ts to go out before I come back, don't let him. Let him go
and smooth over all those tracks on the cinder-path, very carefully. And,
by the by, could you manage to have your son about the place to-day, in
case I happen to want a little help out of doors?"

"Certainly; I'll get him to stay in. But what do you want the cinders
smoothed for?"

Hewitt smiled, and patted his host's shoulder. "I'll explain all my tricks
when the job's done," he said, and went out.

* * * * *

On the lane from Padfield to Sedby village stood the Plough beer-house,
wherein J. Webb was licensed to sell by retail beer to be consumed on the
premises or off, as the thirsty list. Nancy Webb, with a very fine color,
a very curly fringe, and a wide smiling mouth revealing a fine set of
teeth, came to the bar at the summons of a stoutish old gentleman in
spectacles who walked with a stick.

The stoutish old gentleman had a glass of bitter beer, and then said in
the peculiarly quiet voice of a very deaf man: "Can you tell me, if you
please, the way into the main Catton road?"

"Down the lane, turn to the right at the cross-roads, then first to the
left."

The old gentleman waited with his hand to his ear for some few seconds
after she had finished speaking, and then resumed in his whispering voice:
"I'm afraid I'm very deaf this morning." He fumbled in his pocket and
produced a note-book and pencil. "May I trouble you to write it down? I'm
so very deaf at times that I--Thank you."

The girl wrote the direction, and the old gentleman bade her good-morning
and left. All down the lane he walked slowly with his stick. At the
cross-roads he turned, put the stick under his arm, thrust his spectacles
into his pocket, and strode away in the ordinary guise of Martin Hewitt.
He pulled out his note-book, examined Miss Webb's direction very
carefully, and then went off another way altogether, toward the Hare and
Hounds.

Kentish lounged moodily in his bar. "Well, my boy," said Hewitt, "has
Steggles wiped out the tracks?"

"Not yet; I haven't told him. But he's somewhere about; I'll tell him
now."

"No, don't. I don't think we'll have that done, after all. I expect he'll
want to go out soon--at any rate, some time during the day. Let him go
whenever he likes. I'll sit upstairs a bit in the club-room."

"Very well. But how do you know Steggles will be going out?"

"Well, he's pretty restless after his lost _protege_, isn