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