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s right. Now then, forward.... Gad! _what_ a morning!" But if he had known just exactly what the rest of that morning was to bring forth, indeed before lunch was served at one-fifteen, he might have hesitated to pass judgment upon it so soon. Slowly the cavalcade wended its way across the rank grass.... CHAPTER XIV THE SPIN OF THE WHEEL Merriton stood at the study window, looking out, and pulling at his cigar with an air of profound meditation. Upon the hearth-rug Doctor Bartholomew, clad in baggy tweeds, stood tugging at his beard and watched the man's back with kindly, troubled eyes. "Don't like it, Nigel, my boy; don't like it at all!" he ejaculated, suddenly, in his close-clipped fashion. "These detectives are the very devil to pay. Get 'em in one's house and they're like doctors--including, of course, my humble self--difficult to get out. Part of the profession, my boy. But a beastly nuisance. Seems to me I'd rather have the mystery than the men. Simpler, anyway. And fees, you know, are heavy." Merriton swung round upon his heel suddenly, his brows like a thunder cloud. "I don't care a damn about that," he broke out angrily. "Let 'em take every penny I've got, so long as they solve the thing! But I can't get away from it--I just can't. Hangs over me night and day like the sword of Damocles! Until the mystery of Wynne's disappearance is cleared up, I tell you 'Toinette and I can't marry. She feels the same. And--and--we've the house all ready, you know, everything fixed and in order, except _this_. When poor old Collins disappeared, too, I found I'd reached my limit. So here these detectives are, and, on the whole, jolly decent chaps I find 'em." Doctor Bartholomew shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Have it your own way, my boy." But what he really _did_ say was: "What are their names?" "Young chap's Headland--George or John Headland, I don't remember quite which. Other one's Lake--Gregory Lake." "H'm. Good name that, Nigel. Ought to be some brains behind it. But I never did pin my faith on policemen, you know, boy. Scotland Yard's made so many mistakes that if it hadn't been for that chap Cleek, they'd have ruined themselves altogether. Now, he's a man, if you like! Pity you couldn't get _him_ while you're about it." The impulse to tell who "George Headland" really was to this firm friend who had been more than a father to him, even in the old days, and who had made a point o
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