s they turned on to the open moor which
led towards Ellersdeane Hollow, "to know if either of the Chestermarkes
really did know anything about that chap Hollis coming to the town on
Saturday. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if they did. Those detective
fellows like Starmidge are very clever in their way, but they always
seem to me to stop thinking a bit too soon. Now both Starmidge and Polke
seem to take it for certain that this Hollis went to meet Horbury when
he left the Station Hotel. There's no proof that he went to meet
Horbury--none!"

"Whom might he have gone to meet, then?" demanded Betty.

"You listen to me a bit," said Neale. "I've been thinking it over.
Hollis comes to the Station Hotel and uses their telephone. Mrs. Pratt
overhears him call up Chestermarke's Bank--that's certain. Then she goes
away, about her business. An interval elapses. Then she hears some
appointment made, with somebody, along the river bank, for that evening.
But--that interval during which Mrs. Pratt didn't overhear? How do we
know that the person with whom Hollis began his conversation was the
same person with whom he finished it? Come, now!"

"Wallie, that's awfully clever of you!" exclaimed Betty. "How did you
come to think of such an ingenious notion?"

"Worked it out," answered Neale. "This way! Hollis comes down to
Scarnham to see Chestermarke's Bank--which means one of the partners. He
rings up the bank. He speaks to somebody there. How do we know that
somebody was Horbury? We don't! It may have been Mrs. Carswell. Now
supposing the real person Hollis wanted to see was either Gabriel or
Joseph Chestermarke? Very well--this person who answered from the bank
would put Hollis on to either of them at once. Gabriel has a telephone
at the Warren: Joseph has a telephone at his home yonder behind us. It
may have been with either Gabriel or Joseph that Hollis finished his
conversation. And--if it was finished with one of them, it was, in my
opinion, whatever that's worth, with Master Joseph!"

"What makes you think that?" asked Betty, startled by the suggestion.

Neale laid a hand on the girl's arm and turned her round to face the
town. He lifted his stick and pointed at Joseph Chestermarke's high
roof, towering above the houses around it; then he swept the stick
towards the river and its course, plainly to be followed, in the
direction of the station.

"You see Joseph's house there," he said. "You see the river--the path
along it