ried by. They passed through the gates and were
gone, and then a minute later men's voices in the road cried out a
greeting. And after that the silence fell profound.

II

THE PROCURATOR FISCAL

The procurator fiscal breakfasted at 8.30, punctually, and at 8.30
as usual he entered his severely upholstered dining-room and shut th
door behind him. The windows looked into a spacious garden with a belt
of trees leading up to the house from the gate, and this morning Mr.
Rattar, who was a machine for habit, departed in one trifling particular
from his invariable routine. Instead of sitting straight down to the
business of breakfasting, he stood for a minute or two at the window
gazing into the garden, and then he came to the table very thoughtfully.

No man in that northern county was better known or more widely
respected than Mr. Simon Rattar. In person, he was a thickset man of
middle height and elderly middle age, with cold steady eyes and
grizzled hair. His clean shaved face was chiefly remarkable for the
hardness of his tight-shut mouth, and the obstinacy of the chin beneath
it. Professionally, he was lawyer to several of the larger landowners
and factor on their estates, and lawyer and adviser also to many other
people in various stations in life. Officially, he was procurator fiscal
for the county, the setter in motion of all criminal processes, and
generalissimo, so to speak, of the police; and one way and another, he
had the reputation of being a very comfortably well off gentleman
indeed.

As for his abilities, they were undeniably considerable, of the hard,
cautious, never-caught-asleep order; and his taciturn manner and way of
drinking in everything said to him while he looked at you out of his
steady eyes, and then merely nodded and gave a significant little grunt
at the end, added immensely to his reputation for profound wisdom.
People were able to quote few definite opinions uttered by "Silent
Simon," but any that could be quoted were shrewdness itself.

He was a bachelor, and indeed, it was difficult for the most fanciful to
imagine Silent Simon married. Even in his youth he had not been
attracted by the other sex, and his own qualities certainly did not
attract them. Not that there was a word to be said seriously against
him. Hard and shrewd though he was, his respectability was extreme and
his observance of the conventions scrupulous to a fault. He was an elder
of the Kirk, a non-smoker, an a