Another field and a thickly-wooded plantation, and then, as I turned a bend where the path wound round among the trees, I found myself upon the sea-beach along which my path lay. In front, about a couple of miles away, I could see the church tower of Baxenham, over which red Mars burned large and lurid among a score of tiny stars that quivered near him, like arrow-heads shot wide of the mark; and low in the south the slender moon was like a finger laid to command silence on the lip of night. The beauty of the scene so possessed me that I stood still an instant with face turned seaward and bared head, and then--almost at my feet--I saw lying in the water a dark body that stirred and rocked, and stretched forth swaying arms like a creature at play. For one moment I thought it was alive, that it was some strange sea-beast come ashore, which was now seeking to regain its native element, but in the next I knew it for the body of a man, lying face downward and evidently dead. There is horror enough in the silent and stone-cold stillness of death, but to see death put on the semblance of life, to see dead arms reach and the dead body stir and sway, as they did that night, when the incoming tide seemed to mock at death and to sport, cruel and cat-like, with its victim, is surely more horrible still. With hands scarcely warmer than his I drew the dead man up upon the sands and turned him upon his back that I might see his face. It was the face of Green, the inquiry agent, and in his hand he held a small green bottle, which was lashed to his wrist by a handkerchief worked with his own initials, “J. B. G.” “Suicide!” I whispered to myself as I stooped to untie the handkerchief and bend back the unresisting fingers. The bottle was short and stumpy, with a wide mouth and a glass stopper secured by a string, and was labelled “Lavender Salts.” I cut the string and, drawing out the stopper, held the thing to my nose. “It _is_ lavender salts,” I said, “or has been, for it’s light enough to be empty. No, there’s something inside it still. Let’s see what it is,” and with that I turned the bottle mouth downward over my open palm. A slip of neatly-folded paper fell out, which I hastily opened. Four words were printed upon it in rude capitals--“By order.--Captain Shannon.” CHAPTER XIII I POSSESS MYSELF OF THE SECRET OF JAMES BAKEWELL GREEN