ed, and mysterious person who's
putting up the purse. Don't pretend you haven't tumbled to that!"

"Yes," admitted Carrington, "I have tumbled."

"I knew my sister had given the whole blamed show away! I take it you
put your magnifying glass back in your pocket after your trip out to
Stanesland?"

"More or less," admitted Carrington.

"Well," said Ned, "that being so, I may as well tell you what my idea
was. It mayn't have been very bright; still there was a kind of method
in my madness. You see I wanted you to have an absolutely clear field
and let you suspect me just as much as anybody else."

"In short," smiled Carrington, "you wanted to start with the other
horses and not just drop the flag."

"That's so," agreed Ned. "But when my sister let out about that L1200,
and I saw that you must have spotted me, there didn't seem much point in
keeping up the bluff, when I came to think it over. And since then, Mr.
Carrington, something has happened that you ought to know and I decided
to come and see you and talk to you straight."

"What has happened?"

Ned smiled for an instant his approval of this prompt plunge into
business, and then his face set hard.

"It's a most extraordinary thing," said he, "and may strike you as
hardly credible, but here's the plain truth put shortly. Yesterday
afternoon Miss Farmond ran away." Carrington merely nodded, and he
exclaimed, "What! You know then?"

"I learned from Bisset this morning."

"Ah, I see. Did you know I'd happened to see her start and gone after
her and brought her back?"

Carrington's interest was manifest.

"No," said he, "that's quite news to me."

"Well, I did, and I learnt the whole story from her. You can't guess who
advised her to bolt?"

"I think I can," said Carrington quietly.

"Either you're on the wrong track, or you've cut some ice, Mr.
Carrington. It was Simon Rattar!"

"I thought so."

"How the devil did you guess?"

"Tell me Miss Farmond's story first and I'll tell you how I guessed."

"Well, she spotted you were a detective--"

Carrington started and then laughed.

"Confound these women!" said he. "They're so infernally independent of
reason, they always spot things they shouldn't!"

"Then she discovered she was suspected and so she got in a stew, poor
girl, and went to see Rattar. Do you know what he told her? That I was
employing you and meant to convict Sir Malcolm and her and hang them
with my own hands!"

"The old devil!"