ot entirely disagreeable
to the reader, but in real life I wouldn't go through it again if you
offered me a fortune."

"Plinny," I cried--"Plinny, what is this you are telling me about
blood?"

"Your poor father, Harry--But be sure their sins will find them out!
Mr. Rogers is setting the runners on track--he is most kind.
Already he has had two hundred handbills printed. We are offering a
hundred pounds reward--more if necessary--and the whole country is
up--"

"Plinny dear"--I tried to steady my voice as I stood and faced her--
"are you trying to tell me that--that my father has been murdered?"

She bowed her head and cast her apron over it, sobbing.

"Excuse me, Harry--but in such moments!--And they have found the
cashbox. It had been battered open, presumably by a stone, and flung
into the brook a hundred yards below Miss Belcher's lodge-gate."

"The cashbox?" My brain whirled.

"The key was in your father's pocket. He had fetched the box from
his room, it appears, about two hours before, and carried it out to
the summer-house. I cannot tell you with what purpose he carried it
out there, but it was quite contrary to his routine."

She poured out a cup of tea, and passed it to me with shaking hands.
She pressed me to eat, and all the time she kept talking, sometimes
lucidly, sometimes quite incoherently; and I listened in a kind of
dream. My father had been well-nigh a stranger to me, and I divined
that I should never sorrow for his loss as those sorrow who have
genuinely loved. But his death, and the manner of it, shocked me
dreadfully, and from the shock my brain kept harking away to Captain
Coffin and his pursuer. Could they have reached Minden Cottage?
And, if so, had their visit any connection with this crime?
Captain Danny had started for Minden Cottage. . . . Had he arrived?
And, if so--

I heard Miss Plinlimmon asking: "Would you care to see him--that is,
dear, if you feel strong enough? His expression is wonderfully
tranquil."

She led me upstairs and opened the door for me. A sheet covered my
father from feet to chin, and above it his head lay back on the
pillow, his features, clear-cut and aquiline, keeping that massive
repose which, though it might seem to be deeper now in the shade of
the darkened room, had always cowed me while he lived. It seemed to
me that my father's death, though I ought to feel it more keenly,
made strangely little difference to _him_.

"You will need slee