looked; and just as soon as I put my foot on the step I turned
sick. But I didn't let on, being a big fellow and getting on for
seventeen. There was a big, darkish pool, sort of half dried, under
the seat, and there were cuts that had been made with an axe scattered
all about, even on the soaky bottom of the cart. The whip had been cut
right off three or four inches above the black japanned holder, and the
lash lay over the splashboard of the trap, which was all reddened, too,
and half covered with leaves. I saw some flyfisher's hooks stuck in
the leather apron. There were no mail bags, no parcels for Bewick
Upton--nothing at all in the post trap except what I have told. And it
was quite enough for me. I got down, and we all took the road to the
police station as quick as the pony could limp. I did this because I
knew it was the proper place to go--not because old Silver-buttons
Codling was the least good.

And in the crack of a thumb I had the whole village after me--asking
questions, and wanting to look. But I kept going on, calling out to
the folk to get out of the way.

Then my father came, and I stopped for him, and he looked the trap all
over very carefully, as if it were something he was going to take at a
valuation.

Then he said out loud: "This is a bad business; this is no accident.
It looks to me like murder!"

"MURDER!"

The vicar had bustled up. He and my father almost tied for the first
place in Breckonside, and so it was a settled thing that if my father
thought one thing, the vicar, without any ill feeling, would take the
opposite view.

"And why, Mr. Yarrow, why, may I ask? An accident is much more
admissible--in this quiet parish. The horse has run away. See how
lame he is, and the postman has cut wildly with an axe or other sharp
weapon in order to--to--to rid himself of the furious animal--to get
loose, in short, a foolish thing to do, I admit, but in such
circumstances--I do not see----"

"No, Mr. Alderson, that is just it, you do not see," said my father.
"There is this whip handle cut through six inches from the holder; what
do you make of that?"

"Well," said the vicar, looking for arguments in defence of his
parochial quiet, "there is the lash. There has been an accident, you
see. Perhaps poor Harry went suddenly out of his mind. There is
insanity in the family. He may have cut himself. That would account
for the--the substance of a fluid nature resembling blood, an