passage.

He passed two more rooms, and paused at the last door, opposite the foot of a winding stair.

This, from what Juliet had said, must be the door of the gun-room.

The door opened readily at his touch, and he stepped inside and shut it behind him.

It was a small bare room, with one large deal table in the middle of it. Gun-cases and wooden cartridge-boxes were ranged on the linoleum-covered floor, and three glass-fronted gun-cabinets were hung upon the walls. One, the smallest of these, was of a different wood from the others, and bore in black letters the initials D. S.

Three or four guns were ranged in it: two 12-bore shot-guns, an air-gun, and a little 20-bore. Another rack was empty; no doubt it had held the Mannlicher rifle, which the police had carried away to use as evidence in their case for the prosecution. The door was locked and there was no sign of a key.

Gimblet turned to the other cupboards.

There were more weapons here, and a few minutes' examination showed him that, as Mark had said, he and his uncle were less particular as to where their guns were kept, for the first two that the detective glanced at bore Lord Ashiel's initial, and the next was an old air-gun with M. McC. engraved on a silver disk at the stock.

Side by side were the rifles used by the uncle and nephew for stalking, Gimblet knew from Mark that the Mannlicher was his, while Lord Ashiel had apparently used a Mauser or Ross sporting rifle, as there was one of each in the case.

Gimblet lifted down the Mannlicher and laid it on the table. This, then, was the kind of weapon with which the deed had been done. It was a .355 Mannlicher Schonauer sporting weapon of the latest pattern. He opened it and examined the mechanism, which he soon grasped. He squinted down the glistening tunnel of the barrel and even closely scrutinized the workmanship of the exterior, repressing a shudder at the meretricious design of the chasing on the lock, and passing his fingers caressingly over the wood of which the stock was made. It shone with a rich bloom, as smooth and even as polished marble, except at the butt end which was criss-crossed roughly to prevent slipping; but wood in any shape has a homely friendly feeling, as different from any the polisher can impart to a piece of cold stone as the forests, where it once stood, upright and lofty, are from the inhospitable rocks on the peaks above them.

These unpractical reflections flitted through the detective's mind, together with others of a less fantastic nature, as he put the rifle back in the rack he had taken it from. He closed the glass doors of the cabinet, leaving them unlocked, as he had found them. Then, going back to the table, he took an empty pill-box from his pocket, and with the utmost care swept into it a trace of dust from off the bare deal top.

There was barely enough to darken the cardboard at the bottom of the box, but he looked at it, before putting on the lid, with an expression of some satisfaction.



CHAPTER XI

Gimblet left the gun-room quietly; and after some more exploring discovered the way to the back premises.

In the pantry he found Blanston, whom he invited to follow him to the deserted billiard-room for a few minutes' conversation.

"You know," he told him, "Miss Byrne and your new young master want me to examine the evidence that Sir David Southern is the author of this terrible crime."

"I'm sure I wish, sir," said the man, "that you could prove he never did it. A very nice young gentleman, sir, Sir David has always been; it seems dreadful to think of him lifting his hand against his uncle. I'm sure it ought to be a warning to us all to keep our tempers, but of course it was very hard on Sir David to have his dog shot before his very eyes."

"No doubt," agreed Gimblet. "You weren't there when it happened, I suppose?"

"No, sir, but I heard about it from one of the keepers, and Sir David was very much put out about it, so he says; and I quite believe it, seeing how fond he was of the poor creature. Always had it to sleep in his room, he did, sir, though it was rather an offensive animal to the nose, to my way of thinking. But these young gentlemen what are always smoking cigarettes get to lose their sense of smell, I've often noticed that, sir. Oh, I understand he was very angry indeed, sir, but I should hardly have thought he would go so far as to take his uncle's life. Knowing him, as I have done, from a child, I may say I shouldn't hardly have thought it of him, sir."

"Life is full of surprises," said Gimblet, "and you never know for certain what anyone may not do; but, tell me, you were the first on the scene of the crime, weren't you?"

"Hardly that, sir. Miss Byrne was with his lordship at the time."

"Yes, yes, of course. But you saw him shortly after the shot was fired. Did you hear the report?"

"No, sir. The hall is quite away from the tower, and so is the housekeeper's room; and the walls are very thick. We were just finishing supper, which was very late that night on account of the gentlemen coming in late from stalking, and one thing and another. I'm rather surprised none of us heard it, sir."

"I daresay there was a good deal of noise going on," said Gimblet. "How many of you are there in the servants' quarters?"

"Counting the chauffeur and the hall boy," replied Blanston, "and including the visitors' maids, who are gone now, we were sixteen servants in the house that night. I am afraid there may have been rather a noise going on."

"Were you all there?" asked Gimblet. "Had no one left since the beginning of supper?"

"No one had gone out of the room or the hall since supper commenced," Blanston assured him. "We were all very glad of that afterwards, as it prevented any of us being suspected, sir. Though in point of fact I was saying only last night, when the second footman dropped the pudding just as he was bringing it into the room, that we could really have spared him better than what we could Sir David, sir; but of course it's natural for the household to be feeling a bit jumpy till after the funeral to-morrow. When that's over I shan't listen to no more excuses."

"Quite so," said Gimblet. "What was the first intimation you got that there was anything wrong?"

"About half-past ten the billiard-room bell rang very loud, in the passage outside the hall. Before it had stopped, and while I was calling to George, the first footman, to hurry up and answer it, there came another peal, and then another and another. I thought something must be wrong, so I ran out of the room and upstairs with the others. When we got to the billiard-room there was Miss Byrne fainting on a chair, and Mr. McConachan beside her, looking very upset like. 'There's been an accident or worse,' he says, 'to his lordship. Come on, Blanston, and let's see what it is. And you others look after Miss Byrne. Fetch her maid; fetch Lady Ruth.'

"And with that he makes for the library door, at a run, with me following him close, though I was a bit puffed with coming upstairs so fast. Just as we came to the library door, he turns and says to me, with his hand on the knob, 'From what Miss Byrne says, Blanston, I'm afraid it's murder.' And before I could more than gasp he had the door open, and we were in the room.

"There was his poor lordship lying forward on the table, his head on the blotting-book, and one arm hanging down beside him. Quite dead, he was, sir, and his blood all on the floor, poor gentleman. We left him as we found him, and went back.

"Mr. McConachan locked the door and put the key in his pocket. 'No one must go in there till the police come,' he says. 'But in the meantime we must get what men we can together, and see if the brute who did this isn't lurking about the grounds. It will be something if we can catch him, and avenge my poor uncle,' he said."

Gimblet considered for a moment.

"Are you sure you remember the position you found the body in?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," replied Blanston, in some surprise. "It was like I told you. His head on the blotting-book and one arm with it. He must have fallen straight forward on to the table."

