e is guilty. What was Leggo's next step?"

"He ran on smoking-hot to the house, the schoolmistress after him; up
through the gardens to the terrace, where they met old Abe returning
home from work. The schoolmistress went on to alarm the servants, while
the two men made for the private landing, unmoored the Lord
Proprietor's boat, and pulled across for Garland Town to break the news
to me. But on the quay and along the streets they told it to a score of
people, and it is spreading through the town like wildfire."

"Naturally." The Commandant had fetched and slipped on his great-coat,
and stood buttoning it. He glanced at his watch. "If the constable does
not turn up in a minute or so, we must start without him. Archelaus,
run you down and call up Mr. Rogers. Ask him, with my compliments, to
call out the coastguard----"

"Pardon me," Mr. Pope interrupted, "but that is unnecessary. Mr. Rogers
has already started for Inniscaw in the jolly-boat, taking Leggo with
him. They are to search the shore around Piper's Hole."

"Thank you," said the Commandant. "That was obviously the first step to
take, and I am obliged to you for having thought of it so promptly."

Mr. Pope coughed apologetically. He had grown of a sudden very red in
the face. "In point of fact," he confessed, "Mr. Rogers was at my house
when the news came. We were--er--indulging in a quiet rubber."

The Commandant understood. Had the occasion been less serious, he might
have smiled. Not since the night which brought Vashti to the Islands
had he received an invitation to Mrs. Pope's parties.

"Ah, to be sure!" said he, quietly, reaching for his forage-cap; "I had
forgotten that this was your whist-evening."

Mr. Pope coughed again awkwardly, and was about to make matters worse
by further apology, but a rat-tat on the door prevented this, and
Archelaus, hurrying out, admitted Dr. Bonaday, the physician of Garland
Town, followed by John Ward, the constable, and old Abe.

Of these three old men you would have found it difficult at first sight
to decide which was the eldest: and you have not made Dr. Bonaday's
acquaintance until now; because it was unnecessary. As the saying went
in the Islands, "the old doctor troubled about nobody, and nobody
troubled about he"--that is, unless an Islander needed to be helped
into the world or out of it. He was a bachelor, a recluse, and (albeit
his neighbours were ignorant of this) a European authority on lichens
and mosse