rset stopped.

'You have a studio at the castle in which you are preparing drawings?'

'I have.'

'Have you a clerk?'

'I had three till yesterday, when I paid them off.'

'Would they have any right to enter the studio late at night?'

'There would have been nothing wrong in their doing so. Either of them
might have gone back at any time for something forgotten. They lived
quite near the castle.'

'Ah, then all is explained. I was riding past over the grass on the
night of last Thursday, and I saw two persons in your studio with a
light. It must have been about half-past nine o'clock. One of them came
forward and pulled down the blind so that the light fell upon his face.
But I only saw it for a short time.'

'If it were Knowles or Cockton he would have had a beard.'

'He had no beard.'

'Then it must have been Bowles. A young man?'

'Quite young. His companion in the background seemed older.'

'They are all about the same age really. By the way--it couldn't have
been Dare--and Havill, surely! Would you recognize them again?'

'The young one possibly. The other not at all, for he remained in the
shade.'

Somerset endeavoured to discern in a description by the chief constable
the features of Mr. Bowles: but it seemed to approximate more closely to
Dare in spite of himself. 'I'll make a sketch of the only one who had no
business there, and show it to you,' he presently said. 'I should like
this cleared up.'

Mr. Cunningham Haze said he was going to Toneborough that afternoon, but
would return in the evening before Somerset's departure. With this they
parted. A possible motive for Dare's presence in the rooms had instantly
presented itself to Somerset's mind, for he had seen Dare enter Havill's
office more than once, as if he were at work there.

He accordingly sat on the next stile, and taking out his pocket-book
began a pencil sketch of Dare's head, to show to Mr. Haze in the
evening; for if Dare had indeed found admission with Havill, or as his
agent, the design was lost.

But he could not make a drawing that was a satisfactory likeness. Then
he luckily remembered that Dare, in the intense warmth of admiration he
had affected for Somerset on the first day or two of their acquaintance,
had begged for his photograph, and in return for it had left one
of himself on the mantelpiece, taken as he said by his own process.
Somerset resolved to show this production to Mr. Haze, as being more
to the purpose