ommitted and inform the police of what you had heard?" came the
supplementary query.

Mr. Mallory's wise old head was cocked a little on one side to catch the
answer. From his attitude he seemed to set considerable store by it.

"Because," said Reggie slowly, "I didn't think that the cry necessarily
had anything to do with the case. I know from experience that there are
all sorts of queer noises on the marsh after dark--hooting owls, barking
foxes, and a hundred things."

Lazarus Lowch subsided suddenly into his seat with an air of great
achievement, and Reggie, perceiving that he had exhausted his capacity
for making himself disagreeable, turned with an engaging smile to the
coroner. "I hope I have done nothing serious, sir," he said cheerily.
"This person seems to accuse me of some terrible misdemeanour, but you
will understand that unless one's evidence is really vital to the issue
one doesn't want to be needlessly dragged into these little turn-ups."

The coroner, a good fellow with a taste for saltwater "breeziness,"
smiled in friendly fashion, and promptly adjourned the Court.

But Mr. Vernon Mallory was not so easily satisfied. "The boy is
concealing something," he muttered as he allowed himself to be carried
with the human stream out into the sunlight.

CHAPTER X

THE LURE OF LOVE

Leslie Chermside walked away from the inquest like a man in a dream. It
was only a few steps to the house where he lodged, and he at once sought
the seclusion of his own sitting-room--a shady apartment with long
windows opening on to a cool verandah, whence there was a distant view
of the headland at the river's mouth and of the sea beyond.

"At any rate, I do not think that I am an object of suspicion--yet," he
murmured with a bitter laugh when he had stood staring from one of the
windows with unseeing eyes for some minutes. "And, as I more than half
expected, Travers Nugent did not disclose my appointment with that
wretched little scally-wag."

Turning away, he lit his pipe and flung himself into a long chair to
review the situation. At the best his position was a perilous one, and
he was very conscious of the necessity of not lulling himself into a
false security because of that day's immunity. But he had at least
obtained a reprieve, and for the present he was free to concentrate all
his energies on keeping watch and ward over Violet. That Travers Nugent
had not abandoned his compact with the Maharajah because o