“You want to know when he went out last night?” Miss Fordingbridge demanded. “Well, it must have been late—after eleven, at any rate, for I go to bed at eleven always, and he said good night to me just before I left this room. And if he had meant to stay away, he would have told me, I'm sure; for he usually does tell me when he's going to be out late. And he said nothing whatever, except that he was going out and that he meant to take a walk up towards the Blowhole. And I thought he was just going for a breath of fresh air before going to bed; and now it turns out that he never came back again. And nobody in the hotel has heard anything about him, for I asked the manager.” “Possibly he'll put in an appearance shortly,” Sir Clinton suggested soothingly. “Oh, of course, if the police are incompetent, there's no more to be said,” Miss Fordingbridge retorted tartly. “But I thought it was part of their business to find missing people.” “Well, we'll look into it, if you wish,” Sir Clinton said, as she seemed obviously much distressed by the state of things. “But really, Miss Fordingbridge, I think you're taking the matter too seriously. Quite possibly Mr. Fordingbridge went for a longer walk than he intended, and got benighted or something; sprained his ankle, perhaps, and couldn't get home again. Most probably he'll turn up safe and sound in due course. In the meantime, we'll do what we can.” But when they had left the room, Wendover noticed that his friend's face was not so cheerful. “Do you notice, squire,” the chief constable pointed out as they went downstairs, “that everything we've been worried with in this neighbourhood seems to be connected with this confounded Fordingbridge lot? Peter Hay—caretaker to the Fordingbridges; Staveley—married one of the family; and now old Fordingbridge himself. And that leaves out of account this mysterious claimant, with his doubtful pack of associates, and also the suspicious way the Fleetwoods are behaving. If we ever get to the bottom of the affair, it'll turn out to be a Fordingbridge concern entirely, either directly or indirectly. That's plain to a village idiot.” “What do you propose to do in this last business?” Wendover demanded. “Get hold of a pair of old Fordingbridge's shoes, first of all. We might need them; and we might not have time to come back for them. I'll manage it through the boots, now. I could have got them from Miss Fordingbridge, I expect, but she might have been a bit alarmed if I'd asked her for them.” With the shoes in an attaché-case, Sir Clinton set out for the Blowhole, accompanied by Wendover. “Not much guidance, so far,” he commented, “so we may as well start at the only place she could mention.”