"Then if it was me," said Myler, "I should make a summary of what I knew, on paper--carefully--and I should get a private interview with this Tallington and tell him--all. Man!--you're safe of that five hundred! For there's no doubt, Stoner, on the evidence, no doubt whatever!" Stoner sat silently reflecting things for a while. Then he gave his friend a sly, somewhat nervous look. Although he and Myler had been bosom friends since they were breeched, Stoner was not quite certain as to what Myler would say to what he, Stoner, was just then thinking of. "Look here," he said suddenly. "There's this about it. It's all jolly well, but a fellow's got to think for himself, Dave, old man. Now it doesn't matter a twopenny cuss to me about old Kitely--I don't care if he was scragged twice over--I've no doubt he deserved it. But it'll matter a lot to M. & C. if they're found out. I can touch that five hundred easy as winking--but--you take my meaning?--I daresay M. & C. 'ud run to five thousand if I kept my tongue still. What?" But Stoner knew at once that Myler disapproved. The commercial traveller's homely face grew grave, and he shook his head with an unmistakable gesture. "No, Stoner," he said. "None o' that! Play straight, my lad! No hush-money transactions. Keep to the law, Stoner, keep to the law! Besides, there's others than you can find all this out. What you want to do is to get in first. See Tallington as soon as you get back." "I daresay you're right," admitted Stoner. "But--I know M. & C, and I know they'd give--aye, half of what they're worth--and that's a lot!--to have this kept dark." That thought was with him whenever he woke in the night, and as he strolled round Darlington next morning, it was still with him when, after an early dinner, he set off homeward by an early afternoon train which carried him to High Gill junction; whence he had to walk five miles across the moors and hills to Highmarket. And he was still pondering it weightily when, in one of the loneliest parts of the solitudes which he was crossing, he turning the corner of a little pine wood, and came face to face with Mallalieu. CHAPTER XVI THE LONELY MOOR