“I've no objection—not the slightest,” Paul Fordingbridge responded. “My nephew Derek was in the Army from 1914. He was captured on the West Front in the same battle as the one I've been speaking about. We learned later on that he'd been sent to the prisoners' camp at Clausthal. He got away from there almost at once and made a good try to get over the Dutch frontier; but they got hold of him at the last moment. Then he was sent to Fort 9, Ingolstadt. He hadn't been there a week before he got away again. My impression is that most probably he was shot in trying to get across the Swiss frontier, if not earlier; and they failed to identify him. We heard no more about him, anyhow; and when the prisoners were released after the Armistice, he wasn't among them. If this fellow were really my nephew, it's hard to see why he's let so long a time go by without communicating with us. If he really is my nephew, there's a lot of money waiting for him; and he's an enterprising chap, as you can see from his escape attempts. And yet we've had no word from him of any sort since before the attack in which he was captured.” “Lost his memory, perhaps?” Wendover suggested. “It might be possible,” Paul Fordingbridge answered in a frigid tone which damped further speculation on Wendover's part. Turning to Sir Clinton, he added: “Unless there's any further information you want, I think I'll get down here and walk back to the hotel. I'd be glad of a chance to stretch my legs.” As Sir Clinton showed no desire to detain him, he stepped out of the car; and they soon left him behind. “Barring the girl,” Wendover confided to Sir Clinton as they drove on, “that Fordingbridge family seem a damned rum crew.” “You surprise me, squire. You even capture my interest. Proceed.” “Well, what do you make of it all?” “I'll admit that my vulgar curiosity is piqued by their highly developed faculty of reticence. Miss Fordingbridge seems the only one of them who has a normal human desire to talk about her own affairs.” “Did you see anything else?” “They seem a bit at sixes and sevens. But you've a much acuter mind than I have, so I suppose you spotted that quite a long time ago.” “I had a glimmering of it,” Wendover retorted sarcastically. “Anything more?” “Oh, yes. For one thing, Mr. Paul Fordingbridge seems to have a singularly detached mind. Why, even you, squire, with your icy and well-balanced intellect, seem to be more affected by his niece's troubles than the wicked uncle is. Quite like the Babes in the Wood, isn't it?—with you in the rôle of a robin. All you need are some leaves and a red waistcoat to make the thing go properly.” “It's hardly a thing to laugh at, Clinton.” “I'm not laughing,” Sir Clinton said soberly. “Hanging's no joke. Remember the _Ballad of Sam Hall_— “Then the parson he will come. . . . and all the rest of the gruesome ceremonial? It would be a bad business if the wrong person got hanged by mistake.”