beauty had made her a central
figure in numerous scandalous stories, for such is the charity of rural
neighbours, was detected by her stepfather, about eight in the evening,
slipping out of the cottage.

"Where be ye goin', hussy?" he demanded, grasping her promptly by the
arm.

"For a walk!" she replied defiantly.

"A walk wi' that fine soger from t' Manor!" roared Bramber furiously.
"You'll be sorry yet, you barefaced gadabout! Must I tell you again that
t' man's a villain?"

The girl wrenched her arm from Bramber's grasp, and blazed defiance from
her beautiful eyes.

"He knows how to respect a woman--what you don't!" she retorted hotly.

"So I don't respect you, my angel?" shouted her stepfather. "Then you
know what you can do! The door's open and there's few'll miss you!"

Snatching her hat, the girl, very white, made to go out. Whereat the
gamekeeper, a brutal man with small love for Molly, and maddened by her
taking him at his word, seized her suddenly by her abundant fair hair
and hauled her back into the room.

A violent scene followed, at the end of which Molly fainted and Bramber
came out and locked the door.

When he came back about half-past nine the girl was missing. She did not
reappear that night, and the police were advised in the morning. Their
most significant discovery was this:

Captain Ronald Vane, on the night of Molly's disappearance, had left
the Manor House, after dining alone with his host, Sir Howard Hepwell,
saying that he proposed to take a stroll as far as the Deep Wood.

He never returned!

From the moment that Gamekeeper Bramber left his cottage, and the moment
when Sir Howard Hepwell parted from his guest after dinner, the world to
which these two people, Molly Clayton and Captain Vane, were known, knew
them no more!

I was about to say that they were never seen again. But to me has fallen
the task of relating how and where Paul Harley and I met with Captain
Vane and Molly Clayton.

At the end of the Inspector's account:

"H'm," said Harley, glancing under his thick brows in my direction,
"could you spare the time, Knox?"

"To go to Deepbrow?" I asked with interest.

"Yes; we have ten minutes to catch the train."

"I'll come," said I. "Sir Howard will be delighted to see you, Harley."

II

THE CLUE OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS

"What do you make of it, Inspector?" asked my friend.
Detective-Inspector Wessex smiled, and scratched his chin.

"There was no nee