odded.

"Red Gallagher and his mate! Yes, they got it in the neck, too."

"Personally," the Professor exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with
appreciation of his own wit, "I think that they ought to have got it round
the neck! However, let us be thankful that they are disposed of. Their
attack upon you, Mr. Quest, introduced rather a curious factor into our
troubles. Even now I find it a little difficult to follow the workings of
our friend French's mind. It seems hard to believe that he could really
have imagined you guilty."

"French is all right," Quest declared. "He fell into the common error of
the detective without imagination."

"What about that unhappy man Craig?" the Professor asked gloomily. "Isn't
the _Durham_ almost due now?"

Quest took out the cablegram from his pocket and passed it over. The
Professor's fingers trembled a little as he read it. He passed it back,
however, without immediate comment.

"You see, they have been cleverer over there than we were," Quest
remarked.

"Perhaps," the Professor assented. "They seem, at least, to have arrested
the man. Even now I can scarcely believe that it is Craig--my servant
Craig--who is lying in an English prison. Do you know that his people have
been servants in the Ashleigh family for some hundreds of years?"

Quest was clearly interested. "Say, I'd like to hear about that!" he
exclaimed. "You know, I'm rather great on heredity, Professor. What class
did he come from then? Were his people just domestic servants always?"

The Professor's face was for a moment troubled. He moved to his desk,
rummaged about for a time, and finally produced an ancient volume.

"This really belongs to my brother, Lord Ashleigh," he explained. "He
brought it over with him to show me some entries concerning which I was
interested. It contains a history of the Hamblin estate since the days of
Cromwell, and here in the back, you see, is a list of our farmers,
bailiffs and domestic servants. There was a Craig who was a tenant of the
first Lord Ashleigh and fought with him in the Cromwellian Wars as a
trooper and since those days, so far as I can see, there has never been a
time when there hasn't been a Craig in the service of our family. A fine
race they seem to have been, until--"

"Until when?" Quest demanded.

The look of trouble had once more clouded the Professor's face. He
shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Until Craig's father," he admitted. "I am afraid I must admit tha