overtaken the
heiress for whom they are searching."

"True," said Bones, and scratched his nose.

He looked round for likely lawyers. Hamilton stole gently away.

"Now, why the dickens didn't you remind me, you careless old producer,
to bring two lawyers with me?" asked Bones. "Dash it all, there's
nothing here that looks like a lawyer. Couldn't it be taken somewhere
else?"

Mr. Becksteine had reached the stage where he was not prepared to make
things easy for his employer.

"Utterly impossible," he said; "you must have exactly the same scenery.
The camera cannot lie."

Bones surveyed his little company, but without receiving any
encouragement.

"Perhaps I might find a couple of fellows on the road," he suggested.

"It is hardly likely," said Mr. Lew Becksteine, "that you will discover
in this remote country village two gentlemen arrayed in faultlessly
fitting morning-coats and top-hats!"

"I don't know so much about that," said the optimistic Bones, and took
a short cut through the wood, knowing that the grounds made an abrupt
turn where they skirted the main road.

He was half-way through the copse when he stopped. Now, Bones was a
great believer in miracles, but they had to be very spectacular
miracles. The fact that standing in the middle of the woodland path
were two middle-aged gentlemen in top-hats and morning-coats, seemed to
Bones to be a mere slice of luck. It was, in fact, a miracle of the
first class. He crept silently back, raced down the steps to where the
little party stood.

"Camera!" he hissed. "Bring it along, dear old thing. Don't make a
noise! Ham, old boy, will you help? You other persons, stay where you
are."

Hamilton shouldered the camera, and on the way up the slope Bones
revealed his fell intention.

"There is no need to tell these silly old jossers what we're doing," he
said. "You see what I mean, Ham, old boy? We'll just take a picture
of them as they come along. Nobody will be any the wiser, and all
we'll have to do will be to put a little note in." All the time he was
fixing the camera on the tripod, focussing the lens on a tree by the
path. (It was amazing how quickly Bones mastered the technique of any
new hobby he took up.)

From where Hamilton crouched in the bushes he could see the two men
plainly. His heart quaked, realising that one at least was possibly
the owner of the property on which he was trespassing; and he had all
an Englishman's horror o