ve struck without
intention to kill; but this mess means more than a blow with a fist.
I think that he was a homicidal maniac and probably plotted the job
beforehand with a madman's limited cunning; and if that is so,
there's pretty sure to be news waiting for us at Princetown. Before
dark we ought to know where are both the dead and the living man.
These footprints mean a bather, or perhaps two. We'll study them
later and drag the pond, if necessary."

The correctness of Brendon's deduction was made manifest within an
hour, and the operations of Robert Redmayne defined up to a point. A
man was waiting at the police station--George French, ostler at Two
Bridges Hotel, on West Dart.

"I knew Captain Redmayne," he said, "because he'd been down once or
twice of late to tea at Two Bridges. Last night, at half after ten,
I was crossing the road from the garage and suddenly, without
warning, a motor bike came over the bridge. I heard the rush of it
and only got out of the way by a yard. There was no light showing
but the man went through the beam thrown from the open door of the
hotel and I saw it was the captain by his great mustache and his red
waistcoat.

"He didn't see me, because it was taking him all his time to look
after himself, and he'd just let her go, to rush the stiff hill that
rises out of Two Bridges. He was gone like a puff of smoke and must
have been running terrible fast--fifty mile an hour I dare say. We
heard as there was trouble at Princetown and master sent me up over
to report what I'd seen."

"Which way did he go after he had passed, Mr. French?" asked
Brendon, who knew the Dartmoor country well. "The road forks above
Two Bridges. Did he take the right hand for Dartmeet, or the left
for Post Bridge and Moreton?"

But George could not say.

"'Twas like a thunder planet flashing by," he told Mark, "and I
don't know from Adam which way he went after he'd got up on top."

"Was anybody with him?"

"No, sir. I'd have seen that much; but he carried a big sack behind
the saddle--that I can swear to."

There had been several telephone calls for Inspector Halfyard during
his absence; and now three separate statements from different
districts awaited him. These were already written out by a
constable, and he took them one by one, read them, and handed them
to Brendon. The first came from the post office at Post Bridge, and
the post-mistress reported that a man, one Samuel White, had seen a
motor bic