fin's to
hallucination, or even to stigmatize it as what I believe is called
in nautical parlance 'a yarn.'"

"And small blame to you, my dear!" agreed Miss Belcher; "only, you
see, when folks go about killing one another, the hallucination
begins to look disastrously as if there were something in it."

"Yet I still fail to see," urged Plinny, "why our dear Major should
have fallen a victim."

"It's plain as a pikestaff, if you'll excuse me," Mr. Rogers answered
her. "This Coffin carried the chart on him, meaning to deliver it
into the Major's keeping. He came here, entered the garden by the
side-gate, found the Major in the summer-house, told his story,
handed over the chart, and was making his way back to the high-road
through the plantation, when he came full on this man Aaron Glass,
who had tracked him all the way from St. Mawes. Glass fell on him,
murdered him, rifled his pockets, and, finding nothing--but having
some hint, perhaps--pursued his way to the garden here. There in the
summer-house he found the Major, who meanwhile had fetched his
cashbox from the house and locked the chart up in it. What followed,
any one can guess."

"Not a bad theory, Jack!" murmured Miss Belcher, still drumming
softly on the table. "Indeed, 'tis the only explanation, but for one
or two things against it."

"For instance?"

"For instance, I don't see why the Major should want to go to the
house and bring back his cashbox to the garden. Surely the simple
thing was to take the paper, or whatever it was, straight to the
house, lock it up, and leave the cashbox in its usual place? I don't
see, either, what that box was doing, later on, in the brook below my
lodge-gate; for, by every chance that I can reckon, the murderer--
supposing him to be this man Glass--would have pushed on in haste for
Plymouth, whereas my lodge-gate lies half a mile in the opposite
direction."

"Are those all your objections?" asked Mr. Rogers. "Because, if so,
I must say they don't amount to much."

"They don't amount to much," Miss Belcher agreed, "but they don't, on
the other hand, quite cover all my doubts. However, there's less
doubt, luckily, about the next step to be taken. You send Hosken or
some one to Torpoint Ferry to inquire what strangers have crossed for
Plymouth during these forty-eight hours. You meanwhile borrow my
roan filly--your own mare is dead-beat--clap her in the tilbury, and
off you go to St. Mawes, and find out how