at the mischief you mean by wandering around my grounds
at this hour of the night without my permission?"

The inspector completed his climb and stood in the little circle of
light. He took note of the rope and of Tallente's condition.

"My presence here, sir," the inspector announced, "is connected with the
disappearance of the Honourable Anthony Palliser."

"Confidence for confidence," Tallente replied. "So is mine."

The inspector moved to the palisading. The top rail had been broken, as
though it had given under the weight of some heavy body. He held up the
loose fragment, glanced downwards into the dark gulf and back again to
Tallente. "You've been over there," he said. "I have," Tallente
admitted. "I've made a search that I don't fancy you'd have tackled
yourself. I've been down the cliff to the beach."

"What reason had you for supposing that you might discover Mr.
Palliser's body there?" the other asked bluntly.

Tallente sat on the stone seat and lit a cigarette.

"I will take you into my confidence, Mr. Inspector," he said. "This
afternoon I strolled round here with a lady caller, just before you
came, and I fancied that I heard a faint cry. I took no notice of it at
the time, but to-night, after dinner, I wandered out here again, and
again I fancied I heard it. It got on my nerves to such an extent that
I fetched Robert here, a coil of rope, put on some shoes with spikes and
tried to remember that I was an Alpine climber."

"You've been down to the beach and back, sir?" the inspector asked,
looking over a little wonderingly.

"Every inch of the way. The last eighty feet or so I had to scramble."

"Did you discover anything, sir?"

"Not a thing. I couldn't even find a broken twig in any of the little
clumps of outgrowing trees. There wasn't a sign of the sand having been
disturbed anywhere down the face of the cliff, and I shouldn't think a
human being had been on that beach during our lifetimes. I have had my
night's work for nothing."

"It was just the cry you fancied you heard which made you undertake this
expedition?"

"Precisely!"

The inspector held up the broken rail.

"When was this smashed?" he enquired.

"I have no idea," Tallente answered. "All the woodwork about the place
is rotten."

"Doesn't it occur to you, sir, as being an extraordinarily dangerous
thing to put it back in exactly the same position as though it were
sound?"

"Iniquitous," Tallente agreed.

The inspector