ike
that--he'd know the danger of it."

"Then it must be--the other man--Hollis!" said Betty.

"Maybe," agreed Neale. "If it is----"

He paused, and Betty looked at his set face as if she were wondering
what he was thinking of.

"What?" she asked timidly. "You're uneasy about something."

"It's a marvel to me--if it is Hollis--however he comes to be there,"
answered Neale at last. "According to all we know, he certainly went to
meet somebody on Saturday night. I can't think how anybody who knew the
district would have let a stranger do such a risky thing as to lean over
one of those shafts. Besides, if anybody was with him, and there was an
accident, why hasn't the accident been reported? Betty!--it's more like
murder!"

"You think he may have been thrown down there?" she asked fearfully.

"Thrown down or forced down--it's all the same," said Neale. "There may
have been a struggle--a fight. But there, what's the use of speculating?
We don't even know whose body it is yet. Let's get on and tell those
police chaps."

Turning off the open moor on to the highway at the corner of Scarnham
Bridge, they suddenly came face to face with Gabriel Chestermarke, who,
for once in a way, was walking instead of driving into the town. The two
young people, emerging from the shelter of a high hedgerow which
bordered the moorland at that point, started at sight of the banker's
colourless face, cold and set as usual. But Gabriel betrayed no
surprise, and was in no way taken aback. He lifted his hat in silence,
and was marching on when Neale impulsively hailed him.

"Mr. Chestermarke!" he exclaimed.

Gabriel halted and turned, looking at his late clerk with absolute
impassiveness. He made no remark, and stood like a statue, waiting for
Neale to speak.

"You may like to know," said Neale, coming up to him, "we have just
found the body of a man on the moor--Ellersdeane Hollow."

Gabriel showed no surprise. No light came into his eyes, no colour to
his cheek. It seemed a long time before his firmly set lips relaxed.

"A man?" he said quietly. "What man?"

"We don't know," answered Neale. "All we know is, there's a man's body
lying at the bottom of one of the old shafts up there--near Ellersdeane
Tower. The tinker who camps out there has just seen it--he's been partly
down the shaft."

"And--did not recognize it?" asked Gabriel.

"No--it was too far beneath him," replied Neale. "He's gone into the
village to get help."

G