t. He could not have been spirited away. Anthony
supposed gloomily that he had met with a mishap. There was, indeed, no
other solution.

It was getting quite dark when they found him down in a little dell
upon a patch of greensward. Considering that he was a joiner, and not
a sexton, he had made remarkable progress with a very creditable grave,
which, he explained, was to receive the dead with which the woods were
distributed. He added that it was a disgrace to leave so many corpses
lying about, and pointed out that he had removed his boots for fear of
treading upon them.

When they sought to humour him, he became suspicious and violent, and
there was quite a struggle before he was overpowered.

CHAPTER VIII

THE POWER OF THE DOG

The accident was inevitable.

Everybody present, except the driver of the green taxi, saw that. And
he was so fearful lest the driver of the red omnibus should lose one
withering participle of the apostrophe he had provoked, that he could
not be bothered with the exigencies of traffic and the Rule of the Road.

Everybody, including Mr. Justice Molehill, shouted impotently; a small
page, on his way to the postoffice, stood agonizedly upon one leg; and
a moment later there was a splintering crash, the blue taxi shed a
cabin-trunk and a suit-case on to the pavement, and then, after a
paralyzing moment of indecision, came heavily to rest against the
panels of its aggressor.

Now, his lordship had no desire to become embroiled in a dispute which
might easily beget a subpoena. Still, because of his elevation to the
Bench, he had not resigned the fellowship of Man, and, since he was the
nearest individual to the blue taxi, he stepped to it quickly and
opened the door.

A man of about sixty years emerged gratefully. His cassock and the
purple about his hat argued him a prelate of the Catholic Church.

"Thank you so much ... No, I'm not hurt at all. I sat still
because----"

"Good heavens!" cried the Judge. "I know you." The other peered at him
in the half-light. "My name's Molehill. We met at Rome--over a
deathbed will."

The prelate started. Then recollection came twinkling into his gentle
eyes.

"Of course," he said, putting out his hand. "I remember perfectly.
Before the War. How very strange that----"

"It's Fate," said the Judge excitedly. "Or Providence. For the last
three months I've been racking my brain for your name, so that I could
get into----".