A large house, untenanted, occupied the bank, a house with solid front facing the road, and a lawn running from the drawing-room windows to the river. Down the right side of the grounds the boundary was sharply marked by a narrow lane, probably a disused ferry road, and access to this thoroughfare was obtained from the lawn by a garden gate. A newly marked seam in the roadway showed the line of the drainage work, and Bruce did not glance at the point where the pipe entered the Thames, as the structural features here were recent. He went to the office of the contractor who had carried out the alterations. An elderly foreman readily answered his questions. "Yes, sir. I was in charge of the men who were on the job. It was an easy business. Just an outlet for rain from the road. An old-fashioned affair; been there thirty or forty years, I should think; all the pipes were crumbling away." "Why were the repairs effected at this moment?" "Well, sir, the house was empty quite a while. You see it used to be a school, a place where young gents were prepared for the army. It was closed about a year ago, and it isn't everybody as wants so many bedrooms. I do hear as how the new tenant has sixteen children." "The incoming people have not yet arrived?" "No, sir." "Can you tell me the name of the schoolmaster?" "Oh, yes. When I was younger I have done a lot of carpenter's work for him. He was the Reverend Septimus Childe." Bruce made a note of the name, and next sought the local police-inspector. "No, nothing fresh," said the latter, in reply to a query concerning the woman "found drowned." "I suppose these things are soon lost sight of?" said Bruce casually. "Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. It's wonderful occasionally how a matter gets cleared up after years. Of course we keep all the records of a case, so that the affair can be looked into if anything turns up." "Ah, that brings me to the most important object of my visit. A small piece of iron was found imbedded in the woman's skull." The inspector smiled as he admitted the fact. "May I see it? I want either the loan of it for a brief period, or an exact model." Again the policeman grinned. "I don't mind telling you that you are too late, sir." "Too late! How too late?" "It's been gone to Scotland Yard for the best part of a week." So others besides the barrister thought that the Putney incident required more attention than had been bestowed upon it. * * * * * Bruce concluded his round by a visit to the surgeon who gave evidence at the inquest. The doctor had no manner of doubt that the woman had been murdered before being placed in the water, the state of the lungs being proof positive on that point. "It was equally indisputable that she was put to death by malice aforethought?" "Oh, yes. A small iron spike was absolutely wedged into the brain through the hardest part of the skull."