n has no idea but that the body was stolen for
purposes of blackmail.' He looked at his watch. 'We must be going to
catch the train, if she's anything like punctual.'

The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously
by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after
three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their
destination, Drem.

The doctor's own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.

'The marquis had neither machine nor horse,' the doctor explained.

Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three
squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal
through the freezing snow. Out of one village, the lights twinkling in
the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of
hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by
heraldic animals.

'The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,' said the
doctor.

At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and
walked.

'You see the pits come up close to the house,' said the doctor, as they
reached the crest. He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern
slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but
ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.

'Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs? I think I see a
red roof,' said Merton.

'Ay, that's Strutherwick, a fishing village,' replied the doctor.

'A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,'
said Merton.

'Ay, that is just it,' acquiesced the doctor.

'But,' asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep
black in front of them, 'what is that rope stretched about the lawn for?
It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.' Dark
figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into
the gathering gloom. The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.

The door of the house opened, and a man's figure stood out against the
lamp light within.

'Is that you, Merton?' came Logan's voice from the doorway.

Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, 'Mr. Logan will tell you what
the rope's for.'

The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton's baggage,
pleaded an engagement, and said 'Good-bye,' among the thanks of Logan. An
old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton's light
luggage up a black turnpike stair.

'I