"Thank you," said Gimblet. "One more question. I hear you witnessed a will for Lord Ashiel a day or two before he died?"

"Yes, sir—I and Mrs. Parsons, the housekeeper."

"How did you know it was the will?"

"We didn't exactly know it was, sir, but afterwards, when it came out his lordship had told Miss Byrne he had made one, we thought it must have been that."

"I see," said Gimblet. "Thank you. That is all I wanted to know."

He sent for the other servants and interrogated them one by one, but without adding anything fresh to what he had already learned.

He went thoughtfully away and sought out Mark in the smoking-room, where he found him surrounded by packets of papers, which lay in heaps upon the floor and tables.

"There's a frightful lot to look through," said the young man despondently, looking up from his self-imposed task. "I haven't found anything interesting yet. How did you get on? Do you think those footmarks can possibly be anyone's but David's?"

"The boot you gave me fits them too well to admit of doubt, I'm afraid," said Gimblet. And as the other made a half-gesture of despair, "You must give me more time," he said; "I may find some clue in the course of the next two or three days. By the by, is your cousin a short man?"

"No," said Mark, "he's about my height. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I had an idea," said Gimblet evasively. "But if he's as tall as you, I had better begin again. I think I'll take a little stroll through the grounds," he added, "and then back to Lady Ruth Worsfold's house, and get a bath and a change."

"I shall see you at dinner-time," said Ashiel. "I am dining at the cottage. Au revoir till then."

Gimblet went out of the front door, and proceeded to make a tour of the Castle buildings.

Turning to his left round the front of the house, he passed the gun-room door, and went down a short path, which led to the level of the servants' quarters. These were built on the slope of the hill, so that what was a basement in the front of the house was level with the ground at the back.

Here more remains of the old fortress were to be seen. The various outbuildings that straggled down towards the loch had all once formed part of old block-houses or outlying towers; and, as the path descended farther down the hill, the detective found himself walking round the precipitous rock from which the single great tower still standing—the one in whose massive shell the room had been cut which was now the library—dominated the scene from every side.

It had been built at the very edge of the hill which here fell almost sheer to the level of the lake, and the old McConachans had no doubt chosen their site for its unscalable position. Indeed, the place must always have been impregnable from that side, the rock offering no foothold to a goat till within twenty feet of the base of the tower, where the surface was broken and uneven, and had, in places, been built up with solid masonry. In the crevices up there, seeds had germinated and grown to tall plants and bushes. Ivy hung about the face of the escarpment like a scarf, and in one place a good-sized tree, a beech, had established itself firmly upon a ledge and leant forward over the path below in a manner that turned the beholder giddy. Its great roots had not been able to grow to their full girth within the cracks and crannies of the rocks; some of them had pushed their way in through the gaps in the masonry, and the others curled and twisted in mid air, twining and interlacing in an outspread canopy.

Beyond the tower ran the battlemented wall of the enclosed garden, its foundations draped in the thrifty vegetation of the rocks.

At Gimblet's feet, on the other side of the path, brawled a burn, hurrying on its way to the loch, and he followed its course slowly down to the place where it mingled with the deep waters. A little beyond he saw the point of a fir-covered peninsula, and wandered on under the trees till he came to the end of it; there he sat down to think over what he had heard and seen that afternoon. The wild beauty of the place soothed and delighted him, and he felt lazily in his pocket for a chocolate.

Below him, grey lichen-grown rocks jutted into the loch in tumbled, broken masses, piled heedlessly one on the other, as if some troll of the mountain had begun in play to make a causeway for himself. The great stones, so old, so fiercely strong, stood knee-deep in the waters, over which they seemed to brood with so patient and indifferent a dignity that human life and affairs took on an aspect very small and inconsiderable. They were like monstrous philosophers, he thought, oblivious alike to time and to the cold waves that lapped their feet; their heads crowned here and there with pines as with scattered locks, the little tufts of heather and fern and grasses, that clung to them wherever root hold could be found, all the clothing they wore against the bitter blasts of the winds.

While he sat there a breeze got up and ruffled the loch; the ripples danced and sparkled like a cinematograph, and waves threw themselves among the rocks with loud gurglings and splashings. The air was suddenly full of the noise and hurry of the waters. He got up and went to the end of the peninsula. In spite of the dancing light upon the surface and the merry sounds of the ripples, the water, he could see, was deep and dark; a little way out a pale smooth stone rose a few feet above the level of it, its top draped in a velvet green shawl of moss. A fat sea-gull sat there; nor did it move when he appeared.

A little bay ran in between the rocks, its shore spread with grey sand, smooth and trackless. At least so Gimblet imagined it at first, as his eye roved casually over the beach. Then suddenly, with a smothered ejaculation, he leaped down from his perch of observation, and made his way to the margin of the water.

There, scored in the sand, was a deep furrow, reaching to within a foot of the waves, where it stopped as if it had been wiped out from a slate with a damp sponge. Gimblet had no doubt what it was. A boat had been beached here, and that lately. A glance at the stones surrounding the bay showed him that the water was falling, for in quiet little pools, within the outer breakwater of rocks, a damp line showed on the granite a full quarter of an inch above the water. By a rapid calculation of the time it would take for that watermark to dry, the detective was able to form some idea of the rate at which the loch was falling, and he thought he could judge the slope of the beach sufficiently well to calculate about how long it was since the track in the sand had reached to the brink of the waves.

It was a rough guess, but, if he were right, then a boat had landed in that bay some forty-two hours ago. But there were other traces, besides, the tracks of him who had brought the boat ashore. From where Gimblet stood, a double row of footprints, going and returning, showed plainly between the water and the stones to which the sand quickly gave place. They were the tracks left by large boots with singularly pointed toes, and with no nails on the soles. Emphatically not boots such as any of the men of those parts would be likely to wear.

Gimblet bent over the sand.

When he rose once more and stood erect upon the beach, he saw under the shadow of the pines the figure of a tall thin man with a lean face and straggling reddish moustache, who was watching him with an eye plainly suspicious. He was dressed in knickerbockers and coat of rough tweed of a large checked pattern, and carried a spy-glass slung over his back. The detective went to him at once.

"Are you employed on the Inverashiel estate?" he asked civilly.

"I'm Duncan McGregor, his lordship's head keeper," was the reply, given in the cold tones of one accosted by an intruder.

Gimblet hastened to introduce himself and to explain his presence, and McGregor condescended to thaw.

"I should be very much obliged," said Gimblet, "if you would take a look at the sands where you saw me standing. I'd like to know your opinion on some marks that are there."

The keeper strode down to the beach.

"A boat will have been here," he pronounced after a rapid scrutiny.

"Lately?" asked Gimblet.

He saw the man's eyes go, as his own had done, to the watermarks on the rocks.

"No sae vary long ago," he said, "I'm thinkin' it will hae been the nicht before lairst that she came here."

"Ah," said Gimblet, "I'm glad you agree with me. That's what I thought myself. Do boats often come ashore on this beach?"

McGregor considered.

"It's the first time I ever h'ard of onybody doin' the like," he said at last. "The landin' stage is awa' at the ether side o' the p'int; it's aye there they land. There's nae a man in a' this glen would come in here, unless it whar for some special reason. It's no' a vary grand place tae bring a boat in. The rocks are narrow at the mouth."

"Do strangers often come to these parts?"

"There are no strangers come to Inverashiel," said the keeper. "The high road runs at the ether side o' the loch through Crianan, and the tramps and motors go over it, but never hae I known one o' that kind on our shore."

Gimblet observed with some amusement that the man spoke of motors and tramps as of varieties of the same breed; but all he said was:

"Could you make inquiries as to whether anyone on the estate happens to have brought a boat in here during the last week? I should be glad if you could do so without mentioning my name, or letting anyone think it is important."

He felt he could trust the discretion of this taciturn Highlander.

"I'll that, sir," was the reply.

And Gimblet could see, in spite of the man's unchanging countenance, that he was pleased at this mark of confidence in him.

"Could you take me to the head gardener's house?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject. "I should rather like a talk with him."

McGregor conducted him down the road to the lodge.

"It's in here whar Angus Malcolm lives," he remarked laconically. "Good evening, sir."

He turned and strode away over the hillside, and Gimblet knocked at the door. It was opened by the gardener, and he had a glimpse through the open doorway of a family at tea.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you," he said. "I will look in again another day. Lord Ashiel referred me to you for the name of a rose I asked about, but it will do to-morrow."

The gardener assured him that his tea could wait, but Gimblet would not detain him.

"I shall no doubt see you up in the garden to-morrow," he said. "The roses in that long bed outside the library are very fine, and I am interested in their culture. I wonder they do so well in this peaty soil."

"Na fie, man, they get on splendid here," said Malcolm. He liked nothing better than to talk about his flowers, but, being a Highlander, resented any suggestion that his native earth was not the best possible for no matter what purpose. "We just gie them a good dressin' doon wie manure ilka year."

"Do you use any patent fertilizer?" Gimblet asked.

"Oh, just a clean oot wie a grain o' basic slag noo and than," said the gardener. "And I just gie them some lime ilka time I think the ground is needin' it."

"Well, the result is very good," said the detective. "By the way, have you been working on that bed lately? I picked this up among the violas. Did you happen to drop it?"

He took from his pocket a small paper notebook, and held it out interrogatively.

"Na, I hinna dropped it," answered the gardener. "It micht have been some one fay the castel. I hinna been near that rose-bed for fower or five days. And it couldna hae been lying there afore the rain."

Indeed, the little book showed no trace of damp on its green cover.

"I asked in the castle, but no one claimed it," said Gimblet. "Perhaps it belongs to one of your men?"

"There's been naebody been workin' there this week. So it disna belong tae neen o' the gair'ners, if it's there ye fund't," repeated Malcolm. "There's been nae work deen on that bed for the last fortnicht or mair. I was thinkin' o' sendin' a loon ower't wie a hoe in a day or twa. Ye see, wie the murrder it's been impossible tae get ony work done; apairt fay that we've been busy wie the fruit and ether things."

"I didn't notice any weeds," said Gimblet. "But I won't keep you any longer, now. Perhaps to-morrow afternoon I may see you in the garden, and if so I shall get you to tell me the name of that rose."



CHAPTER XII

Juliet failed to extract much comfort from Gimblet when, about six o'clock, she met him coming up through the garden to Inverashiel Cottage.

All the afternoon she had possessed her soul in what patience she could muster, which was not a great deal. Still, by dint of repeating to herself that she must give the detective time to study the facts, and opportunity to verify them at his leisure and in his own way, she had managed to get through the long inactive hours, and to force herself not to dwell upon the vision of David in prison, which, do as she would, was ever before her eyes.

Events had followed one another so fast during the last few days that her mind was dulled, as by a succession of rapid blows, and she was hardly conscious of anything beyond the unbearable pain caused by the cumulative shocks she had undergone.

First had come the heart-rending knowledge that David loved her; heart-rending only because he was bound to Miss Tarver, for, if it had not been for that paralyzing obstacle, she knew she would have gladly followed him to the ends of the earth. Indeed, in spite of everything, his betrayal of his feelings towards her had filled her with a joy that almost counterbalanced the hopeless misery to which, on her more completely realizing the situation, it gradually gave place.

Then had come the swift physical disaster from which she had barely escaped with her life. She had not had time to recover from this when, a few hours later, she had been called upon to face the emotions and agitations aroused by the news of her relationship to Lord Ashiel, and the history of her birth and parentage. In the midst of this excitement had come the sudden tragedy of which she had been a witness, and which had overwhelmed and prostrated her with grief and horror. Next day she had been obliged to undergo the ordeal of being cross-questioned by the police, and close upon that had come the final catastrophe of David's arrest and departure. This last shock so overshadowed all the rest of her misfortunes that it stimulated her to action, and she had herself run most of the way to the post office two miles down the road, to send the telegram of appeal to Gimblet.

Once that was dispatched, hope revived a little in her heart.

Lord Ashiel, her father, had told her to send for the detective if she were in trouble. Well, she was in trouble; she had sent for him; he would come, and somehow he would find a way of putting straight this hideous nightmare in which she found herself living. How happy, in comparison, had been her life in Belgium, in the household of her adopted father and stepmother! She could have found it in her heart to wish she had never left their roof; but that would have involved never making the acquaintance of David, a possibility she could not contemplate.

Even now the remembrance of the rapidity with which Miss Tarver had packed her traps, renounced her betrothed and all his works, and fled from the scene of disaster by the first available train, did much to cheer her in the midst of all her depression.

It was not, however, until some time after Lady Ruth Worsfold had asked her to stay with her for the present, and she had removed herself and her belongings to the cottage, that she realized how impossible it was for her to make good her position as Lord Ashlers daughter and heir. She had his word for it, and that was enough for her; but she understood, as soon as it occurred to her, that more would be required by the law before she could claim either the name or the inheritance which should be hers.

In the meantime, though touched by the generosity of the new Lord Ashiel, who offered to waive his rights in her favour, and indeed suggested other plans for enabling her to remain at the castle as its owner, she felt that what he proposed was absolutely impossible, and while she thanked him, declined firmly to do anything of the sort.

At the back of her mind was the conviction that the will her father had spoken of would come to light. It would surely be found, if not by herself, then by Gimblet. She acceded to Mark's request that she should join him in looking through his uncle's papers. They went over those in the library together before she left the house.

Now that Gimblet had come back from the castle, where he had spent half the day, he must have good news for her, she felt persuaded. But to all her questions he would only reply that he had nothing definite to tell her, and that she must wait till to-morrow or even longer. Indeed, she thought he seemed anxious to get away from her, and asked at once if he might see his room.

"I want a bath more than anything," he said. And then, taking pity on her distress, "I wouldn't worry myself too much about Sir David's safety if I were you," he added, looking at her with a very kind, friendly light in his eyes. But as she exclaimed joyfully and pressed him to be more explicit, his look changed to one of admonition, and he held a finger to his lips. "Not a word to a living soul, whoever it may be," he cautioned her, "and be careful not to show any hope you may be so optimistic as to feel," he added, smiling, "or you may ruin the whole thing. This is a very dark and dangerous affair, and the less it is spoken about, even between friends, the better."

"Mayn't I even tell Lady Ruth?" she asked. "She is very anxious, I know."

"Better not," he warned her. "It may be better for Sir David in the long-run, if his friends think him guilty a few days longer. It will be wisest if you let it appear that even you can hardly continue to cling to the idea of his innocence. You can be trusted to act a part where such great issues are involved, can you not? More may depend on it than you think."

"I'll be silent as the grave," she cried. "As the grave," she repeated more soberly, and turned away, reproaching herself silently, since in her anxiety for David her sorrow for her father had been a moment forgotten.

When Gimblet came down again, clean and refreshed, he found no one but his hostess, Lady Ruth Worsfold.

Lady Ruth's hair was white, in appearance she was short and squat, and she had a curiously disconnected habit of conversation, but for all that she was a person of great discernment, and uncommonly wide awake. She sided staunchly with Juliet in her belief in David's innocence.

"Never," she said, "will I credit such a thing of the lad. You may say what you like, Mr. Gimblet, you can prove till you're black in the face that he murdered every soul in the house, it won't make any difference to me."

"Who do you think did do it, Lady Ruth?" Gimblet asked.

"What do I know? An escaped lunatic, one of the keepers, the under housemaid, anyone you like. What does it matter? It wasn't David, even though his namesake did kill Goliath, and I always disliked the name, having suffered from a Biblical one myself. I said to his mother when he was born. 'For goodness' sake give the poor child a name he won't be expected to live up to. Just fancy how his friends will hate to be known as Jonathans, let alone thingamy's wife. You're laying up a scandal for your son,' I told her, and if my words haven't come true it's more thanks to him than to his parents. A nice pink and white baby he was, poor boy. There's just one good side to this dreadful affair," she went on without a pause, "and that is that the young lady with the dollars whom he was to have married, and hated the sight of, has thrown him over. The first least little breath of suspicion was enough for her, and the moment he was downright accused she was off. And he's well rid of her, dollars and all An Englishman of his birth and looks doesn't need to go to Chicago for a wife."

"Was Sir David in need of money?" asked Gimblet.

"He hasn't got a penny," said Lady Ruth. "Not a red cent, as that terrible young woman put it. His father left everything to the moneylenders, so to speak, and David couldn't bear to see his mother poverty-stricken. He did it entirely for her sake—got engaged, I mean—but I don't think he'd have been such a self-sacrificing son if he'd met Miss Juliet Byrne a little earlier in the day."

"Indeed!" said Gimblet. "I thought Miss Byrne seemed very much worried about his arrest."

"Worried? Poor child, she's the ghost of what she was a few days ago. Half-drowned, too, when it happened, which made it worse for her."

"She must have had a narrow escape," Gimblet remarked. "What was the name of the man who pulled her out of the river?"

"Andy Campbell. He had been stalking with Mark McConachan."

"Was young Lord Ashiel with him?"

"No, he was on ahead. He saw Juliet in the distance, just going up to the waterfall, but he seems to have taken her for Miss Romaninov, which is odd, because they aren't in the least like one another, one being tall and the other short, in the first place, and one fair and the other dark in the second. He can't have looked very carefully. However, he was very positive about it till they both assured him that Julia Romaninov had turned and gone home some time before she had reached the top pool. And I certainly should have in her place. It doesn't amuse me scrambling over rocks and scratching my legs in bramble bushes. The path Andy came by goes along high above the water for half a mile. I hate walking on a height myself. And for most of that distance the river is not in sight. If he hadn't been thirsty and come down to the water-side for a drink at a spring near by, he would never have seen Miss Byrne floating down the stream, and she would have been in the loch pretty soon. It just shows how much better it is to drink water than whisky."

"It was lucky he did," said Gimblet. "Does the path pass in sight of the pool she fell into?"

"No. The banks are high there, and you can't see down into the pool unless you go to the very edge of the precipice. I did it once, to look at the waterfall, and I very nearly joined it. It's a nasty giddy place, though why one should feel inclined to throw oneself down I can't imagine; but it seems a natural instinct, and it's certainly easier to go down than up."

"It appears almost miraculous that she wasn't drowned," said Gimblet. "She certainly can have been in no fit state to bear the events that followed."

"No, indeed. She has lost everything: father, family and lover at one blow. You know Lord Ashiel said she was his daughter, and told her he'd made a will leaving everything to her. For that matter the lawyers say he didn't—not that I should ever believe anything a lawyer said. They always mean something you wouldn't expect from their words. They do it, I believe, to keep in practice for trials, you know, where they have to make the witnesses say what they don't mean, poor things. And what I shall have put into my mouth by them, if I'm called as a witness against poor David, doesn't bear thinking of. But the Lord knows what Ashiel did with the will, and, as I was saying, it can't be found."

"So I heard," said Gimblet "You talk of being called as a witness, Lady Ruth. Do you know anything about the case? Where were you when the shot was fired?"

"Oh no," she said, "I shouldn't have anything to tell, but I don't suppose that will matter. They'll twist and turn my words till I find myself saying I saw him do it with my own eyes. My poor dear husband, when I first met him, was an eminent Q.C., as you may know, Mr. Gimblet, so I have a very good idea what they're like. I refused him point-blank when he proposed, but he proved to me in three minutes that I'd really accepted him; and it was the same thing ever after. A wonderfully brilliant man, though slightly trying at times, especially in church, where he always snored so unnecessarily loud—or so it seemed to me. I often think deafness has its compensations, though I'm sure I ought to be thankful at my age that my hearing is still so acute. However, I didn't hear the shot the other night, but the castle walls are thick even in that detestable modern addition, and besides, Julia Romaninov has got such a tremendously powerful voice,''

"Were you talking to her?"

"Oh dear no! I was playing patience, and she was singing, while Miss Tarver murdered the accompaniment. We little thought at the time that some one else was murdering poor Ashiel while we were sitting there in peace. I must say that girl sings remarkably well, and it was a pity there was no one who could play for her. Though it wasn't for want of practice on Miss Tarver's part. The moment we were out of the dining-room she would sit down at the piano, and they would neither of them stop till bedtime."

"Had they both been playing and singing all that evening?"

"Yes, they hadn't ceased for a moment, and I found it prevented the Demon from coming out, as I couldn't help counting in time with the music. It was all right when it was one, two, three, but common time muddled it dreadfully, though now I come to think of it, Julia was not actually in the room when we heard the bad news. She'd gone upstairs to look for a song or something. Of course there's no legal proof that Juliet really is his child," Lady Ruth continued; "she admits that he was rather vague about it, fancied a resemblance, in fact. Not that I or anyone else had any notion he had been married as a young man, but that's a thing he would be likely to be right about. I must say Mark has behaved extremely well about it, even quixotically. He wanted her to take his inheritance, and when she refused—and of course she couldn't decently do otherwise— I'm blessed if he didn't ask her to marry him."

Gimblet looked up with more interest than he had yet shown.

"Do you mean to say he proposed that, merely as a way out of the difficulty?"

"Well, more or less. I don't say he isn't attracted by the pretty face of her, as much as his cousin was; privately I think he is, but I don't really know. Anyhow, it certainly would be a very good solution; but it was tactless of him to suggest it with David at the foot of the gallows, poor boy."

"She didn't tell me that," murmured Gimblet.

At that moment Juliet came into the room, and they talked of other things.

"I hear the post is gone," Gimblet said presently.

"I particularly wanted to catch it. I suppose there is no means of posting a letter now?"

The last train had gone south by that time, however, so there was nothing to be done till the next day.

He retired again to his room and gave himself up to his correspondence.

First a long letter to Macross in Glasgow, begging for the loan of prints of the photographs taken by the police during their visit, together with any details they might see fit to impart as to their observations and conclusions. "I have arrived so late on the scene that you have left me nothing to do," he wrote deceitfully. "But for the interest of the case I should like to have a look at the photographs."

He did not expect to get much help from Macross.

Then he took from his pocket the pill-box in which he had stored the dust so carefully collected in the gunroom. He wrapped it carefully in paper, and addressed the small parcel to an expert analyst in Edinburgh. He wrote one more letter, and then went downstairs again.

The dressing-bell sounded as he opened his door, and at the foot of the staircase he met the two ladies on their way to dress.

"Dinner is at eight, Mr. Gimblet," Lady Ruth told him.

"I was just coming to find you," Gimblet answered her. "I want to ask if you would mind my not coming down? I am subject to very bad headaches after a long journey; and, as I want particularly to be up early to-morrow, I think the best thing I can do is to go straight to bed and sleep it off. It is poor sort of behaviour for a detective, I am aware, but I hope you will forgive it."

"You must certainly go to bed if you feel inclined to," said Lady Ruth; "but you will have some dinner in your room, will you not? They shall bring you up the menu."

"No, really, thanks, I shall be better without anything. I know how to treat these heads of mine by now, I assure you, and I won't have anything to eat till to-morrow morning. The only thing I need is quiet and sleep. If you will be so very kind as to give orders that I shall not be disturbed...."

"Of course, of course," said his hostess, full of concern. "And you must let me give you an excellent remedy for headaches. It was given me years ago by dear old Sir Ronald Tompkins, that famous specialist, you know, who always ordered every one to roll on the floor after meals, and I invariably keep a bottle by me."

And she hurried off to fetch it.

Gimblet accepted it gratefully, and as he passed a hand across his aching brow said he felt sure it would do him good.

Once again within his own room, however, the detective's headache seemed to have miraculously vanished, and he showed himself in no hurry to go to bed. Instead, having locked the door and drawn down the blind, he sat down in an arm-chair and gave himself up to reflection. Mentally he rehearsed the facts of the case as far as they were known to him, and was obliged to admit that he found several of them very puzzling.

There were other problems, too, not directly connected with the murder, of which he could not at present make head or tail. For instance, where was he to find the documents which he knew it was Lord Ashiel's wish he should take charge of. He had promised that he would do so, and the recollection of his failure to guard the first thing the dead peer had entrusted him with made him the more determined that he would carry out the remainder of his promise. But how was he to begin his search? He had so little to go on, and he dared not hint to anyone what he wished to find. Yet, if he delayed, it was possible that young Ashiel would come across the papers in his hunt for his uncle's will, and Gimblet felt there was danger in their falling into the hands of anyone but himself.

He took out his notebook and studied the dying words of his unfortunate client.

"Gimblet—the clock—eleven—steps." Or was it steppes?

Considering that he had lived in dread of a blow which should descend on him out of Russia, the last seemed the more likely.

There was the strange circumstance of the body's being found by the police in a position differing from that described by those who first saw it. Young Ashiel, Juliet and the butler all agreed that it had fallen forward on to the blotting-book in the middle of the table; but Mark had told him that on his return with the police the attitude had been changed. Had he been mistaken? Macross's photographs would show. But if not, and the murdered man had really shifted his position, what did it prove? That they had been wrong in thinking him dead? The doctor's evidence was that the wound he had received must have been instantly fatal, or almost instantly. Then some one must have moved the body, and who but David knew where the key of the room had been put away? But why should David have moved him?

Then there was the letter which had come two days after the murder; the letter written in French and posted in Paris, but probably not written by a Frenchman, and so timed as to reach its destination too late. Was it intentionally delayed, or would Lord Ashiel's death come as an entire surprise to the writer? It certainly would, if the police were right, and Sir David Southern guilty of his uncle's death.

But was he guilty? Gimblet thought not.

These and other questions occupied the detective's mind so completely that half an hour passed like a flash, and it was only when the noise of the dinner-bell broke in upon his meditations that he roused himself and pulled out his watch. Then he sat upright, and listened.

His room was above the drawing-room, and he could hear Lady Ruth's clear, rather high voice mingling with the deep tones of a man's, in a confused, murmuring duet which after a few moments died away and was followed by the distant sound of a closing door.

It was not difficult to deduce from these sounds that Lord Ashiel had arrived, and that the little party of three had gone in to dinner.

It was half an hour more before Gimblet rose, and walked quietly over to the window. He drew the blind cautiously aside and looked out. Already the days were growing shorter, and the little house, embowered in trees, and shut in by a tall hill from the western sky, was nearly completely engulfed in darkness. Below him, on the right, he could just discern the top of the porch, and beyond it a faint glow of light rose from the window of the dining-room.

It did not need a very remarkable degree of activity to clamber from the window to the porch, and so down to the ground. To Gimblet it was as easy as going downstairs. In two minutes he was stealing away under the trees in the direction of Inverashiel Castle.

"The worst of this Highland air," he said to himself as he walked along, "is that it makes one so fearfully hungry, even here on the West Coast. I could have done very nicely with my dinner. But such is life. And it's lucky I am not entirely without provisions."

So saying, he took a box of chocolates from his pocket and began to demolish the contents.



CHAPTER XIII

By the time he reached the castle, the night was dark indeed. He approached it by the path along the burn, and felt his way cautiously up the steep zigzags of the hill, and past the servants' quarters, where a dog barked and gave him an uneasy minute till he found that it was tied up, and that the noise which issued from a brilliantly lighted window—which he guessed to be the servants' hall—did not cease or diminish on account of it.

There were no other lights to be seen, and he edged his way round to the front of the house, which loomed very black and mysterious against the liquid darkness of the moonless sky. A little wind had risen, and the sound of a million leaves rustling gently on the trees of the woods around was added to the distant murmur of the burn, so that the night seemed full of noises, and every bush alive and watching.

Keeping on the grass, and with every precaution of silence, Gimblet crept along till he thought he was outside the drawing-room.

It did not take him long to find the window he had left unlatched that afternoon, but it was an anxious moment till he made sure that no one had noticed it and that it was yet unfastened. If a careful housemaid had discovered it and shut it, he would have to begin housebreaking in earnest. Luckily it opened easily at his touch, and he lost no time in climbing in, though it was rather a tight squeeze through the narrow imitation Gothic mullions, and he was thankful there were no bars as in the library.

He had more than once during his career found himself obliged to enter other people's houses in this unceremonious, not to say burglarious fashion. But it was always an exciting experience; and his heart beat a trifle faster than usual as he stood motionless by the window, straining his ears for the sound of any movement on the part of the household. Nothing stirred, however, and by the help of an occasional gleam from his pocket electric torch Gimblet made his way to the door, and through the deserted house to the distant passage leading to the old tower. Once inside the library he breathed more freely, and when, after holding his breath for some minutes, he had made certain that the absolute silence of the place continued unbroken by any suspicion of noise, he felt safer still. His first act was to draw the curtains, and to fasten them together in the middle with a large safety-pin he had brought for the purpose. Then, secure from observation, he switched on his torch, placed it on the table with its back to the window, and set about what he had come to do.

As he had not failed to observe, earlier in the day, the book-lined walls of the library were broken, opposite the window, by a panelled alcove where a small table stood, beyond which, against the wall, was a very large and tall grandfather's clock of black and gold lacquer, in imitation of the Chinese designs so popular in the eighteenth century.

Among Lord Ashiel's last words, "The clock" had been uttered immediately after the detective's own name. No doubt they formed part of a message he wished to convey; and, though they might refer to any clock in or out of the house, it seemed to Gimblet worth while to begin his investigations with the one nearest at hand, and he turned his attention to it without loss of time.

Gimblet was a connoisseur of the antique, and a few minutes' examination proved to him that this was a genuine old clock, untouched by the restorer's hand, and in an excellent state of preservation. The works appeared all right as far as he could make out, but through the narrow half-moon of glass, so often inserted in the cases of old clocks for the purpose of displaying the pendulum, that article was not to be seen, and he found that it was missing from inside the case, as were also the weights, so that it was impossible to set it going. There was one odd thing about it, which the detective had already remarked: it was firmly fixed to the wall by large screws, and he thought that there must be some opening through the back into a receptacle contrived in the panelling behind it. The case was so large that he was able to get inside it, and examine inch by inch the wood of the interior, which was lacquered a plain black.

But his most careful tappings and testings could discover no hidden spring, nor, even by the help of the electric torch—which he passed all over the smooth surfaces of the walls—could he discern the slightest join or crack. Could there be a hiding place up among the wheels of the motionless works? His utmost endeavours could discover none. The clock was fully eight feet high, but with the help of a stool, which he put inside on the floor of the case, he was able to explore even the topmost corners. All to no purpose.

Presently he abandoned that field of research, replaced the stool whence he had taken it, and gave his attention to the surrounding walls. He examined each panel with the most painstaking care, but could find nothing. There was no sign of secret drawer or cupboard anywhere.

It was disappointing, and he drew back, baffled for the moment

"The clock—eleven—steps."

What was the connection between those broken words?

If eleven o'clock had anything to do with the answer to the riddle, it could not refer to this particular clock, which pointed unwaveringly to thirteen minutes past four. Could it be possible that at eleven there appeared some change in its countenance? Was it controlled by some invisible mechanism? Well, if so, he would witness the transformation, but such a solution did not seem likely. Was there no other meaning applicable to the words? He would try the last ones and assume that eleven steps from somewhere, the clock, probably, would bring him to the hiding-place where the precious papers had been deposited.

Placing his heel against the bottom of the black-and-gold case, he walked forward for eleven paces, which brought him right into the bow of the window. Here he bent down, and, with the torch in one hand, and a small magnifying lens that he was never without in the other, searched the floor eagerly for some join in the boards, which should denote the edge of a trap-door or an opening of some sort.

He could find none.

Again and again he tried, till at last he had examined the whole flooring of the embrasure of the window.

No other part of the room was wide enough to allow him to take eleven steps, and he reluctantly came to the conclusion that he must be on the wrong tack.

There seemed no more to do but to wait till eleven should strike, in the faint hope that something would happen then; and Gimblet sat down in one of the large arm-chairs and prepared for an hour's lonely vigil. He put his lamp in his pocket and sat in the dark, for he had an uneasy feeling that Mark might return from the cottage and catch him pursuing his investigations in a way which might not appeal to the average householder. True, it seemed unlikely that anyone would come so late to that side of the castle; but one never knew, and the thought of being caught at his housebreaking added to the irritation produced by the failure of his search.

"The clock—eleven—steppes." What had Lord Ashiel been trying to say? Why in the world had he put off writing till so late? These and like questions Gimblet asked himself fretfully, as he waited, curled in a deep arm-chair among the black shapes of furniture which loomed around him, indefinite and almost invisible, even to eyes accustomed to the darkness, as his now were.

Suddenly he raised his head and listened, holding his breath in strained attention. He had caught the sound of distant footsteps.

In an instant he was up and had leapt to the window, where his fingers fumbled with the safety-pin that held the curtains together. No tell-tale mark of his presence must be left.

But where should he hide? The sounds were becoming more distinct every second; no escape seemed possible. There was no help for it, and he was bound to be discovered; he must put as good a face on it as he could contrive. The person approaching might, after all, not come into the library, but go back again along the passage. It might only be some one coming to see that the door to the garden was properly bolted.

These thoughts flashed through the detective's mind so quickly as to be practically simultaneous, and then almost at the same moment he realized that the footsteps did not come from the passage at all, but from under the room he was waiting in. In a flash he had grasped the full significance of this unexpected fact, and was tiptoeing across to the door.

The handle turned noiselessly in his fingers, thanks to the precaution he had taken of oiling it, and he slipped outside.

In the dark and empty passage he took to his heels and ran swiftly back to the drawing-room, nor paused till he was outside on the lawn once more. There he hung for an instant in the wind; bearings must be taken, the nearest way to the enclosed garden decided on, any dangerous reefs that lay on the way steered clear of. Then he was off again on the new tack. This led him round to the back of the holly hedge, and the arched opening by the gardeners' tool-shed.

He turned in under it and sped silently over the turf, till he found himself outside the door to the old tower. From the library window a narrow shaft of light was issuing out on to the flower-bed.

Gimblet took off his coat and threw it on to the bed. He put a foot upon one sleeve, and, stooping down, spread the other out in front of him as far as it would go. Then he stepped upon that one and twisted the coat round under him to repeat the process. In this way he arrived under the window without leaving any imprint of his boots upon the soft earth. Once there he raised himself cautiously and peered into the room.

By the writing-table, and so close to him that he could almost have touched her if they had not been separated by the glass, stood a young woman.

She held a little electric lantern, much like his own, in her left hand, while with the other she turned over the leaves of a bundle of papers. An open drawer in the writing-table betrayed whence they had been taken; and she was so entirely engrossed in what she was about that the detective felt little fear of being noticed by her, concealed as he was in the outer darkness.

He saw that she was short and slight, with a beautiful little head set gracefully upon her upright slender figure. Her expression was proud and self-contained, but the large dark eyes that glowed beneath long black lashes were in themselves striking evidence of a passionate nature sternly repressed, and an eloquent contradiction to the firm, tightly compressed lips. Here, thought Gimblet, was a nature which might pursue its object with cold and calculating tenacity, and then at the last moment let the prize slip through its fingers at some sudden call upon the emotions.

For the time being her thoughts were evidently fixed upon her present purpose, to the exclusion of all considerations such as might have been expected to obtrude themselves upon the mind of a young girl engaged in a nocturnal raid. The dark solitude, the lateness of the hour, the surreptitious manner of her entry into the room, all these, which might well have occasioned some degree of nervousness in the coolest of housebreakers, appeared to produce, in her, nothing of the sort. As calmly as if she were sitting by her own bedside, she examined the documents in Lord Ashiel's bureau, sorting and folding the contents of one drawer after another as if it were the most commonplace thing in the world to go over other people's private papers in the dead of night.

And what was she looking for?

Gimblet felt no doubt on that subject. This could surely be no other than Julia, the adopted daughter of Countess Romaninov, whom Lord Ashiel had for so long supposed to be his daughter. In some way or other she must have discovered the problematic relationship, and now she was hunting for proof of her birth, or perhaps for the will which should deprive her of her inheritance. It was even possible that the dead peer had been mistaken, and that Julia was indeed his daughter and not unaware of the fact. But what was she doing here, and where did she come from? Surely Juliet had told him that all the guests had left the castle.

Gimblet had never seen her before; but, as he watched her slow deliberate movements and quick intelligent eyes, he had an odd feeling that they were already acquainted. She reminded him of some one; how, he couldn't say. Perhaps it was the features, perhaps merely the expression, but if they had never previously met, at least he must have seen some one she resembled. Rack his brains as he might, he could not remember who it was. He put the thought aside. Sooner or later the recollection would come to him.

The night was a warm one, and Gimblet felt no need for his coat, though he was a little uneasy lest his white shirt should show up against the dark background if she should chance to look out. Behind him the trees in the wood stirred noisily and untiringly in the wind, and from time to time an owl cried out of the gloom; but no sound from within the castle reached his ears throughout the long hour during which he stood watching while deftly and methodically the young lady in the library went about her business. He wondered if this girl, who stealthily, in the night, by the gleam of a pocket lantern, was engaged in such questionable employment, were unwarrantably ransacking the belongings of her former host, or believed herself to be exercising a daughter's right in going over the papers of a dead parent.

The time came when the last paper was examined, the last drawer quietly pushed back into its place; then, with every sign of disappointment, she slowly rose, and taking up her torch made the tour of the room as if debating whether she had not left some corner unexplored. But the library was scantily furnished, apart from the books that lined the walls, and though she drew more than one volume from its place, and thrust a hand into the back of the shelf, it was with a dispirited air. Soon, with a glance at her watch, she abandoned the search, and slowly and hesitatingly moved in the direction of the door and laid her fingers upon the handle.

She did not turn it, however, but stood irresolute, her eyes on the floor. After a moment of indecision, the detective saw her mouth compress firmly, and with a quick movement of the head, as if she were shaking herself free from some persistent and troublesome thought, she turned and walked deliberately towards the alcove at the end of the room.

"Now," thought Gimblet, "we shall see where the secret door is concealed."

Judge of his surprise and excitement, when the girl stopped before the tall case of the lacquered clock and, opening it, stepped inside and drew the door to behind her. For five minutes, with nose pressed to the pane of the window, the detective waited, expecting her to reappear; then an idea struck him, and he clapped his hand against his leg in his exasperation at not having guessed before.

He turned immediately, and using the same precautions as before made good his retreat, and returned by way of the drawing-room window to the library.

All was silent there, and the empty room displayed no sign of its nocturnal visitors. Gimblet did not hesitate. He went straight to the clock and pulled open the door. The black interior was as empty and bare as when he had previously examined it, but he betrayed neither astonishment nor doubt as to his next action.

Stooping down he ran his hand over the painted wooden flooring. As he expected, his fingers encountered a small knob in one of the corners, and he had no sooner pressed it when the whole bottom of the case fell suddenly away beneath his touch. As he stretched down the hand that held the electric torch, the light fell upon an open trap-door and the topmost step of a narrow flight of stairs, which descended into the thickness of the wall.

Gimblet stepped into the case, and lowered himself quickly through the hole at the bottom.

The stairs proved to be but a short flight, ending in a low passage, which wound away through the wall of the ancient building. The detective felt little doubt that it led to another concealed opening in some distant part of the castle. But he had other things to think of for the moment.

"The clock—eleven—steps." The meaning of Lord Ashiel's dying words was, he thought, plain enough now.

Running up the stairs again, he descended more slowly, counting the treads as he went.

There were fifteen.

Gimblet bent down and held his torch so that the light fell bright upon the eleventh step.

It presented identically the same appearance as the rest, the rough-hewn stone dipping slightly in the middle as if many feet had trodden it in the course of the centuries which had elapsed since it was first placed there, but in every respect the worn surface resembled those of the steps above and below it, as far as Gimblet could see.

He tapped it, and it gave forth the same sound as its neighbours. Then he lowered the torch and ran its beams along the front of the step; high up, under the overhanging edge of the tread above it, it seemed as if there were a flaw or crack in the stone. He knocked upon it, and it gave back a different sound to the stone around it.

Clearly it was wood, not stone, though so cleverly painted to imitate its surroundings that it was a thousand to one against anyone ever noticing it; and yes, there was a little circular depression in the middle of it. Gimblet's thumb pressed heavily against the place, and immediately there was a click, and a long narrow drawer flew out.

In it lay a single sheet of paper, and Gimblet's fingers shook with excitement as he drew it forth.

A moment's pause while he perused the writing upon it, and then the exultation on his face dwindled away. He could perceive no meaning in these apparently random sentences.

"Remember that where there's a way there's a will. Face curiosity and take the bull by the horn."

Was this the cipher, of which he had never received the key? The papers he had hoped to find must be hidden elsewhere. No doubt in some place whose whereabouts was indicated, if he could only understand it, by the incomprehensible message he held.

He stared at it for some minutes in an endeavour to find the translation; then, reflecting that this was neither the time nor place for deciphering cryptograms, he placed it carefully in an inner pocket, and after a hasty exploration of the passage beyond which did not reveal anything interesting except from an archaeological point of view, he thoughtfully mounted to the room above.

Closing the trap-door, and making sure that everything in the library was left as he had found it, Gimblet made his exit from the castle in the same manner as he had entered it, and groped his silent way home through the darkness.

A convenient creeper made it easy to climb on to the porch of Lady Ruth's house, now wrapped in peaceful slumber; and so in at his own window once more. The noise of the wind, which had now freshened to the strength of half a gale, drowned any sound of his return, and he lost no time in getting to bed and to sleep. The puzzle must keep till to-morrow. It was one of Gimblet's rules to take proper rest when it was at all possible, for he knew that his work suffered if he came to it physically exhausted.



CHAPTER XIV

Gimblet was up early next morning, refreshed by a sound and dreamless sleep.

For two hours before breakfast he wrestled with the cryptic message on the sheet of paper, trying first one way and then another of solving the riddle it presented, but still finding no solution. He was silent and preoccupied during the morning meal, replying to inquiries as to his headache, alternately, with obvious inattention and exaggerated gratitude. Neither of the ladies spoke much, however, and his absent-mindedness passed almost unnoticed.

Lord Ashiel was to be buried that day. Before they left the dining-room sombre figures could be seen striding along the high road towards Inverashiel: inhabitants of the scattered villages, and people from the neighbouring estates, hurrying to show their respect to the dead peer for the last time.

The tragic circumstances of the murder had aroused great excitement all over the countryside, and a large gathering assembled at the little island at the head of the loch, where the McConachans had left their bones since the early days of the youth of the race.

From the surrounding glens, from distant hills and valleys, and even from far-away Edinburgh and Oban, came McConachans, to render their final tribute to the head of the clan. It was surprising to see how large was the muster; for the most part a company of tall, thin men, with lean faces and drooping wisps of moustache.

To a mournful dirge on the pipes, Ashiel was laid in his rocky grave, and the throng of black-garmented people was ferried back the way it had come. Gimblet, wrapped to the ears in a thick overcoat, and with a silk scarf wound high round his neck, shivered in the cold air, for the wind had veered to the north, and the first breath of the Arctic winter was already carried on it. The waters of the loch had turned a slaty black; little angry waves broke incessantly over its surface; and inky black clouds were gathering slowly on the distant horizon. It looked as if the fine weather were at an end; as if Nature herself were mourning angrily at the wanton destruction of her child. The pity and regret Gimblet had felt, as he stood by the murdered man's grave, suddenly turned to a feeling of rage, both with himself and with the victim of the crime.

Why in the world had he not managed to guard against a danger of whose imminence he had had full warning? And why in the name of everything that was imbecile had Lord Ashiel, who knew much better than anyone else how real the danger was, chosen to sit at a lighted window, and offer so tempting a target to his enemy?

Suddenly, in the midst of his musings, a sound fell on the detective's ear; a voice he had heard before, low and musical, and curiously resonant. He looked in the direction from which it came and saw two people standing together, a little apart, in the crowd of those waiting at the water's edge for a craft to carry them ashore. There were only two or three boats; and, though the ghillies bent to their oars with a will, every one could not cross the narrow channel which divided the island from the mainland at one and the same time. A group had already formed on the beach of those who were not the first to get away, and among these were the two figures that had attracted Gimblet's attention.

They were two ladies, who stood watching the boats, which had landed their passengers and were now returning empty.

The nearest to him, a tall woman of ample proportions, was visibly affected by the ceremony she had just witnessed, and dabbed from time to time at her eyes with a handkerchief.

But it was her companion who interested him. She was short and slender; her slightness accentuated by the long dress of black cloth and the small plain hat of the same colour which she wore. A thick black veil hung down over her face and obscured it from his view, but about her general appearance there was something strangely familiar. In a moment Gimblet knew what it was, and where he had seen her before. He had caught sight, in her hand, of a little bag of striped black satin with purple pansies embroidered at intervals upon it. Just such a bag had lain upon the table of his flat in Whitehall a few weeks ago, on the day when its owner had stolen the envelope entrusted to him by Lord Ashiel.

"It is she," breathed the detective, "the widow!"

And for one wild moment he was on the point of accosting her and demanding his missing letter. Wiser counsels prevailed, however, and he moved away to the other side of the small group of mourners gathered on the stony beach.

When he ventured to look at her again, it was over the shoulder of a stalwart Highlander, whose large frame effectually concealed all of the little detective except his hat and eyes. A further surprise was in store for him. The lady had lifted her veil and displayed the features of the girl he had watched in the library on the preceding night.

Gimblet had seen enough. He turned away, and found Juliet at his elbow.

She would have passed him by, absorbed in her sorrow for the father she had found and lost in the space of one short hour, but he laid her hand upon her arm.

"Tell me," he begged, "who are those two ladies waiting for the boat?"

Juliet's eyes followed the direction of his own.

"Those," she said, "are Mrs. Clutsam and Miss Julia Romaninov."

"Ah," Gimblet murmured. "They were among your fellow-guests at the castle, weren't they?"

"Yes."

Juliet's reply was short and a little cold. She could not understand why the detective should choose this moment to question her on trivial details. It showed, she considered, a lamentable lack of tact, and involuntarily she resented it.