elegrams to her without a word, and she glanced them
through. The first was from the bankers.

"To Guy Davenant Thurwell, Esq.,
Thurwell Court, Northshire.

"We consider Mr. Brown a desirable tenant for you from a pecuniary
point of view. We know nothing of his family."

The other one was from his lawyers.

"To Guy D. Thurwell, Esq.,
Thurwell Court, Northshire.

"Mr. Brown is a gentleman of means, and quite in a position to rent
'Falcon's Nest.' We are not at liberty to say anything as to his
antecedents or family."

"What am I to do?" asked Mr. Thurwell, undecidedly. "I don't like the
end of this last telegram. A solicitor ought to be able to say a little
more about a client than that."

Helen considered for a moment. She was so little interested in the
matter that she found it difficult to make up her mind either way.
Afterwards she scarcely dared think of that moment's indecision.

"Perhaps so," she said. "All the same, I detest Mr. Chapman. I should
vote for Mr. Brown."

"Mr. Brown it shall be, then!" he answered. "Douglas shall write him
to-morrow."

A fortnight later Mr. Bernard Brown took up his quarters at Falcon's
Nest.

CHAPTER II

THE MURDER NEAR THE FALCON'S NEST

"I call it perfectly dreadful of those men!" Helen Thurwell exclaimed
suddenly. "They're more than an hour late, and I'm desperately hungry!"

"It is rank ingratitude!" Rachel Kynaston sighed. "I positively cannot
sit still and look at that luncheon any longer. Groves, give me a
biscuit."

They were both seated on low folding-chairs out on the open moorland,
only a few yards away from the edge of the rugged line of cliffs against
which, many hundreds of feet below, the sea was breaking with a low
monotonous murmur. Close behind them, on a level stretch of springy
turf, a roughly improvised table, covered with a cloth of dazzling
whiteness, was laden with deep bowls of lobster salad, _pates de foie
gras_, chickens, truffled turkeys, piles of hothouse fruit, and many
other delicacies peculiarly appreciated at _al fresco_ symposia; and, a
little further away still, under the shade of a huge yellow gorse bush,
were several ice-pails, in which were reposing many rows of gold-foiled
bottles. The warm sun was just sufficiently tempered by a mild
heather-scented breeze, and though it flashed gayly upon the glass and
silver, and danced across the bosom of the blue water below, its hea