ere extremely active with the
exception of one. That I decided was the man with the umbrella."

"Who's he?" demanded Sandy, whose mouth had not ceased to gape since
Malcolm Sage began his story.

"The man Burns knocked out. He had been leaning rather heavily on
the handle whilst taking cover behind a holly-bush, and the metal
cap at base of the silk was clearly marked on the ground. He was
also holding an unlit cigar in his hand, which he left in the hedge.
By great good chance this was recognised by someone I happen to know
as a brand smoked by a certain backer of Jefferson."

"Well, I'm damned!" broke in Alf Pond, with intense earnestness.

"So you see, I had quite a lot to help me. I was searching for a
well-dressed man----"

"But how did you know he was well-dressed?" queried Mr. Doulton.

"His footprints showed that he wore boots of a fashionable model,"
explained Malcolm Sage. "He also carried an umbrella, even on an
occasion such as this.

"I had to look for a well-dressed man who always carried an umbrella,
and who smoked large and expensive cigars and, most important of all,
whose nose had been smashed out of all recognition."

"But how could you tell I got him on the nose?" demanded Burns,
leaning forward eagerly.

"There was quite a pool of blood beneath the hedge," explained
Malcolm Sage. "He was probably there for some minutes while his
friends were making sure of you, Burns. Blood would not have flowed
so generously as a result of a blow from the fist except from the
nose."

"You're a knock-out, that's what you are, Mr. Sage," said Alf Pond,
with admiring conviction. "_I'd_ never have thought of it all," he
added, with the air of one desiring to be absolutely fair.

"Finally," continued Malcolm Sage, "there was the car. It was a
large car, a defect in one of the tyres enabled me to determine
that by a steel rule. It was obviously heavily laden and the near
back-wheel was out of track. This fact, of course, was of no help on
the high-road, where other cars would blot out the track; but if I
could show that someone who had been heavily backing Jefferson had
a nose badly damaged, and a car with a near back-wheel out of track
in just the same way that this particular wheel was out of track,
and that its tyres were the same as those of the car that drew up
outside Burns's training-quarters, then I should have a wealth of
circumstantial evidence that it would be almost impossible to
confute.

"F