rt, and, despite
the warning he had received. Bryce went on calmly with his preparations.
For all the fat flabbiness of him he was grit through and through, and
it took more than a warning over the telephone to turn him aside once he
had made up his mind to take a certain course. He went on quietly and
silently; his only sign of perturbation was that first thing on Tuesday
he slipped down town and bought a big calibre revolver.

Friday morning came, and at ten-thirty exactly, not a minute before or
after, Mr. Abel Cumshaw knocked at the front door and was admitted. He
was shown at once into Mr. Bryce's study, where that gentleman awaited
him, watch in hand.

"On time to the tick," he said affably as Cumshaw entered the room.
"Everything's ready for an immediate start. I suppose you've got all you
want."

"I'm always ready at a moment's notice," Cumshaw said. "I travel light.
I'm an old campaigner."

"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," Bryce said breezily. "We'll
be going in my car as far as we can. After that we'll have to walk, and
I'm not a very good hand at that. There's some rough spots up there,
they tell me," he said off-handedly. For all his seeming nonchalance he
was watching Cumshaw intently, and he saw him give an almost
imperceptible start. It flashed across Bryce's mind that perhaps Cumshaw
was in the pay of the people who had gone to such pains to 'phone him. A
second look at the man convinced him that such was not the case.
Cumshaw's eyes were frank and clear, and met his unswervingly. They were
not the eyes of a man who was playing a double game.

There was something in them that Bryce did not quite understand. It was
the animation of newly-resurrected hope, such a light as might have
shone in the eyes of the men who rode to find the Holy Grail. Bryce knew
nothing of him or his history, and his only thought was that in some
queer way the man had a vital interest in the Grampians. It must be
remembered that, as far as known facts were concerned, Bryce knew
nothing more than the police records had told him. True, his reasoning
faculties, which were none of the densest, carried him a little further,
but he would have been the very first to admit his fallibility. Nothing
had occurred as yet to connect Cumshaw with Mr. Jack Bradby. He
recognised that the man had a definite object in view in going to the
Grampians--that was plain enough--but it might after all be merely
coincidence. Such things ha