American fashion," she explained.
"Roger is a hero, and you are a heroine."

"No, a Brightener," I corrected. But Shelagh didn't understand. And it
didn't matter that she did not.

CHAPTER IX

THE GAME OF BLUFF

When the trip finished where it had begun, instead of travelling up to
London with most of my friends, I stopped behind in Plymouth. If any one
fancied I was going to Courtenaye Abbey to wail at the shrine of lost
treasures, why, I had never said (in words) that such was my intention.
In fact, it was not.

What I did, as soon as backs were turned, was to make straight for
Dudworth Cove, on the rocky Dorset Coast. I went by motor car with Roger
Fane as chauffeur; and by aid of a road map and a few questions we drove
to the old farmhouse which the Barlow boys had lately bought.

Of course it was possible that Mrs. Barlow and the two Australian
nephews had departed in haste, after their loss. They might or might not
have read in the papers about the coffin containing the body of a woman
picked up at sea by a yacht. Probably they had read of it, since the
word "coffin" at the head of a column would be apt to catch their guilty
eyes. But even so, they would hardly expect that this coffin, containing
a corpse, and a certain other coffin, with very different contents, were
one and the same. In any case, they need not greatly fear suspicion
falling upon them, and Roger and I thought they would remain at the farm
engaged in eager, secret search. As for Barlow, for whom the coffin had
doubtless been made, he, too, might be there; or he might have left the
Abbey at night, about the time of his "death," to wait in some
agreed-upon hiding place.

The house was visible from the road; rather a nice old house, built of
stone, with a lichened roof and friendly windows. It had a lived-in air,
and a thin wreath of smoke floated above the kitchen chimney. There were
two gates, and both were padlocked, so the car had to stop in the road.
I refused Roger's companionship, however. The fact that he was close by
and knew where I was seemed sufficient safeguard. I climbed over the
fence with no more ado than in pre-flapper days, and walked across the
weedy grass to the house. No one answered a knock at the front door, so
I went to the back, and caught "Barley" feeding a group of chickens.

The treacherous old thing was in deep mourning, with a widow's cap, and
her dress of black bombazine (or some equally awful stuff) w