"You can blow out the match," Phillips went on, "and don't forget to put the end in your pocket. It is just as well to be careful when dealing with such a gang. Perhaps you begin to understand? You don't know, I expect, that this roof commands the whole racecourse, and enables one to see everything from start to finish. Now a man could sit down here on this box and watch the race with the telephone receiver to his mouth. If he were a really good judge of racing--I mean, if he were any good as a judge of a finish--he would be able to spot the winner in nine cases out of ten fifty lengths from home, and therefore, if there was some one at the other end in the office of Jolly & Co., the result of a particular race would be known in London before the horse was past the post. Do you follow?" "Yes, that's all very well," Fielden objected, "but that does not account for the fact that----" "That the information is conveyed in the smoking room of the Post Club. Of course it doesn't. That, I confess, is where I am beaten for the present. I am certain that a second later the confederate in the Post Club knows what has happened. Don't ask me to tell you how the final touches are put on, because I don't know. But, knowing as much as I do, we shall soon find out, and I think you will admit that we haven't wasted our evening. You understand now why either Copley or a confederate was here this afternoon. The man, whoever he was, came with the intention of sending the result of the three o'clock race to Covent Garden. Why the three o'clock race is always picked out for this swindle we don't know, but that will be made plain sooner or later. They didn't make anything yesterday or to-day, because on both occasions the race was run in a snowstorm. It was the snowstorm that first put the idea into my head; in fact, it was the snowstorm that led me here at all. And now, let us go back to my lodgings and discuss the matter over a cigar." The telephone receiver was replaced in its box, the lid shut down, and the investigators began their descent to the lower rooms. They had not forgotten to be cautious and walked as quietly and carefully as if the house were occupied, which was, perhaps, as well, for as they reached the first-floor landing there came the scratch of a match downstairs. It was only a slight noise, but in the empty house it boomed loudly in the ears of the explorers. The match had been struck to light the gas, for a moment later the hall blazed up brightly, and Fielden and his companion, looking over the banisters, saw two men in the hall. "Have you made up a fire in the dining-room?" one of them asked. "You haven't? Well, do so at once. I am half frozen. It's precious poor fun motoring from London on a night like this. Did you bring in the hamper?" Phillips started at the sound of the voice.