ible moment, the engraving
was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet under the
moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening over
gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last, and
perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he read from Murray's _Guide to
Essex_ the following lines:

16-1/2 miles, _Anningley_. The church has been an interesting
building of Norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last
century. It contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose
mansion, Anningley Hall, a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately
beyond the churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now
extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in
the year 1802. The father, Mr Arthur Francis, was locally known as a
talented amateur engraver in mezzotint. After his son's disappearance
he lived in complete retirement at the Hall, and was found dead in
his studio on the third anniversary of the disaster, having just
completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are of
considerable rarity.

This looked like business, and, indeed, Mr Green on his return at once
identified the house as Anningley Hall.

'Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green?' was the question
which Williams naturally asked.

'I don't know, I'm sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place when
I first knew it, which was before I came up here, was just this: old
Francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and whenever
he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off
the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one. Squires could
do a lot of things then that they daren't think of now. Well, this man
that was left was what you find pretty often in that country--the last
remains of a very old family. I believe they were Lords of the Manor at
one time. I recollect just the same thing in my own parish.'

'What, like the man in _Tess o' the Durbervilles_?' Williams put in.

'Yes, I dare say; it's not a book I could ever read myself. But this
fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to his
ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but Francis, they said,
could never get at him--he always kept just on the right side of the
law--until one night the keepers found him at it in a wood right at the
end of the estate. I could show you t