s
a forester? I haven't seem him about."

Mr. Brain managed to secure his assembly of all the distracted
company before the arrival of the police. But when he first began
to comment once more on the young architect's delay in putting in
an appearance, he found himself in the presence of a minor mystery,
and a psychological development of an entirely unexpected kind.

Juliet Bray had confronted the catastrophe of her brother's
disappearance with a somber stoicism in which there was, perhaps,
more paralysis than pain; but when the other question came to the
surface she was both agitated and angry.

"We don't want to jump to any conclusions about anybody," Brain was
saying in his staccato style. "But we should like to know a little
more about Mr. Crane. Nobody seems to know much about him, or where
he comes from. And it seems a sort of coincidence that yesterday he
actually crossed swords with poor Bulmer, and could have stuck him,
too, since he showed himself the better swordsman. Of course, that
may be an accident and couldn't possibly be called a case against
anybody; but then we haven't the means to make a real case against
anybody. Till the police come we are only a pack of very amateur
sleuthhounds."

"And I think you're a pack of snobs," said Juliet. "Because Mr.
Crane is a genius who's made his own way, you try to suggest he's a
murderer without daring to say so. Because he wore a toy sword and
happened to know how to use it, you want us to believe he used it
like a bloodthirsty maniac for no reason in the world. And because
he could have hit my brother and didn't, you deduce that he did.
That's the sort of way you argue. And as for his having disappeared,
you're wrong in that as you are in everything else, for here he
comes."

And, indeed, the green figure of the fictitious Robin Hood slowly
detached itself from the gray background of the trees, and came
toward them as she spoke.

He approached the group slowly, but with composure; but he was
decidedly pale, and the eyes of Brain and Fisher had already taken
in one detail of the green-clad figure more clearly than all the
rest. The horn still swung from his baldrick, but the sword was
gone.

Rather to the surprise of the company, Brain did not follow up the
question thus suggested; but, while retaining an air of leading the
inquiry, had also an appearance of changing the subject.

"Now we're all assembled," he observed, quietly, "there is a
question