they came up the hill at the side of the
wood--here they backed the car towards that gate, and then ran it
backwards till they were abreast of the tower--then, when they'd loaded
up with those chests they went straight off by the way they'd come. Look
at the tracks--plain enough."

"Then we'd better get down towards Norcaster ourselves," said
Copplestone. "Call Spurge back--he'll find nothing in that cove. This job
has been done from land. And we ought to be on the track of these
people--they've had several hours start already."

By this time Zachary Spurge had been recalled, Vickers had brought the
car round from High Nick, and the injured man was carefully lifted into
it and driven away. But at High Nick itself they met another car,
hurrying up from Norcaster, and bringing Sir Cresswell Oliver and three
other men who bore the unmistakable stamp of the police force. In one of
them Copplestone recognized the inspector from Scarhaven.

The two cars met and stopped alongside each other, and Sir Cresswell,
with one sharp glance at the rough bandage which Vickers had fastened
round Jim Spurge's head, rapped out a question.

"Gone!" replied Gilling, with equal brusqueness. "Came in a motor, during
the night, soon after Zachary Spurge left Jim. They hit him pretty hard
over his head and left him unconscious. Of course they've carried off the
boxes. Car appears to have gone to Norcaster. Hadn't you better turn?"

Sir Cresswell pointed to the Scarhaven police inspector.

"Here's news from Scarhaven," he said, bending forward to the other car,
"The inspector's just brought it. The Squire--whoever he was--is dead.
They found his body this morning, lying at the foot of a cliff near the
Keep. Foul play?--that's what you don't know, eh, inspector?"

"Can't say at all, sir," answered the inspector. "He might have been
thrown down, he might have fallen down--it's a bad place. Anyway, what
the doctor said, just before I hurried in here to tell Mrs. Greyle, as
the next relative that we know of, is that he'd been dead some days--the
body, you see, was lying in a thicket at the foot of the cliff."

"Some days!" exclaimed Copplestone, with a look at Gilling. "Days?"

"Four or five days at least, sir," replied the inspector. "So the doctor
thinks. The place is a cliff between the high road from Northborough and
the house itself. There's a short cut across the park to the house from
that road. It looks as if--"

"Ah!" interrupted G