s very angry,
but he wanted to know what was coming. Evidently this fatuous busybody
had not yet sprung the full force of the tremendous battery with which
he believed himself armed.

"There is no need for any mystery," Mr. Mallory replied suavely. "Enid
and Reggie Beauchamp are engaged to be married. I am aware that they
were together that evening, and with my entire sanction--if that is what
you are driving at."

Mr. Lazarus shook his head, as one who is misjudged. "Really, no," came
his protesting croak. "I should be the last to impute that kind of
secrecy to Miss Mallory. On the contrary, I am sure that she would be
quite open about anything of that sort. Nor would it be my business if
she wasn't."

"Well, look here, Lowch. What the devil is it that she hasn't been open
about that is your business?" exclaimed Enid's father, losing patience
at last. "You have got something up your sleeve, I can see. Would it not
be better to pull it down and have done with it? But I warn you first
that you must be careful how you handle my daughter's good name."

The chronic scowl that made little children run when the local kill-joy
approached lifted at the prospect of striking a blow beneath the belt.
Lowch even smiled in sickly fashion as he struck it.

"I was on the golf links this afternoon," he began his indictment, "and
I happened to see Miss Enid leave at the end of her round, as I thought,
for home. Instead of accompanying her friends, however, she parted from
them outside the pavilion, and went away alone in the opposite
direction. In fact, entirely in the interests of justice, I watched
her----"

"Where from?" came the knife-like interruption.

"From behind a gorse-bush," was the unblushing rejoinder. "She went into
Mr. Travers Nugent's garden door, which, as you know, abuts on the moor.
In a little while she was followed by a disreputable-looking man, who
also disappeared into Nugent's garden. He, too, had been taking
advantage of a convenient gorse-bush. The deduction is obvious. Nugent
and his friend Chermside are deeply implicated in the murder which I am
officially investigating, and--er--it looks very much as if Miss Enid,
innocently perhaps, is mixed up in it too."

Mr. Mallory's clean-shaven, ascetic face had gone as white as snow. The
absence from dinner took on a new complexion by the light of this
misbegotten information that she had ventured into the danger zone, and
had been shadowed into it by one o