That somewhat pale and haggard-looking young man striding, a basket beneath his arm, up the main street of Temple Colney is George. The villagers stop to stare after him; grin, and nudge into one another responsive grins, at his curious mannerisms. He walks in the exact centre of the roadway, as far as he can keep from passers-by on either side. Approached by anyone, he takes a wide circle to avoid that person. Sometimes a spasm as of fear will cross his face and he will violently shake the basket he carries. Always he walks with giant strides. Every morning he shoots out of the inn where he is staying as though sped on the blast of some ghostly current of air; every evening, returning, he gives the impression of gathering himself together on the threshold, then goes bolting in at whirlwind speed. He is a somewhat pale and haggard young man. The villagers know him well. He is the young hairship inventor who has a private sitting-room at the Colney Arms. Certain of them, agog to pry his secret, followed him as he set out one day. They discovered nothing. For hours they followed; but he, glancing ever over his shoulder, pounded steadily on, mile upon mile--field, lane, high road, hill and dale. He never shook them off though he ran; they never brought him to standstill though indomitably they pursued. Towards evening the exhausted procession came thundering up the village street. It was a very pale and haggard young man that bolted into the Colney Arms that night. II. Three days had passed. If George had the _Daily_ to curse for the miserable life of secrecy and constant agony of discovery that he was compelled to lead, he had it also to bless that his discovery by the red-headed Pinner boy had not long ago led to his being run to earth. In its anxiety to cap the satisfactory splash it was making over this Country House Outrage, the _Daily_ had overstepped itself and militated against itself. Those “Catchy Clues” were responsible. So cunningly did they inspire the taste for amateur detective work, so easy did they make such work appear, that Mr. Pinner, having thrashed silence into his red-headed son, kept that son's discovery to himself. As he argued it--laboriously pencilling down “data” in accordance with the “Catchy Clue” directions,--as he argued it--if he communicated his knowledge to the _Daily_ or to the local police, if he put them--(the word does not print nicely) on the scent, ten to one they would capture the thief and secure the reward. No, Mr. Pinner intended to have the reward himself. Therefore he hoarded his secret; brooded upon it; dashed off hither and thither as the day's news brought him a Catchy Clue that seemed to fit his data. But of this George knew nothing. Steeped in crime this miserable young man dragged out his awful life at Temple Colney: nightmares by night, horrors by day. Every morning with trembling fingers he opened his _Daily_; every morning was shot dead by these lines or their equivalent: