the barrister possessed himself of the tobacco pipe, examined it, and passed it up to the coroner, who in his turn looked it over before handing it to mr. fransemmery and his fellow jurymen. it went the round of the twelve and returned to the barrister, who held it up for grimsdale to look at once more.

“you found this—which is a briar-wood tobacco pipe, of superior manufacture, silver-mounted—on the supper-table in your parlour after the three men had gone, grimsdale?” he asked. “did you come to the conclusion that one of them had left it there?”

“certain of it, sir.”

“why, now, are you certain? i suppose you’d had other customers in that parlour, during the previous day?”

“yes, sir. but i’d laid the supper-table myself. that pipe, sir, when i found it, was lying on a small plate—where one of the gentlemen had sat. and it had just been used, sir—the bowl was warm.”

“i congratulate you on your power of observation, grimsdale,” said the barrister with a smile. he laid the pipe on the table before him, amongst his papers, and turned to the coroner. “i think, sir, you spoke of adjourning at this stage?” he continued. “if i may make a suggestion, it would, i think, be best if the adjournment is of such a nature as to afford time for more searching enquiry; it seems to me that there is a good deal to go into, and——”

“we will adjourn to this day fortnight,” said the coroner. he turned to the jury and gave them some instructions and advice as to keeping their minds open until further evidence was put before them. then, with a murmured expression of his hope that by the time they met again the police would be able to throw more light on what was a very painful problem, he left his chair, obviously relieved that the morning’s proceedings had come to an end.

the old dining-hall rapidly cleared. spectators, witnesses, officials began to unpack themselves out of nooks and corners and to drift away in groups and knots, discussing the events and revelations of the morning. mrs. tretheroe went off with her two guests; harry markenmore and his sister left the room in company with harborough; the jurymen filed away in twos and threes. but in the centre of the temporary court, around the big table at which the lawyers and officials had sat, with books and papers before them, several men gathered, and began to discuss matters informally—the chief constable; blick; the barrister who had represented the authorities; chilford; walkinshaw, and mr. fransemmery, who, in spite of the coroner’s admonition, felt himself justified in hearing whatever there was to hear.

“what i feel about it,” chilford was saying as mr. fransemmery joined the group, “is just this—and i say it as solicitor to the markenmore family—there must be a searching investigation into guy markenmore’s business affairs and his private life in london! this affair was not originated here, nor engineered here! if detective-sergeant blick wants to get at the bottom of things he ought to begin in london—where guy markenmore has lived for some years past.”

“you think he was followed down here?” suggested the barrister, who, business being over, had lighted a cigarette, and sitting on the edge of the table, was comfortably smoking. “you think this was a job put up in london?”

“i think there’s every probability that all and everything that we’ve heard this morning has practically nothing whatever to do with the real truth about the murder of guy markenmore!” answered chilford. “i’m quite certain—in my own mind—that john harborough is as innocent as i am, and i’m not much less certain that the two men who were with guy at the sceptre are also innocent. the probability is that those men will be heard of—they’ll come forward. you’ll find that the meeting at the sceptre—an odd one, if you like!—was nothing but a business meeting. no—we’ve got nowhere yet! as i say, if blick there wants to do some ferret-work, he’s got to go back and start in london. how do we know what guy markenmore’s affairs were? or his secrets? for all we know, somebody or other may have had good reason for getting rid of him.”

“what puzzles me considerably,” observed the chief constable, “is—how did those two men who were with guy markenmore at the sceptre come into and get out of the district unobserved? my men have already made the most exhaustive enquiries at every railroad station in the neighbourhood, and we’ve got hold of—nothing!”

“strangers, too!” said walkinshaw.

“how do we know that?” demanded chilford. “there are a tidy lot of men within an area of twenty miles who might have business dealings with guy markenmore. his business here that night might have been just as much with those two men as with his brother and sister. probably it was.”

“grimsdale asserts that the first man was an american,” remarked walkinshaw. “we haven’t a plenitude of americans in residence about here. i could count them on my fingers.”

“that’s so,” said the chief constable. “if the man was an american—and grimsdale says he’s met a good many in his time, so he ought to know—he came from somewhere outside our neighbourhood. but what beats me is—how did he and the other man get away, unobserved, on tuesday morning?”

mr. fransemmery, who, like blick, had listened attentively, but silently, to these exchanges of opinion and idea, coughed gently, as if deprecating any idea that he wished to interfere.

“talking of—of america,” he remarked, “it may be of no importance, and not even relative to the subject under discussion, but i may observe that a mail steamer left southampton for new york at one o’clock on tuesday afternoon last. now, markenmore is within thirty miles of southampton by road, and if this man—the first man—was an american, it is possible that he journeyed to southampton, caught that boat, and was away to sea before hearing of what had befallen the man whom he had entertained to supper. i know about that boat, because i mailed some antiquarian documents to a friend of mine in the united states by it.”

the chief constable twisted his military moustache and considered mr. fransemmery.

“um!” he remarked. “might be a good deal in that—he might certainly have taken this place in his way between london and southampton. but—the queer thing is, we can’t hit on a trace of his coming or going!”

“why did he never return to the sceptre—where three pounds fourteen shillings change was due to him?” asked walkinshaw.

“i don’t know,” said the chief constable. “but i’m very sure of this—whoever he was, he didn’t board the early morning train from selcaster to london, either at selcaster or at mitbourne, that particular morning. there were only five passengers went aboard at selcaster, and two at mitbourne, and the railway folks know every man jack of ’em!”

“it’s not necessary to board a train to get into or out of a district,” observed walkinshaw. “my own belief is that these two men came here and left here by motor-car.”

the chief constable looked at walkinshaw and grunted his dissent.

“do you think i haven’t thought of that?” he said. “i’ve had my men making enquiries of that sort all over the place! every neighbouring village—every farmstead on the hill-sides! and—not one scrap of information.”

“that doesn’t surprise me, nor affect what i say,” retorted walkinshaw. “you know as well as i do that where we are now is about the middle of what we’ll call a triangle. on each of all three sides of us lies a big main road. on every one of these three roads there’s no end of motor traffic nowadays. i ought to know, for i live on one of them. i reckon there are at least forty cars of one sort or another pass my house every hour.”

“not first thing in the morning!” interrupted the chief constable sceptically.

“i’m giving you an average,” said walkinshaw. “from five o’clock onward, anyhow. do you think one car would be noticed out of the hundreds that come and go? rot!”

“where did they put their car while they came to the sceptre?” asked the chief constable.

“i see nothing difficult about that,” replied walkinshaw. “i’d engage to hide any car, however big, in one of our byways or plantations, or in a convenient spot in the hollows of the downs, for a few hours, without anybody seeing it. a lonely district like this, and at night, too! easy enough!”

“if these two men came together in a car,” said chilford, “why did one man present himself at grimsdale’s at nine o’clock in the evening and the other at two o’clock in the morning?”

“for that matter—if you’re going into whys and wherefores,” retorted walkinshaw, “where did the first man go when he walked out of the sceptre’s door after first going there? he was away until close on eleven o’clock. where had he been?”

“well, we’ve gone into that, too!” said the chief constable, almost defiantly. “there isn’t a soul in the village who saw any stranger at all that night!”

“but no one knew of him till grimsdale had testified.”

“or—who’ll admit that they did!” sneered chilford. “he must have gone somewhere, and seen somebody.” he pulled out his watch. “i’m going home to lunch,” he said. “this is waste of time. my advice to blick is—go back on your tracks and get to work at the fountain-head—in london!”

“what’s blick say?” asked the barrister with a laugh. he had steadily smoked cigarettes in silence while the others had talked. “come, blick?”

“blick is a wise young man,” said the chief constable. “he’s going to say nothing. you’ll take your own line, eh, blick?”

“as at present advised,” answered blick, with a smile. “always ready to hear anything in the way of suggestion though.”

“come along,” said chilford, “it’s two o’clock. glad to give any of you—all of you—some lunch if you’ll come with me. cold food—but plenty of it.”

the men trooped out into the hall. and there, coming from the morning-room, they saw harry markenmore and valencia. harry came up to the group and nodded at blick.

“my sister wants to ask sergeant blick a question,” he said, turning to the chief constable. “something about my late brother’s personal effects.”

blick turned to valencia; the other men paused, interested and attentive. valencia looked at the detective with something of anxiety.

“it was you, wasn’t it, who examined my brother guy’s clothing and what he had on him?” she asked. “you mentioned a lot of things in the witness-box this morning. did you mention everything?”

“everything—yes,” replied blick.

“every single thing that you found?”

“every single thing!”

valencia’s eyes grew more troubled. she looked round at the attentive faces.

“there—there was something that you didn’t mention that my brother certainly had on him when he went out of this house on monday night at half-past ten,” she said, turning again to blick. “a ring!—a ring of very curious workmanship, on the third finger of his right hand.”

“he had one ring on the third finger of his right hand,” said blick. “a very fine diamond ring—a single stone.”

“he had two rings on the third finger of his right hand,” asserted valencia. “the diamond ring you speak of, and this other one. i spoke of it to him while he was here. it was a ring of very odd appearance—it looked to me like copper, with some enamel work on it. it attracted my attention because—because i know some one who has a ring exactly like it—its duplicate, in fact.”

“yes?” said blick quietly. “who?”

“mrs. tretheroe,” replied valencia.

the men standing by glanced at each other.

“you are sure your brother was wearing this second, odd-looking ring when he left you?” asked blick.

“i am certain of it,” affirmed valencia. “absolutely!”

“and you say that mrs. tretheroe has a similar ring?”

“which she always wears,” said valencia.

“there was no such ring on your brother’s finger when i made my examination,” remarked blick. “but now—i’ll see into the matter.”

harry and valencia went back to the morning-room, and the others made for the front door. but before they reached it, another interruption in their progress towards chilford’s hospitable table occurred. a young, alert-looking man, who held a note-book in one hand, and pencil in the other, came up.

“mr. chief constable,” he said, with confident assurance, “allow me to introduce myself—mr. summers, of the daily sentinel—specially sent down, sir.”

“what do you want?” asked the chief constable. he was thinking of chilford’s cold roast beef, and had a natural dislike of reporters. “nothing more to tell you than what you’ve heard.”

“i should be obliged if you’d show me the five-pound note which the presumed american gave to grimsdale,” said mr. summers, “and the tobacco pipe which was left at the sceptre.”

the chief constable turned to blick.

“any objection to that?” he asked.

“i should say that mr. blick—from what i happen to know of his great abilities—has no objection,” interposed mr. summers, who was clearly one of those young men who leave no stone unturned in the effort to build up good copy. “mr. blick, sir, knows the value of publicity—especially in a journal of our immense circulation—as well as i do.”

“no objection at all,” said blick, laughing. “there’s the note—i suppose you want the number? b. h. 887563. the pipe—that’s on the table inside—the police have it. here, i’ll show it to you.”

he went back into the old dining-room with summers; the others waited, chatting about valencia’s information respecting the ring. a few minutes passed; then blick, looking slightly puzzled, put his head into the hall.

“chief constable!” he called. “that pipe!—have you got it?”

the chief constable turned around with a suddenly roused alertness.

“i?” he exclaimed. “no—i haven’t got it. isn’t it there?”

blick shook his head, his puzzled look changing to one of vexation. he withdrew into the dining-room again, and the chief constable strode after him. the other men followed, each impelled by a curiosity for which they would have found it hard to account. blick was rummaging about amongst the books and papers on the table. two or three policemen were there; so, too, were a similar number of solicitors’ clerks, and the coroner’s officer; at one end of the table a couple of local reporters were busily writing out their notes.

“i’ve never seen it—at least since it was held up,” said a police-sergeant to whom blick was appealing. “i saw grimsdale produce it, and i saw the coroner and the jurymen handling it, and i’ve never seen it since.”

“who had it last?” asked blick.

“i had!” answered the barrister. “i took it from the jury, and laid it on the table—just there.”

“well, it’s gone!” said blick. he turned to the police-sergeant. “have any of your men gone away who might have been likely to pick it up?”

“nobody’s gone away yet,” replied the sergeant. “we’re all here—all of us that came.”

blick turned over everything that remained on the table. his face curiously set, and he said nothing.

“everybody that went out of the room passed along that side of the table,” remarked the sergeant. “if anybody wanted to pick it up and carry it off, they’d nothing to do but put a hand out. nobody would notice—in that crush.”

“who should want to carry it off?” asked blick with asperity.

summers, who had been assisting in the search, suddenly chuckled.

“there’s one man in existence who’d have been jolly glad to carry it off!” he exclaimed.

blick looked up, frowning.

“what do you mean?” he snapped out. “who?—what man?”

“the man who left it on the supper-table at the sceptre, of course!” retorted summers, with another chuckle. “how do you know he wasn’t there amongst the deeply-interested audience? may have been!”

blick threw aside a final mass of papers, and turned to the door.

“well, it’s gone, anyway!” he muttered.

“nice piece of evidence disappeared, too,” soliloquized summers. “you might have traced it to its rightful owner, mr. blick. but i think he’s got it—what? clever! however, if he’s the person who purloined it off this table, you know one thing—he’s somebody who’s somewhere close at hand. eh, mr. blick?”

but blick was once more in the hall, and the chief constable and the other men followed him.

“odd, that, blick!” said the chief constable. “who can have got it—and why?”

“there may be something in what that newspaper chap says,” answered blick in an undertone. “the man who left it at the sceptre may have been here this morning, and taken the opportunity to possess himself of it. however——”

“now come across the park to my house, you fellows, and have some lunch,” broke in chilford. “all ready—come on!”

blick excused himself—he had work to do, he said. on the previous day, finding that his labours at markenmore were likely to be protracted, he had taken rooms at the sceptre, and thither he now hastened. he had many things in hand; much to think over. that morning, before going to the inquest, he had sent a messenger into selcaster with instructions to buy certain matter for him: his first question on reaching the sceptre was—had the messenger returned?

“parcels on your sitting-room table, mr. blick,” answered grimsdale. “lunch there, too.”

blick sat down to his lunch, alone, and ate and drank steadily for half an hour. then, when the table had been cleared, he lighted his pipe, pulled out his penknife, and cut the string of the parcels that had been sent him from selcaster.