ed rather annoyed about the shooting. Some one had
fired a rifle."

"It sounded like that to me, sir, and it's an unusual thing at this
time of the year."

"A heavy-caliber rifle must sound unusual at any time of the year in
an enclosed estate near London," commented Trenholme.

"My idee exactly," said the policeman. "I think I'll go that way. I
may meet Bates."

"If Bates is a bandy-legged person with suspicious eyes, a red tie,
many pockets, brown leggings, and a yellow dog, you'll find him
searching the wood beyond the lake, which is the direction the shot
came from."

The policeman laughed.

"That's Bates, to a tick," he said. "If he was 'wanted,' your
description would do for the _Police Gazette_."

They parted. Since Trenholme's subsequent history is bound up more
closely with the policeman's movements during the next hour than with
his own unhindered return to the White Horse Inn, it is well to trace
the exact course of events as they presented themselves to the ken of
a music-loving member of the Hertfordshire constabulary.

Police Constable Farrow did not hurry. Why should he? A gunshot in a
gentleman's park at half past nine on a June morning might be, as he
had put it, "unusual," but it was obviously a matter capable of the
simplest explanation. Such a sound heard at midnight would be
sinister, ominous, replete with those elements of mystery and dread
which cause even a policeman's heart to beat faster than the
regulation pace. Under the conditions, when he met Bates, he would
probably be told that Jenkins, underkeeper and Territorial lance
corporal, had resolved to end the vicious career of a hoodie crow, and
had not scrupled to reach the wily robber with a bullet.

So Police Constable Farrow took fifteen minutes to cover the ground
which Trenholme's longer stride had traversed in ten. Allow another
fifteen for the artist's packing of his sketching materials, his
conversation with gamekeeper and policeman, and the leisurely progress
of the latter through the wood, and it will be found that Farrow
reached the long straight avenue leading from the lodge at Easton to
the main entrance of the house about forty minutes after the firing of
the shot.

He halted on the grass by the side of the well-kept drive, and looked
at the waiting motor car. The chauffeur was not visible. He had seen
neither Bates nor Jenkins. His passing among the trees had not
disturbed even a pheasant, though the estate was ali